Snow Queen Headdress

Pieces are stiff interfacing, silver cotton for backing, and Japanese silver brocade from fabric swap on the front. I made the headband from electrical wiring scrap that I stabilized with painters tape and covered the top with silver brocade and the inside with cotton flannel from a nightgown. The painters tape seemed like a good idea at the time (it was fast and easy), but when I was sewing things onto and through the headband, the needle would pick up some of the adhesive sometimes and get a bit tacky. Manageable but kind of annoying.

Dragon Con 2015 - Part 2 - Snow Queen

Saturday:

In the morning we saw the parade and I managed to get a pic or two of Leah Lloyd and the Obscurus Crusade crew. We should have gotten there earlier than we did -- if I go to the parade again it'll either be because I'm in the parade or with contractor stilts on. Still, it was cool seeing Nichelle Nichols:

I think we went to Comic Book Alley in the afternoon? Not sure.

At night was Snow Queen, solo. Too bad that I couldn't get it together for the afternoon, then I could have seen Leah in-person instead of through photos. But I did get to meet a new person, Ivy Star, so that was good.

I should do a separate post on the hat, and will try to do so later. Mostly from scrap and stuff I saved from getting tossed from neighbor's greenhouse, plus the jeweled fiber optic barrettes I made last year for "Shiny".

The cloak is out of the train from my first wedding dress, cut and draped, with little fur "tails" I made from some fake fur -- more of which you can see on the hem of the dress.

The fake fur is trimmed like an ermine or mink coat, cut to have "rows" of fur. Since the skirt is more or less a circle I had to cut the fur in short pieces and cut the sides of each piece at an angle to keep the "rows" going horizontally all around. 

The dress is my first wedding dress. I removed the sleeves, opened the sides and put in strips of elastic (I'm not the same size I was then), and cut off the train. The over-dress is organza and silver lace. I beaded the edges of all the skirt panels as well as frost designs on some of the panels and on the snowflakes on the sleeves, plus a few simple ornaments on the silver trim of the neck opening. The snowflakes I made from pieces of the silver trim.

Foundation is a petticoat. Not bad, but I think it would look better with a stiffer foundation, to make the skirt go out more -- the fur weighed it down quite a bit.

The gloves I was able to wear both for this outfit and for Silvermist the next day. The fan I already had.

Overall I'm not unhappy with this costume, but I'd like to "ice" it up a little more. I'll have to think about that at some point down the line.  I'm pretty happy with the dress modding though, and keeping it separate from the over dress means I have the possibility of using it with some other costume in the future as well.  Oh, and the bow from the original dress became part of the mini-bustle for my black-and-white Steampunk outfit, so not too much waste from this up-cycle.

Snow Queen - Ruff/Collar

Hm, I suppose I should post about the sleeves, since I worked on those before the ruff, but I still haven't taken decent photos of them so...

This ruff is currently able to worn on its own, and will go on over the collar of the organza bodice that is still in-progress. I may decide to leave it stand-alone or I may decide to attach it to an overcoat/vest type of thing I have in the planning.

The foundation of the collar is leftover scrap from my new ironing board pad - thick but soft. I should probably line it, but since it isn't going to be in direct contact with my skin, I'm undecided on that. The wire is floral wire, which I bent so the ends all point up and out, and sewed onto the fabric. Both the bending and sewing around the wire in several places along the length of each bend keeps it in place remarkably well.

Here's a couple shots of the lace going on. I had to start at the bottom since that's where the fabric is, but I wanted to overlap the top of each lower row over the bottom of the next row, which meant remembering to leave each row unattached on the top half of the trim, attaching the next row, then going back and securing the top of the previous row to it.  Mostly, I remembered to do that...

I also was periodically inserting a pleat, both to ease the trim around the curve I was creating (the wires go up, out, and away from each other), and to create a more dimensional piece.  Although the human tendency is to create patterns, I purposely did not keep track of specifically when I was pleating or not, to try to give it a more organic look. 

Working around the wires was kind of a pain, but overall it went pretty well; didn't poke out an eye or anything! 

Once I had the trim all sewn on from the outside perspective, I put on a couple more rows on the inside, as the trim has a definite front and back, and the upper edge of the collar along the sides and back will be seen from both sides. This part I was able to attach working from the top down, which was a good deal more sane to do than the outer layer.

Next was attaching some plastic rhinestone mesh I got last year, on sale in the floral section of JoAnn's.  The collar is fastened with three snaps -- I'd first thought to use velcro but I only had it in black, then remembered the snaps on my old wedding dress -- part of the over-train, which has to come off anyway.

I also did some securing between the inner and outer layers and stitched some of the gathered trim into tighter pleats to create a little more depth and texture. I'm afraid I didn't get a photo that really shows that, but here you can see it on me.

Oh, and I glued glass faceted beads onto the ends of the wires so it's safe and pretty.  I'm not sure where they came from but I'm guessing an old broken necklace maybe?  I've been storing them in an old allergy tablet bottle that expired in 1986, so it's anyone guess at this point.

Sleeve Progress

Gotten a little further on sleeves for Snow Queen. Mostly I work on it as a break from doing other things, so it'll take a while to make, especially over the next few weeks. I'm also working on curtains for the bedroom (yes, still), as well as rearranging things all over the place. And the porch has been pretty much eating my time up in large chunks but I think I'm finally done with that for a bit. Well, except for decorating the tree, but that can wait.

Anyway, here's a picture!

The lower part of the sleeve is rows of lace sewn together. I then added a row onto the bottom of the upper half of the sleeve. Then I made the snowflakes.

Well, then I made some small pleats while attaching the lower and upper halves.

These are mostly from new materials. I found a place online for the lace at a good price, and the fabric was on sale at JoAnn's.

The snowflakes are made from pieces I cut off while getting the lace matched up for the long cuffs, so a reduction in waste there.  They're beaded with blue glass rocaille and bugle beads, and also white pearl beads. The glass ones I bought new last year, the "pearls" I bought new as well, back when I was doing a lot of pearling in the SCA.

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I wanted to have a coat with this, but then the dress would be hidden -- okay in a costume contest where you can walk around, take off the coat, and walk some more, but terrible for a hall costume.

I also thought it would be nice if I could wear the coat outside of a convention so...what I'm going to try to do is make a sleeveless coat/robe that I can attach sleeves to for actual outdoor wear. I have a lovely plush grey velour and also some white fake fur that I've been using for extra warmth in the bedroom, which should look great!

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Originally I was going to have a blue skirt and in fact it's mostly done. But as I continued to do research I realized that the bluer winter beings like Snegurochka are a winter-into-spring theme. I want to go icier, so the deeper, more intense blue is now out. No worries, I'll wear that skirt with something else!

I have another option now -- my first wedding dress. I had it kicking around because I was thinking I'd remake it into something else and never got around to it. I think it'll be a fine base for the snow queen, and the light blue organza looks good over it. Now I have to decide if I want to keep the train or not...

Quick Post on Snow Queen

Wanted a change of pace last night, so I started work on sleeves for Snow Queen.  Yeah, Dragon Con is a ways from now, but these are going to take a little while to make...

The straight edges go fairly quickly, but futzing with joining the pointed ends takes a little longer. Liking the look so far!

Shoes for Cyclops and...

These are the shoes I got for the Rockabilly X-Men Cyclops costume.

http://www.heels.com/womens-shoes/lucca-yellow.html

I don't expect to do much more on this costume for a while, but I saw the shoes when they were on sale, and when opportunity knocks....

The sunglasses should be coming sometime in the next few weeks.  I'll be keeping everything together with the dress that I'll be re-tailoring, so I can find it all next year.  Still haven't picked the spot in the house for doing this -- right now everything's in the living room but that won't do over the holidays.

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Separately, I have some cool gold pintucked fabric that I bought ages ago, and I've been contemplating what to do with it. Since we moved to our new house, I've been working away at using existing materials, to reduce the amount of fabric in storage (in theory), decorate and insulate the house, and have more new clothing to wear.  Well, and now more costumes, apparently.  I did have to buy some fabric this year, especially for Shiny, but am going to try to do less of that this coming year.

I'm contemplating doing a phoenix costume, inspired by the mythical creature, not the Marvel comics character.  The colors we're most used to in the West are red and gold, but there are other options...I'm thinking this gold fabric would make a splendid gold coat though. Fitted in the body, with a nice big flared skirt.

And I'm thinking of making a hat to go with it. And a standing collar.  Just putting these bits down for future reference, since I don't have time to do anything about it right now.

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I'll also be working on the Snow/Winter Queen over the next year.  I'll see if I can put up some photos of what I have so far; not sure when that will happen.