Recent project: Isard

Director of Imperial Intelligence, Ysanne Isard.

Since April 2010, I had been itching to make a costume that would be worthy of admission into the 501st Legion, especially after I met some members of the local garrision (Woot! BAG FTW!) at NOLA Comic Con that month. I toyed around with making a generic black officer but decided against it when I saw that Isard in her lovely red "power suit" was an accepted costume. I love red; it's one of my favorite colors. And anything to stand out from the crowd of white and black is OK by me!

So I started altering a pattern for the jacket over last summer, using a Men's Civil War costume pattern as a base. That was not the best of ideas. Even though I cut it out on the smallest size, I still had to take it in A LOT! I'm surprised that the proportions were even remotely right once I was done with it. I went through three different prototypes before I got the jacket to a point where I was ready to cut it out of the actual fabric.  

 An early stage of my initial prototype.

I didn't get the fabric until around Christmas, but was so nervous that the pattern wasn't right or that I'd screw up cutting it somehow. I was really short on cash (Come on, it was Christmas time!) and I had purchased all of the bolt of fabric. I really didn't want to screw up.

During the fall, I had received a pattern for the flared breeches to go with the jacket, which was a good thing, because the prototype that I made really sucked. I hate trying to make pants without a pattern. I always end up with a wonky crotch. I only had minor adjustments to make to the pattern, however, so that was nice. 

Pants prototype from pattern. Please pardon the boots, they were the only ones I had at the time.

Since the holidays were busy and I was in the midst of Steampunk costume-making, I didn't get around to cutting out the actual fabric until the end of January. I got mostly finished by Feburary, all ready to go for Mardi Gras. I even ordered the wig, but didn't receive it in time for the parades (and then didn't go to one because of the threat of rain: rain + wool = bad). 

I did however, march without the wig.

I finally got everything together and submitted it for 501st approval at the beginning of June, just over a year after deciding to do this particular character. I am now ID 8137, member of Bast Alpha Garrison, and am already planning my next Imperial costume, as well as several outfits for Rebel Legion membership. Because, let's face it... as a girl, the Rebel Scum have far more options in terms of costumes.

So here's the costume all put together.

Pardon the hair, it still needs some styling.

Next up: Steampunk stuff I think.

Recent projects

I've been away recently, but that doesn't mean I haven't been working.
Over the past year I have been working on and completed (or nearly so) the following costumes.
Director of Intelligence Isard from Star Wars (Expanded Universe)
Mara Jade: Green Jedi outfit
Various Steampunk pieces for myself and my husband
Steampunk/Gaslight Belldandy as inspired by the Oh! My Goddess Colors reprint of the first manga
Young Ben Skywalker for my son (also from Star Wars Expanded Universe).
I'll get into details on each of these over the next few days, as well as discuss some upcoming projects. But for now... Here's a picture!

Lando... or why I shouldn't drink sweet tea after 5pm.

Ok so I don't often do sewing for people outside of my family. The demands of a costuming couple and child are typically high in terms of time, and I am easily distracted. However, when someone mentions Lando Calrissian, my first thought is OMG YES HOW CAN I HELP!?!?!? Because, let's face it, the world needs more Lando.

Well, the guy is getting help with pretty much everything and claims to not be good at sewing, so I offerent to help as well. I'm likely doing the cape. Perhaps a few alterations to the shirt, but that's not the fun part. Look at that cape! It's so sleek around the shoulders and SO full along the bottom!

Now, I did something I usually don't do last night, and that is have a VERY large glass of sweet tea with a late dinner (The hubby went to Raisin Cane's for dinner at around 8pm, and they have some darn delicious sweet tea!). So what does this have to do with Lando? It means that I went to bed around 1am after sewing and reading for a few hours, and then when my son crawled in bed with me at nearly 4am, I couldn't go back to sleep. What do I do when I can't sleep? Work on problems that have been bothering me me. Tonight it was Lando's Cape of Glory (which I am totally calling this now).

So this fabric was found for the lining of the cape. Nice fabric and the guy likes it, which is of course the most important part. I just wish it that the contrast was a little bigger and that the gold was a little more antique like the original. The problem is the fabric is 44 inches wide and I'd have to make that OMG HUGE cape with it. So tonight I got to preliminary drafting.

Here is my thought process.
A cape is basically part of a circle. Starting with a large circle of fabric, you could cut out a smaller circle for the neck area and then you're left with a donut shape the width of the donut would be a little larger than the total length of the cape. If you leave it as a full circle, you've got a skirt, which is not what we want. So, cut the circle in half. That will allow the fabric to drape over the shoulders and meet in the middle and be at least somewhat more like a cape.
Problem #1: just cutting a half circle of fabric won't take into account the way the shoulders curve, which would make the hem shorter at the shoulders than at the back and front.
Problem #2: 44 inch fabric is too short to use a half circle of the length needed for the Cape of Glory.

Problem #3: A half circle doesn't begin to give the cape the fullness seen in the reference image. Seriously, look at that volume of fabric! I know that how the fabric drapes has some to do with it, but it also needs volume!

Solution: make small scale prototypes illustrating the differences to guide pattern making and employ MATH! dundunDUN...

The cape should be broken down into at least 4 sections, each of which should be shapped like a curved trapezoid. To start adding that extra volume to the cape, the bottom width of the trapezoid piece should be as wide as I can get it. Since the fabric above only comes in a 44 inch width, I'll say make the bottom width 43 inches (I always end up cutting wonky and too big, so I'd rather err on the side of giving me a little space to cut the angles right). The top width should be based on the shoulder width. I'm thinking of the following formula to figure out the top width: [shoulder *2 -(chest/2 -6)] / 4 +2, where shoulder is the back shoulder measurement, chest is the around the chest measurement (hence the divide by 2), and there is an added 1 inch seam allowance to each side of the piece. This is a general formula that will likely need revision, but I'm hoping that it gives me enough fabric to work with on the initial prototype. The length of the trapezoid should be the desired length of the cape + 6 inches, to accomidate the hem, which can be straightened after the drape over the shoulders is accounted for and finalized.

Now, this may very well give enough fullness at the bottom of the cape to replicate the reference picture, but if not, the next step would be to add goddets or gores or whatever the hell those little triangle pieces that are added to make things flare out more are called. This is essentiall a smaller and shorter trapezoid, almost triangle that gets inserted into the seam. If these get added, there will need to be at most three, one for each seam. The gore can be made wider or narrower, depending on how much fullness is needed. I would not suggest taking the seam all the way to the top of the cape however; two-thirds should be sufficient to get the fullness at the bottom, but not affect the fit over the shoulders or complicate it too much. Since, in sewing, one can always take away, but not add, I would start with a prototype having a gore bottom width no more than half the main trapezoid width. Adding too much fabric in a gore becomes tricky and doesn't look too good. If more bottom width is needed over that, then it would just be better to add an additional trapezoid piece and adjust the top measurements. The length of the gore would be 2/3 the total length of the trapezoid piece and the top width would be 2 inches. The gore should disappear into the seam allowences.

The total bottom length of the cape would be (with maximum gore width) 43 + 43 +43 + 43 + 21+21 +21 =235 inches. That would be significantly larger than a half circle (albeit, the circumfrence would be based on how large the circle was) and using the trapezoids/triangles would allow the pieces to be cut from fabric that is shorter than the total length.

Essentially the pieces would look like this, but the bottoms of both would be curved and the top of the first would be curved as well. I used 'x' to represent that long formula from before. Please excuse my poor Paint skills.

I did the math based on the actual fabric size, but I will be scaling back for some smaller initial prototypes to see if I am indeed on the right track. I also didn't address the collar there, as I'll deal with that once I've got the general shape of the cape figured out. I will also be encouraging the use of 60 inch fabric for the outer part of the cape, so I can hopefully not have to put the gores in the outer cape. I can't find any good pictures of the back of the cape so I can't see the seaming there. As a result, I would rather err on the side of fewer visible seams if I can swing it.