Rachel Kerns 9/11/17 Rachel Kerns 9/11/17

San Francisco Comic Con 2017

Saturday in the Shindig Dress. Photo courtesy of Ashely Soucar (Pictured here as Rey) — Saturday in the Shindig Dress. Photo courtesy of Ashely Soucar (Pictured here as Rey)

San Francisco Comic Con has come and gone and it was another successful weekend!

It was unusually hot (106F at my house; 108F at Moscone Center West), so I shook up my initial cosplay plans to try to accommodate that. I went with Rey for Friday, since it's the most comfortable and most breathable cosplay I own, Kaylee for Saturday, since I would have a car to accommodate the cage crinoline, and I was on the fence for Sunday, but ultimately went with Elsa. It was still more than a little unpleasant and I was insanely grateful for the AC in the Moscone Center.

This was my first year at SFCC and I was very impressed. There weren't quite as many panels I was interested in as I'd hoped, but there was an excellent range of local artists and illustrators in the vendor's hall and Moscone West is well laid out for people watching and photos.

SFCC was a much larger con than Wizard World Sac and the diversity of cosplays was awesome! Of course, there was still a strong showing of Deadpools and Harley Quinns and more than a few Wonder Women and Reys (myself included), but so many underrepresented fandoms too! Not only did I encounter three other Kaylees (all Jumpsuit Kaylees, but still awesome), but three different Malcolm Reynolds and a Wash! I also saw three different Battlestar cosplayers (a Starbuck, a Boomer, and a general Viper pilot), some fantastic Moanas (plus a Te Ka and a Sharkhead Maui!), and an Eggs from Boxtrolls! I was so impressed with everyone (particularly the eight year old Wonder Woman and the seven year old Sabine from Star Wars Rebels who'd made their own armor!) and I had a fantastic time seeing what everyone had come up with. I even skipped out on several panels to just watch all the amazing costumes come and go.

There were quite a few Beetlejuice cosplayers, but this one was my favorite!

I did enter the costume contest on Saturday (in the Shindig dress again) - I'm getting better about being in front of a crowd, but it's slow going. This masquerade was larger than the last one and included a prejudging session, where you were able to actually speak to the judges about the work you put into the cosplay and they could see it up close. It also ultimately streamlined there main event, for which everyone was grateful. Someone must have misjudged a bit in the setup, because the backstage area was very tight and we all end up packed in like sardines and roasting hot. I was fortunate enough to meet some amazing creators and awesome humans in the contest line up regardless and it was a very positive experience overall.

My cosplays did fairly well throughout the weekend, for the most part. Rey held up fine, but I was stepped on pretty severely in my Shindig dress and I'll ultimately want to replace the bottom ruffle. The Elsa dress has a few loose seams in the train (another unfortunate side effect of being stepped on) that will need to be addressed and I did forget a wig cap for my Elsa wig. I ended up abandoning the wig halfway through the day - it looked dreadful and just wasn't worth it. Much to my displeasure, it looks as though I'm going to need a new Elsa wig - the fibers on my current one don't hold a style well and tangle terribly.

And that's it for summer cons this year! Hope everyone had as excellent a summer as I did!

Rachel Kerns 3/21/17 Rachel Kerns 3/21/17

Jakku Rey - Part One

My stepmom suggested Rey's Jakku scavenger outfit. We walked out of our second viewing of The Force Awakens at our local single screen theatre while I was home at Christmas and the first words out of her mouth were "You should make her outfit!"

Since I've been on a bit of a princess kick, I was inclined to agree with her. Besides, it had been a while since I'd tried to make a pair of pants and Rey's staff was super cool.

Also, I found the source the film used for her boots and I am a sucker for sci-fi shoes. I actually waited long enough that the exchange rate dropped and I was able to get the boots for about $160, down from about $220. So obviously I had to make the rest of the look.

The Pants

I knew exactly how I wanted my pants to be - I all ready owned them. Actually, I owned a pair of dance pants (Ainsliewear's Best Dance Pant, in case you're interested). These are very one of the most comfortable, flexible, and softest pieces of clothing I own and when pulled to knee, fold to make a very attractive capri-length pant. I love them and I knew they would make a near perfect Rey pant. Trouble is, they are a dark charcoal grey. Goes great with leos, but not for Rey.

I patterned with newsprint over them. I traced around the seams where I could and measured the rest. Perfect as they are, the dance pant is actually remarkably simple - four pattern pieces. One back leg, one front, the waistband, and the cuff. Fantastic.

Part of the glory of the dance pant is its fabric. It's a stretch cotton jersey. I (unsurprisingly) could not find something as gloriously soft at JoAnn's, but I did come up with something close in a cream color.

I sewed most of the pant by hand. I'm rubbish at sewing stretch fabrics on traditional machines and I hadn't gotten my surger yet. The hand sew held together for the California Academy of Science's NightLife Halloween party and Halloween night, plus three dye baths and two machine washes, so I was pretty happy. I did go back over the seams though once my surger arrived, just to be sure everything held up.

I dyed the pants post-assembly - in the event I ended up hating the final color, I had enough fabric for a second pair. I bathed them first in Rit's powdered Pearl Grey dye for about fifteen total minutes, following the instructions on the dye for my fabric. While the grey alone was great, I went ahead and gave them a two additional shorter baths in Rit's liquid Taupe to add a bit of desert grime to them. The taupe ultimately was a little more patchy than I'd planned (the first taupe bath was interrupted by my puppy and I didn't get the pants submerged completely in time), but I quite like it as sort of an unintentional weathering effect.

They look a little like dingy long underwear when they aren’t pulled up to the knee, but I’m really happy with the outcome of the pants. They’re super soft and make Scavenger Outfit one of the most comfortable costumes I've ever owned.

The Top

This was an easy one.

I didn't properly pattern. I swore to myself I wouldn't do this again after my ridiculous good luck with the Elsa top and train, but I had enough of the bleached muslin to make multiple shirts and I was feeling lucky.

I measured out the length of the shirt from front to back and over the shoulder and cut this out of my muslin. I then folded my freshly cut cloth in half and used, of all things a round cork placemat to chalk out a collar in the center of the fold.

I failed to get any construction shots of the top, since the whole thing ended up only taking about an hour to complete.

I cut the collar before I draped the whole thing over my dress form. My dress form is almost exactly to my measurements and for a looser garment like Rey’s Scavenger shirt, I didn’t even need to pad up the bust where the measurements differ. I pinned along the sides and chalked out where the sleeves and the slit in the collar needed to hit.

I cut the collar slit and trimmed off the excess muslin about an inch off the pins, for seam allowance and any adjustments I might have needed to make before I pulled pinned shirt off the dress form. I laid it out flat, used the same cork round to chalk out and cut arm holes, sewed up the pinned sides and then it was back on the dress form.

I was actually pretty happy with the initial outcome and I didn’t have to do a whole lot of alterations on the top, just evened the sides out a bit. I went ahead and finished the collar with bias tape, before I moved onto the little cap sleeves.

I had two perfect half circles of muslin all ready from where I cut the arm holes. I pleated one for the texture seen in research photos and then trimmed the other before sewing them in. I did have to adjust the length of the flat sleeve a few times before I was totally happy that it was even with the pleated sleeve, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well they turned out.

The muslin wasn’t bleached totally white to start with and when paired with my finished pants, I was really pleased with their existing color. I didn’t dye them as I’d initially planned, but I did go ahead and finish off the bottom hem and I had myself most of a Jakku scavenger outfit.

Next Time: The Wraps and the Leather Pieces

Rachel Kerns 1/17/17 Rachel Kerns 1/17/17

The Elsa Dress - Part Two

The Skirt

This was the easy bit - straight forward sewing with decently cooperative fabrics.

I didn’t cut a mock-up. I rarely do for personal projects, since I left school - unless I’m working on something particularly tricky or I’ve drafted the pattern fully from scratch, I don’t find it worth the money or the fabric. I keep waiting for this strategy to come back to bite me, but so far, I’ve not had any trouble.

I used the skirt pattern from the McCall M7000 and cut the pieces in both the sateen and the glitter organza.

I overlaid them and sewed, leaving a slit to the knee in the right side seam that wasn’t mentioned in the pattern. Because the pattern called for the skirt to attached to the bodice, I left the top unfinished for a good long while with every intention to piece the two together at the end. Ultimately, the bodice was just stiff enough that it would have been unnecessarily difficult to try and get it on with the skirt attached and I had to devise my own waistband fishing. I decided on an elastic waist band with a snap. I finished with a basic rolled hem and have since gone back and cleaned up the seams with my overlock.

The Bodice

Gussets on the muslin base and the finished hem

Like the skirt, I used the McCall pattern for the bodice base and cut it in muslin. I’m sure I went wrong somewhere, though I’m still not 100% sure where, because it ended up being surprisingly large. To fix this, I removed a whole panel from the back and added in two gussets in scrap fabric to either side of the zipper so I could zip the bodice closed when I had the thing on.

It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t the most beautifully tailored creation, but it didn’t matter, since the whole thing was going to be covered in foamies. I finished off the bottom hem with scrap skirt fabric, since there was a chance it might be seen and based both the top portion and bottom with a teal fabric paint, in case any of the muslin base might peek out from under the foamies. It turned out that the teal fabric paint was actually a glow in the dark paint and I startled myself on more than one occasion walking past the darkened living room to see the bodice glowing eerily on the dress form. I left the top hem unfinshed so that I would have something for the chiffon top to attach to and I left the zipper long, with the thought that I would attach the skirt.

Then it was time for foamies.

I cut a lot, I mean a lot of foamies. I even enlisted the help of my family to cut foamies, I needed so many. I had cut several different shape options - a mid-size rectangle, a longer, thin rectangle, a square, and a tiny rectangle - which we used as templates. We ultimately cut two full teal 12”x18” sheets of foam and one sheet of white. I can’t even being to estimate how many we finally cut, but I was very happy with the effect.

I was fairly confident that regular E6000, despite its longer tacking time, was going to be the most flexible, toughest, and yield the cleanest finish just from experience and research, but I ran a couple of tests just to be sure. Sewing the foamies left obvious nicks in the foam and hot glue was not only too stiff, but not tough enough to hold up over time.

Initially, I left the bodice on my dress form to try and hold the shape of the bodice, but the tacking time of the E6000 made the process of affixing foamies torturously slow, as each piece needed to be held onto the bodice by hand until the glue tacked up. I was a little concerned about how the the bodice shape would turn out if I laid it flat, but I decided to risk it for sake of efficiency and my own sanity. That’s when the bodice came off the dress form and I was able to speed the process up by allowing the foamies to lay flat with a weight while I kept gluing.

The E6000 was fortunately flexible enough that the flat foamie application didn’t matter - once the bodice was totally covered and back on the dress form, the foamies laid beautifully. They did look rather unfinished and flat on their own, however and that’s where the Gel Medium came in.

I had originally purchased it to experiment as an ice detail option for the shoes, but the Gel Medium gave a nice icy-looking finish, so I used it for the bodice too. I mixed in a little extra fine glitter to add a little bit of shimmer and applied the gel medium with pallet knife. In total, I put down three thin coats (an 8 oz jar and a half in total, including both the bodice and the shoe detail). Ultimately, it wasn't as flexible as I would have preferred, but it was still light and I was super happy with the overall look of the texture.

Next Time: The Train, Sleeves, and The Top

Bodice with Gel Medium. The Gel Medium takes a few days to cure completely. Here, you can see the white patches where it's still setting up.

Rachel Kerns 1/9/17 Rachel Kerns 1/9/17

The Elsa Dress - Part One

I wasn’t going to make Elsa’s Snow Queen dress.

When I found the pattern, I going to make Anna’s Mountain Dress, with the cute little muff and cloak combination. I hadn’t been able to make a solid costume for myself in two years - the previous two Halloweens had found me in the midst of graduate program things with neither the time nor the energy for making anything that wasn’t going to be submitted for marks. Cloaks and muffs sounded like just the things I needed, but after researching the character design for Anna more thoroughly, I came to the conclusion that given the time, budget, and the sheer number of pieces required to properly create the Mountain look, that Anna’s dress would be a Bad Idea.

That’s when I looked at the Elsa research and, while outrageously sparkly, the Snow Queen look didn’t actually seem so bad. Bodice, skirt, train, shoes, and a truckload of glitter that I knew I would regret, but perfectly achievable.

Patterning

McCall's M7000; My pattern was on sale due to the outdated item number.

The McCall M7000 pattern turned out to be considerably less useful than I’d hoped. I tend to prefer historical-inspired and drafted patterns rather than character-specific patterns - I find that I can get more accurate silhouettes if I Frankenstein the historical shapes with my own draped and drafted patterns. Character patterns, particularly if they’re unlicensed, tend to simplify silhouettes to decrease the difficulty and avoid lawsuits with the companies that own the characters’ likeness, but I’d gotten this one on sale at Jo-Anns for two dollars, so I figured I give it a shot.

The McCall pattern is designed to make the whole garment as a single piece and cuts the train length to the hem of the skirt. I had all ready decided it would be best to keep the top and the bottom separate, since I wanted my bodice to be textured and that I wanted the train to actually hit the floor, so I did what I always do and Frankensteined, using the skirt and the princess seamed bodice from the McCall pattern, the sleeves off of a generic “medieval fantasy dress” from the Butterick pattern B4377, and draping.

In general, I rarely cut out store bought patterns - the theatre hoarder in me that just knows I’ll need a different size for something, someday demands I keep them completely intact just in case. Instead, I trace the appropriate size of the pattern onto newsprint (ideally I would use pattern paper, but I have large pads of newsprint left from undergrad drawing classes that need to be used up). The Elsa pattern was no exception - I traced and cut out what I needed off both the McCall and the Butterick patterns and held off on patterns for the chiffon top and the train until I had the fabric in hand.

Fabric and Other Materials

Left to right: Chiffon, remnant (possibly a rayon sateen? I lost the tag, so I'm not one hundred percent on it's exact content), and glittery nylon organza

Before shopping, I hit up my old friend Google. Google revealed quite a collection of other creators’ Snow Queen dresses. Skirts appeared to universally be purchased sequined fabric. Trains were either generally sparkly or were hand rhinestoned in the icicle pattern from the film. The bodice options included hand beading, purchasing sequined fabric, using foamy cutouts, and layering fabric rectangles using calk adhesive.

I knew I wanted my Snow Queen dress to be as light and as accurate as possible. I also knew I wanted my bodice to be at least a little bit flexible and I knew I wanted it to be if only a little practical for moving through crowds, so I ended up modifying ideas from the research. The bodice would be foamies, the train would have the icicle pattern, but I'd use glitter rather than rhinestones, and the skirt purchased fabric.

Adhesives and texture options. From left to right: Original E6000, Spray-On Liquid E6000, glitter glue, teal Tulip fabric paint, and Golden Acrylic Gel Medium (High Solid Gel; Gloss Finish)

For the skirt, I couldn’t find quite the color and sparkle I was looking for, so I ended up combining a glittery nylon organza (two yards) from Jo-Ann’s with a remnant I picked up from Britex (roughly a yard and a half).

The train and blouse fabric I picked up at Jo-Ann Fabrics - a poly chiffon. I decided to shorten the train by several feet, just so I could move around a room without being stepped on or catching on furniture, so I ultimately purchased four yards. I knew I wanted to glitter (rather than rhinestone) the pattern onto it, but I wasn’t sure what would work best, so I picked up some options - glitter glue and regular, fine glitter in white with liquid E6000.

The bodice I decided to base in muslin - no one was going to see it anyway and I could put the money into other things. For the bodice’s texture, I picked up five sheets of foam, three in teal and two in white, a tube of regular E6000, and Golden Acrylic Gel Medium.

Bodice Materials. Craft foam, glitter, and gel medium

For the shoes, I knew I wasn’t up to tackling shoes from scratch, particularly heels. Instead, I found a blue pair of discounted pair of Christian Sirano pumps from Payless ($10, on sale) with the pointed toe box of Elsa’s ice shoes. I had some vague notions of experimenting with the Gel Medium, though nothing concrete.

It was, all said and done, enough to get started.

Next Time: The Skirt and the Bodice