She-ra

As a child of the 80's, I wasted many an hour plastered to the TV watching the Princess of Power cartoon. And, true to my geek nature, I still have my entire collection and keep it proudly on display. The first version of this costume was an absolute disaster. In a nutshell, I cut up a plastic mannequin and covered it in fabric. Very uncomfortable, but I always giggled cuz the mannequin had molded nipples which showed even under a layer of fabric.


Bummer...can't see the nips in the pic!

 And then I discovered the joys of the seamless long line bra...

She-ra gang from left: She-ra, Frosta, Castaspella, and Catra at Dragon Con 2009



For Dragon Con 2009 myself (She-ra), my sister (Frosta), and my friends (Casta and Catra) did these using the long line bra. Luckily, I did not have to dye mine. However, the other 3 used just regular old Rit dye. Who sez polyester doesn't dye? The skirt is actually a skirted swimsuit bottom. To get a more "cartoon-y" look, all the gold bits I stitched onto light weight foam padding. It's sold at Jo-Ann's in the home dec area and is supposed to be for making table pads. It works great for getting flimsy fabric to hold a shape...especially on the headpiece:



Close up of She-ra headpiece

The headpiece is directly sewn onto a blond wig. The jewel on the headpiece is the biggest craft gem I could find. It's actually the perfect size. The gems for the bodices, however, needed to be larger than any gem I could find. So, I decided to make them! I used clear resin and added food coloring and iridescent micro glitter for sparkle. This was poured into an oval mold that was for jewelery crafting. 




Close up of resin gem on front of She-ra

 The cape is just costume satin. The boots are standard gold go-go boots. I'm not happy with them so at some point I am going to do boot tops that look more like She-ra's. Lastly, I have ordered a custom latex He-man sword that I will glue one of my resin jewels to. This is coming from Edhellen Armoury. At the time of this posting it hasn't arrived yet, but I will be sure to add pics when I get it!

Fairy Queen

Fairy Queen at the Great Lakes Medieval Faire 2009

I decided my first post would be a costume that (so far!) has taken the longest to complete. In terms of customizing, I actually stayed fairly true to the original pattern: Simplicity 0679 (which is apparently out of print) 

The thing that drove me nuts about the pattern, though, is that the skirt is separate from the bodice and are supposed to attach together at the waist with hooks and eyes (wtf?). Sooo the biggest modification I did was to make the construction a little more "period;" the bodice and overskirt are one piece and the underskirt is a stand alone piece. I created an open seam along one side of the bodice with heavy duty coat hooks on the inside:

Close up of bodice hooks and eyes

Before I even got to the part of assembling the whole thing, I wanted to first bead the "puffed" fabric. I figured if I did it after it was constructed, it would be too easy to miss a spot due to the fullness. That is what took me (and several friends!) over a year to do! Lucky for me, the fabric was purchased already with those gathered puffs.

Close up of pearls on fabric "puffs"

Besides the bodice/skirt reconfiguration, the only other modification was the addition of hanging sleeves (which amounted to a rectangular piece of trimmed out fabric attached between the fitted sleeve and the puffed sleeve). The other pain in the ass part was the cartridge pleats on the overskirt. If you don't know what they are, pray you never find out the hard way! Cartridge pleats = hand sewing = cranky costumer.

Close up of cartridge pleats

Finishing touches include a jeweled belt I found at my local "scratch and dent" clothing outlet, Gabriel Brothers, jewelery from now defunct Sleepy Hollow (used to be at the southern Ohio Renaissance Faire...miss them terribly!), and an old 1930's era hair comb I found garage sale-ing that I painted gold. The staff is a curtain rod setup from Lowe's home improvement stores that I glued gems on. As for the wings:

Fairy Queen wings now serving as wall decor in my spare bedroom when not in use

I think I am going to do a whole post dedicated just to the creation of all my costume wings.