Confessions of a Seamstress: Steampunk Pirates and Disney goes Hipster

Yesterday concluded CONvergence 2014, and a good time was had by all at the geek fest! You can read my full write-up of the event by clicking through the link, but if you want particulars of the costumes my husband and I made, keep scrolling!

(Due to the number of photos in this post, I've kept them all at a smaller size. Click any one of them to view it full-screen)

Thanks to Meg for camera use, Andy for photographing us, and Claire for assisting in staging.

Last year, my pirate loving husband surveyed the awesome steampunk on display at the con and declared "Next year I'd really like to do steampunk pirate costumes."

So we did.

Our friend Meg, who is also huge into steampunk (Particularly Steampowered Giraffe), decided to join us for the ride.

We put a TON of time into making our costumes, working on it after hours for months. And even then we did not complete all of the pieces we were hoping for. Nathan and I both got material for vests but simply ran out of time. We decided Nathan's costume looked fine without a vest, and I added a $2 cami from Savers to round out my ensemble.

Our guns were created as follows:

#1 - we sanded down both guns with fine sandpaper (my husband made one as well although his looks quite different.) Both guns were purchased in the $1-$3 section of Target.

#2 - we spray painted the entire gun black.

#3 - we blocked out our colors, doing a couple of layers on each area to get the right opacity. We used the same paint my husband has for his miniatures, but anything from a craft store should work, as long as the base coat is good at sticking to plastic.

#4 - I used a dark walnut brown paint to shade/age/distress the crevices, wiping away excess with a rag.

#5 - we glued on the little steampunk gears and I added a bit of red pleather to my handle, using glue and paint to blend in the edges.

#6 - touched up paint and did final distressing.

Nathan's goggles followed a similar process, being cheap welding goggles from Amazon.

Nathan sewed nearly the entirety of his shirt himself, this being his first real project. I assisted with the instructions, some of the cutting out, and sewing the buttonholes. Otherwise it is all him!

The compass/sundial was my Christmas gift to Nathan last year, which I found on Etsy. The leather cuff was a piece we picked up the first day of CONvergence in the dealer's hall. Just $5!

We dug into my stash of pleather to get varying textures, and also utilized my embroidery machine and the wonderful designs at Urban Threads.

My skirt was actually one I've had for quite some time, and we jazzed it up with some embroidery at the hem (I don't think we got any good photos of that, however.)

My watch locket was a gift from my brother, Matt. :)

The purse was something I picked up at Savers and it ended up being the perfect touch for this cosplay. I could wear my essentials on me without something that clashed!

My vambraces were very simple trapezoids, with a bit of lace and stud embellishment. I used the dragonfly embroidery design to decorate one, while utilizing a nautical rose for the other. All of the studs and the eyelets were applied by Nathan.

My blouse was a pretty simple gathered design, with elastic in the sleeves, and ribbon sewn and gathered up around the neckline.

Nathan's headwrap is actually the snipped off legs of a pair of tights that kept ripping. I was glad to donate them to the cause and they worked marvelously!

We had so much fun.

The Captain and First Mate of The Clockwork Dragonfly!

(UPDATE 2016 - Check out further evolutions of these costumes here!)

Saturday we went simpler with a Hipster Disney theme - for which I finally capitulated and cut my hair! (Nathan has been gently indicating for awhile that he'd find this a delightful style on me).

We got our glasses from Zenni Optical (which I HIGHLY recommend).

My blouse was something I just whipped up that morning, no hems or anything thanks to the knit fabric. Nathan's hat was one I'd knit him the previous winter.