Shae

Ryan had mentioned a few times over the last week or two that there was a party on Saturday night that we should at the very least stop by if our schedules would allow, as there were some people there he wanted me to meet.  I said sure but then didn't think much more of it.

At dinner on Friday night I finally decided to inquire about when/where the party was being held.  He told me, and then added, oh ya, and it's a Toga/Game of Thrones themed party and everybody will be in costume...He told me this less than 24 hours before the party.  He seemed to think that I would be OK going to a costume party, themed along one of my favourite book series', and NOT wear a costume.  He does not know me as well as I thought.

So, on the way home form dinner around 9pm I start wondering what I can put together cheaply and quickly.  Shea was the first thing that came to mind, as we have a similar hair style and her dress is not very fitted.  It's a halter style backless sack dress with a belt and a sort of mini cape-like scarf thingy down the back.

JoAnn's is usually my fabric shop of choice, but they were closed by the time I headed home on Friday night, so I headed to the only place that was open, Wal-Mart.  Not my favourite place to shop, but I was on a deadline, and as I was playing tennis in the morning, I wanted to get at least half way done tonight.  I grabbed 4 yards of a surprisingly cheap satin-like pink fabric, half a yard of a flowery pink fabric that was slightly stretchy, a spool of pink thread, a roll of a cream ribbon and a yard of a cream and gold cord.  All for about $20.  Not bad.

I laid out the fabric, still folded in half, and cut it to the length I wanted, the length from my collar bone to my ankles.  I then cut it (still folded remember) into a sort of trapezoidal shape, with a bodice about 24" wide (12" folded) and 12" deep, and then cutting on an angle of about 45 degrees out to the edge.  I made two pieces of this shape.

Next I sewed the two pieces together along the sides, all the way along the straight edge on the bottom, the angled edge, and then about half way up the straight edge of the bodice.  This will  become the sort of "armpits" of the dress.  On the section of fabric which would become the back of the dress I cut a scoop back between the two armpits, scooping down about 6".  I then tried on the dress, holding the "armpits" in place, and pinning the back approximately where I would want it at the small of my back.  I cut out a bit more scoop, and then pulled the fabric in a bit as it was too loose.  I hemmed all the open edges at this point, other than the bottom.  Here's what the back looked like after the first scoop cut.  I ended up making this a bit more triangular and pulling the fabric in a bit.

Next I folded over the top edge of the front of the dress to make a channel for the cord.  Then I gathered this channel (see my "Uber pants" post for a description of how I gather fabric), threaded the cord through, and hot glued the ends of the cord into the channel so that it wouldn't slide around.  On this photo you can also see how I opened the back up a bit more and also pulled the fabric in a bit to make the back less loose.

No photos of how I added the ribbon along the front, but I just cut two pieces as long as the length of the dress and hot glued them to the front.  It's not rocket science people.

Along the way I started making the belt.  I didn't want to blow $20 on a nice belt clasp for this costume, so I made one out of craft foam.  I cut two pieces of cheap craft foam in the shape of the two belt clasps, and also a piece that would be as large as the two pieces end to end.  I used a spray adhesive to glue the two buckle pieces onto the larger piece, and trimmed away the excess so you couldn't see the backer piece underneath the buckles.  I used my hardcover copy of A Dance With Dragons to press them down, which I thought was appropriate.  After about 10 minutes under the book I spray painted it silver.

To make the belt I cut a rectangle a little bit longer than the circumference of my waist and twice as wide as I wanted, then doubled it over with the good side on the inside, sewed the edges together, turned it right side out, and then hemmed the edges.  I attached pieces of velcro to either end.  Then I used hot glue to attach the belt buckle to the front of the belt.  I used some black and silver paints and some sequence I had sitting around to add a bit of detailing to the buckle.

Finally I made the cape/scarf/train thingy that hangs down the back.  It's basically just a rectangle as long as the length from my shoulders to my ankles, and about a foot wide.  I hemmed all the edges and then made a little loop at the top so that I could attach it to my halter.

Speaking of the halter, I worried about it coming undone if I just tied it at the neck, so I tied two bowline knots in each end, leaving a small loop, and then used a small carabiner to hold the two loops, as well as the loop holding my cape/train/scarf.

Here's a photo showing how the train falls down.  Because of my long hair you can't see how everything attaches at the back of my neck, which means it doesn't have to look nice!

Final photo that Ryan took outside my house.

All together I spent about $20 on material, and used maybe $1-2 worth of supplies that I already had (craft foam, spray paint, hot glue, etc) and it took about 5 hours.  That was 5 hours I COULD have spent working on my DragonCon costume, but it was worth it.

In the end, it turned out that Ryan had sort of misread the party invite, and it was actually a Toga party with Game of Thrones themed corn-hole boards.  Oh well, at least now I have a Shae costume that I can pull out again for DragonCon if I want.

Uber Pants

I have been looking for a specific style of pants for years now, and can never find them.  The pants I wanted must meet three criteria:

1. Wide, low-tension, elasticized waist band.  I like just being able to slide pants on and off.  Plus, a wide waist band with low elasticity is fairly slimming, without pinching at the sides, or buttons poking out if you're wearing a shirt that's fitted around the waist.

2. Moderately fitted through the hips and butt, but fairly loose legs.  I didn't want drop crotch formless harem pants, but I didn't want ass-hugging yoga pants either.

3. Mid calf-length, gathered, elasticized cuffs.  I like mid-calf length pants as I think they still look business enough to wear to work in the spring/summer/fall, but casual enough to wear out.  They also make my legs look a bit longer.  I also wanted a gathered and elasticized cuff as I think that looks my slimming to the leg than a straight leg open cuff.

Not being able to find these pants anywhere, I decided to make my own.  I got inspired to do this while working on my DragonCon 2014 costume, which involved making a pair of pants fairly similar to these.

I had a pair of jogging pants that had a similar fit to what I wanted for the butt/hips, so I used those to draft a basic shape, which I then spend about 3-4 iterations pinning and trying on.  The waist should be about 1.25-1.5 times as wide as the widest part of your hips, so that you can gather the material and still be able to slide them on.  The crotch and legs you can taper and fit however you prefer.  Start by cutting them loose and then pin and adjust.  Sew the back and front seams together once you have the fit right, and then make one big stitch along the inseam from cuff to cuff.   I didn't take pictures of this part, but you can google some basic pants making tutorials.

When I was finally done I of course didn't draft the pattern onto paper to save, so now I'll have to do this all over again if I want to make another pair.  I'm something kind of dumb that way.

I made cuffs and waist band out of a stretchy spandex blend that I found in the activewear section at Joann's.  Basically cut a strip twice as wide as you want and about 10% shorter (depending on how stretchy your material is you can make it up to 20% shorter.)  Double it over with the good side facing in, so you now have it as wide and long as you want, and sew along the edge.  Turn it inside out and sew the ends together.

Next step is to "gather" the waist and the cuffs of the pants.  The easiest way to do this is with a sewing machine, but just google gathering fabric if you'd like to look at other ways.  Turn the tension on your machine as high as it will go, and your stitch setting as long as it will go.  When you start sewing don't do an overlap stitch, you want the thread to be able to move.  Sew all along the edge you are gathering, and as you do, hold onto your thread lightly to add more tension.  The fabric will get pulled through the machine, but the thread will advance very slowly, gathering up the fabric on the stitch as you go.  Leave extra thread at both ends, and then you can slide your gathered fabric along it as needed to increase or decrease the amount of gather.

With your waist and cuffs gathered you can attach the waist band and the cuffs.  With your pants right-side out Turn your elastic bands so that the part of the band that will face into your body is facing out (this should be the side that has the rough edges of the two ends sticking out.)  Slide the band over the waist or the cuffs so that the edges are aligned.  Then stitch these edges together.  When they are attached you can then fold the band up and will have a nice seam with no edges sticking out.  Remember to do this with a zig-zag stitch so that the elastic can stretch.  Here's what the elastic looks like pinned on.

Finished pants!