CoCo 2015 progress

So I'll post about the Sewalong later, hopefully. June completely got away from me, and I suspect July will as well. I DO want to do both those challenges. I'm really going to try to complete all the challenges, just maybe not in the month they were supposed to have been done in.

Part of the reason July is failing is whoops, Costume College is in three weeks!
I really waffled on what to make, I'm just not feeling the historical vibe right now. So I wanted something cool, but not too hard to make in a short amount of time, and something I'd been wanting to do. Augh, decisions.

Anyway, I finally settled on Jareth from Labyrinth, I've wanted to make all his outfits for yeeeears. My absolute favourite is the white outfit he wears at the end, but there definitely wasn't time enough for that. So I decided to do my 2nd favourite, the one I've always thought of as his Escher outfit, but I guess it's usually referred to as his "Within You" outfit since that's what he sings when he wears it.

This is the photo most available on the internet:

Many searches don't get much better!

So I took a bunch of screencaps from my DVD and ordered the bluray.

But before I did that I oh so wisely decided to start on the mockup (yes that's right, I cleverly did the mockup before researching. I'm pretty sure my brain has gone on walkabout).

I used 2341 for the body, and 1558 for the sleeves (which I still haven't actually tested, but there we are).

AJ fit me, I moved some seams over, and she fit me again. Thanks! It looked so nice I thought for sure I'll use this pattern again, so I made a paper pattern before proceeding.

Yay cutting!
The fabric gave me some issue too, because it really looks like a silk velvet to me. And given the deadline, I don't have time to run around trying to find the right shade online when my local stores don't have silk velvets. The one day I was free to run to SF was the Pride Parade, it would have been madness! As my friend pointed out when I asked if she wanted to join me, soooo glad she mentioned that. So instead I got stretch velvet, which is a pain to work with ;_;

Then I thought, what a perfect opportunity to talk about flatlining, as I told a few people I would. So I was flatlining the stretch velvet to the muslin mockup, to give stability and body.

Sorry blurry. After I pinned all that (because it's stretchy and flimsy, it needs loads of pins), sewed it around the edge and pinned another panel I realize what am I doing? This is a terrible example of flatlining! This muslin is hardly adding *any* body, these pieces are still way to floppy and soft.

I just happened to have some denim hanging out waiting to be made into a sleeping bag... bag so I grabbed that instead. Way better.

Then I took a break for making another jar of pickles.

Mmm... haven't actually tried these yet. But looking forward to it.

Anyway. So started sewing the back together.

I don't have a velvet board so I just pinned a scrap to my sleeve roll to try to press it a little. Being stretch velvet... it doesn't really press.

(sorry for these all being a little blurry, tired picture taking)
So I whip stitched the seam allowance to the denim, I've only done the top here 'cause I just wanted to get it to the point where I could put the back fake yoke on.

SO! That's where it is so far. I'll hopefully get the rest of the seam allowances sewn down while visiting my granparents this weekend.

Oh and wig!

I sewed loads of trimmed down wefts into a punky wig I got... 9 years ago in Japan (for a Roxas from Kingdom Hearts II costume I never finished), so happy to finally be using it! I actually bought two wigs off Amazon I was going to sew together for this, but when they came in the colour matched perfectly, so I've only cut apart one.
E said she'd style it for me, so one less thing I have to do!
Gotta sew like the wind now!