Cosplay Sewing 2018 - Lily Hoshina

My monster is planning to attend a con at the end of September and she has decided to cosplay Lily Hoshina from "B: The Beginning" for the event.

I've never seen the series and know nothing about it so she sent me some pics of the character so I can help her put together the costume.


I'm so pleased that the character and costume she's chosen appears be relatively simple to recreate - no elaborate foam crafting or makeup skills required.

She's on a pretty tight budget to put this costume together so a real leather jacket is out of the question but I think I've found a pattern for a reasonable facsimile of the jacket (with a few minor modifications).

The pattern I've settled on is  Jacket Pattern 4305 by Lekala sewing patterns.


I think with the addition of patch pockets on the bust it should work for the cosplay.

Now to tackle the actual making of what is possibly the most complex garment construction project I've ever taken on. 

This one definitely warrants making a trial version before cutting into the more expensive pleather (or whatever I end up finding/buying for the real version) so I'm off to the fabric store.

I'll keep you updated on how this one comes together. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

K

Lucy Pevensie - the costume finished

This blog was started, in part, in an attempt to keep me focused on finishing projects... I'm getting the projects finished, but not getting the blog posts finalised. D'oh that's not how it was supposed to work!

Lets get this one published so there is one less project on my "yet to be blogged" list.

The monster's school festival of stories really well and the costume came together beautifully.

Drawing the pattern for the dress.
Yes - my kitchen bench is my sewing work space.
The banana cake you can see cooling here was
really yummy :)

I used a lightweight pale blue corduroy for the bodice and skirt of the dress and almost identical colour satin and some other gauzy material (can't remember what the label said it was) for the sleeves.

Making the muslin for the dress was a great idea and really helped me to get the sizing right (except for the sleeves - I really struggled with them and they ended up being a bit wonky but they were mostly hidden under the cloak anyway so no biggie.).

Georgie Henley as Lucy Pevensie
wearing the inspiration
coronation outfit.

The cloak I made with a red velveteen fabric, lined with more of the pale blue satin. There was no way I was going to be able to find a suitable cloak fabric with a similar pattern to what Lucy has so on the outside of the cloak I just used gold fabric paint and a stencil. I also, despite searching craft and dollar stores, couldn't find a suitable gold medallion closure for the cloak so we used gold rope and tied a simple bow.

Overall even though it's not exactly accurate I'm really happy with how it all turned out.

More importantly, the monster was thrilled with her costume, even when the best costume award (to be honest I had no idea they intended to give awards) went to one of her classmates who arrived for the parade dressed in a large cardboard box; she came as the wardrobe! personally I thought it was a rather clever costume choice, but the monster just kept saying "But mum... it's a box! She was wearing a cardboard box!". Oh well... another life lesson for the monster... the important part of the whole exercise was getting her to read the book and ending up with a costume that she was happy with, not to win awards.

Grr! another sideways image! Darn blogger!
The finished costume on the monster as she headed off to school
(Ignore the hideous blue and yellow pokemon bag -
that's not part of the costume! )

Costumes

Lets get back into some clothes sewing. It's not Halloween yet (not that we actually celebrate Halloween in our household) but it is costume time again!

This week the monster's school will be holding their "Festival of Stories" and the children are being asked to dress up as their favourite character  from the book they are studying in class.  I love that they have specified the class study book this time around - previous years it has been open to whatever their favourite character is from any book. With the monster being as indecisive as me it becomes a drama just choosing who she will go as.

The class is currently reading the C.S.Lewis novel "The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe" and the monster has nominated Lucy Pevensie, the youngest of the siblings, as her favourite character (I was dreading that she would choose Aslan or Mr Tumnus!).

Georgie Henley as Lucy Pevensie
wearing the inspiration
coronation outfit.

After looking through some images from the 2005 movie adaptation of the novel together we've decided on Lucy's coronation outfit.

It should be a relatively simple project - a fairly plain, pale blue long dress embellished with some jewels and a red cloak with gold stenciling.

This project has given me an excuse to visit Spotlight for some supplies and now I think I'm ready to make a start. Living in the tropics as we do I won't be using heavy velvet for this dress but I think the fabric I've chosen will still work reasonably well and give the look we're after.

I haven't found a pattern for the dress that seems exactly right so I'm going to try to draft my own and then make a muslin before attempting the actual costume. I'm using a tutorial from ikat bag for the body sizing and the monster has been very patient standing still for almost an hour as I took all the various measurements.

Now its time to draw it up and get sewing. Watch out for more progress on this costume over the next few days.

Have fun

K