Ultimate Captain America - Part 2

Just dropped in? Check out Part 1!

After sewing in the small piping sections, I laid everything out to sew the pieces together with the long piping.

With all the piping, from the back.

With all the piping, from the front.

Time to add Cap's iconic chest star! Turns out it's kind of tricky to make a perfectly symmetrical five point star... but I managed it at last!

Tracing and cutting. I fused the fabric to some interfacing to make it stiff so that it would hold up under the edge stitching.

Star applied!

To finish the star, I serged the edges, then went back to the regular machine to sew over the serging and attach the star to the blue chest piece.

Pretty snazzy, eh?

Let me tell you, the four corner bit above was a thick nightmare to sew!

What about the gloves and the cowl? Read Part 3 here!

Well, I'm getting married!

Full proposal story and our wedding ideas are all up on my personal blog. :)

Contrary to expectation, I am not sewing my wedding gown. I want to keep it as stress-free as possible... and we already found the perfect dress! (see link above for full story.)

This won't affect any current commissions, although it will lessen my availability for work at the end of the year and during January 2014, if we go with the date currently under discussion. Which basically means I will  most likely not be accepting any pieces due between January 1st and March 1st. That doesn't mean I wont' sew at all, it just means I don't want to worry about those deadlines when I'm dealing with the wedding and moving.

Ultimate Captain America - Part 1

And now back to your regular programming!

Those of you who follow me on Facebook got to see sneak peeks of this costume quite a long time ago, but it's taken me awhile to edit all of the pictures and get around to posting them here. Anyhow, I was commissioned to make the tunic and gloves for a Captain America cosplay, based on the Ultimate universe design (as seen above, with measurements).

This was a pretty crazy project to collect materials for, as there are several different colors and textures at work. I also needed to design something that would have a bit of give to it, although that ended up not being so necessary as the  nature of the piping precluded a stretchy design anyhow.

For this design I took an existing pattern and cut and tweaked it to create Cap's iconic Stars and Stripes supersuit. This involved a lot of math and marking.

Fun stuff.

Laying the pieces out... they look similar, but each one is unique and it had to be sewn together perfectly for the right curves and textures to appear in the right places!

Piping time! Thank goodness for my rotary kit!

The stretchiness of the gray fabric made it nearly impossible to sew smoothly around the piping. So I stitched it into a tube and pulled the cording through it afterwards with one of my shiny threading tools.

Coming together...

Since this wasn't lined, I had to serge everything on the inside.

The top beginning...

The back piping.

The front bottom.

Coming together... want to see more? Check out Part 2!

CONvergence 2013 Costumes - Part 2

Seen part 1 yet?

Elrond and Arwen. My friend took this picture so I never got to see them up close, alas!

Daenerys Targaryn, in her fantastic blue dress.

Kaylee! (Again, I didn't get to see this up close, but it looks amazing in the pictures!)

Took me a moment to recognize this clever one... Old Amy, from Doctor Who: The Girl Who Waited.

Flynn Rider and Rapunzel! From creeping around on Tumblr I discovered that this young lady created her dress based on the original concept art. Bravo, I've always liked that art better than the film version!

Elizabeth from Bioshock. Ironically, this girl was a client of mine last year, wearing the Rainbow Dash dress. I didn't actually recognize her when I took the picture, but made the connection later on. She'd actually wanted me to make this cosplay for her, but I'd been too busy to fit it in. Tragically, as I do love this costume even though I'm not a video gamer!

Charlotte from "The Princess and the Frog"

 Odette from "The Swan Princess"

Idris/Sexy/TARDIS from Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife

Jon Snow and Sansa Stark from A Game of Thrones

Calvin and Hobbes

Priestess and novice, from Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii

Deadpool and myself as casual Rogue. (I couldn't lipread him with the mask on, but my friends said he insisted on getting a picture with the sexy lady with the Rogue hair. Thanks, Wade.)

Arthur and Merlin

Dresden Files!

Femme!Clones

The Avatar crew!

Guinevere from "Merlin"

I'm not sure who this is, but his robotic claw actually moved. It was awesome.

Rufio, from "Hook"

Natasha Romanoff/The Black Widow - The Avengers

Femme!Doctor 11

With a bigger on the inside TARDIS umbrella...

Overall I was blown away by the fantastic cosplays, and I can't wait to see what next year brings!

(Want to read more about our adventures at the CON and see some pictures from the "A Crack in Time" tea party? Check out my write-up here!)

CONvergence 2013 Costumes - Part 1

Well I've been away from blogger due to another convention... this time Minnesota's CONvergence which is basically one awesome big geek party. I'll do a more detailed write up over on my personal, but for now, a showcase of our favorite costumes. (Thanks to Megs for the Camera use and photography!)

Poison Ivy

River Song (& Journal below)

Giselle from Enchanted

Queen Susan of Narnia!

Holmes and Adler

4th Doctor and Weeping Angel

Hook and Red

Cersei Lannister and Shae (Game of Thrones)

Dr. Banner (The Hulk)

Gambit, Wolverine and Rogue (I'm Rogue, Gambit's my boyfriend. ;))

Me as Rogue again, and my friend Meg as Ms. Marvel.

Clara (Doctor Who: The Snowmen)

An AMAZING Fifth Doctor

Clara (Doctor Who: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS)

Found another Rogue!

Found a fem!Nightcrawler!

SPIDERMAN!!!

Better shot of Megs

Andy as Dr. Banner again. (I did the make-up)

Utterly fantastic Madam Vastra (Doctor Who, the Paternoster Gang)

We found a Hawkeye!

Awesome Darth Maul.

 Super cute Harley Quinn

And an Anastasia! (Meg's favorite non-Disney princess... she was very excited!)

And this is only half of the photos! Click for Part 2!