8 posts tagged “jalissa”

Yeah, you read that right! Duct tape prom dress. I've been planning this since November and been working on it off and on since January. Now I'm buckling down to really get things done!

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Here's the design. Accessories not included... ;D Those are for another day when I'm not so lazy. (They're on a separate picture, you see.) The front view is on the left and the back is on the right. The grey underneath is going to be shinyshiny chrome duct tape with black strips crisscrossed over it!

There is a matching guy's suit but I'm not sure that I'll be able to do this. ^_^; The guy I'm going with is not perfectly reliable and so I'm finishing mine first. Plus, his is less labor-intensive. At least, I think so... :S  It's really hard to tell!

I'm going to reuse my hoopskirt from the Jalissa costume. (Orange and black, shiny, cyberlox.) The jury is still out on hair designs.

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So last week I had a Halloween party. I received Miss Kitty White, my darling Hello Kitty Pullip, earlier in the week. I love to sew costumes and I knew the costume I would be wearing at the party would be simple to scale down. I didn't want to deal with the extra hassle of the corselet and (unseen here) accessories.

So, I made her a black chemise and orange skirt! The skirt tutorial is forthcoming.

Since I made my big version from the chemise and skirt patterns on reddawn.net, I decided to use these as a base for my Pullip patterns.

Tutorial 1

I actually started writing down the measurements wrong, which is why 2 comes first. They are as follows:

1. Shoulder to Knee (which is actually just however long you want it)
2. Shoulder to Shoulder (don't change this measurement!)
3. Shoulder to Wrist (This is for long sleeves, you could change it if you wanted)
4. neck circumference You actually don't need this for the chemise. >_>;

Tutorial 2

Now it's time to draft the pattern! "Pattern?" I hear you cry, having thoroughly read the Dawn's Pages tutorial for big people. "They didn't use a pattern there!" Well, no, they're big people and it doesn't matter so much if you fudge an inch or so. For tiny folks like Pullip dolls, there isn't much room for error -- and besides, the patterns can fit on a sheet of printer paper.

The sleeve rectangle should be 4" by 2" (I guessed on the 2, which is why it's circled) and the body rectangle should be 8" by 4.75". I also added half an inch to two sides of the body rectangle, bringing it to 8.5" by 5.25". Just a quarter inch gets added to the sleeve (for fuller sleeves, increase the short side measurement) for final dimensions of 4.25" x 2.2.5".

Now, cut them out and lay them to your fabric like any other pattern. Cut two fabric pieces from each paper piece. Set aside the pattern and take a peek at your fabric. It's time to start marking so you can sew!

Tutorial 3

So now you've got two body rectangles. Pick which way is up (hint: it's one where the short sides are top and bottom) and mark your corners. Turns out 3/4" is a great seam depth for Pullips. You'll need to sew diagonally across the corners, so I just marked squares and drew across. Hey, it works.

If you don't have a nifty chalk pencil, don't worry. Use a washable marker (and test it first to make sure it will really wash out) or a regular pencil, and mark away. If you're still not sure, just eyeball it, but try to err on the larger side, if anything. ;)

If you've got it marked, it's ready to sew! Now is a good time to check out the chemise tutorial again, as it explains things more clearly. That, and I forgot to take pictures of the step after this one..

Tutorial 4

Just put the sleeves rectangles on, matching the corners, and sew across. I hand-sewed the entire chemise in white thread, but machine-sewing would work a lot better, especially for this step. Hand-sewing adds a cute touch, though, especially in a contrasting color thread.

The next step is to flip up the sleeves and attach the other body piece. It's a bit tricky to get it right, and you may have to do it once or twice before you position it correctly. I did. >_>; I found that doing one sleeve at a time worked better than trying to finagle both.

So now you have a weird open crossy-looking thing! What's next? Fold it over and sew it together!

Tutorial 4.5

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If you've sewn it together right, you should be able to make seams like L-shapes from the sleeves to the body. Sew about 1/4th of an inch from the edge. This is a pretty forgiving garment, even on such a small scale, so don't worry if your hand-sewing isn't super-straight.

If you've got this done, it's time to hem the top to make the casing! Fold over from the right side 1/4th of an inch of fabric and pin it in place. Unlike most of the other parts of the chemise, this really could use some pins. Sew it close to the raw edge of the fabric and try to keep it straight. If you've machine-sewn, you can unpick some of the stitching so you have open holes in the hem. This will make it a lot easier to thread the cord through to gather it.

So here's what it should look like:

Tutorial 5

Yay! It's all pretty and smooth at the top! Now just thread some thin cord or strong thread through the casing you made, pull it tight, and you can see what it looks like on a doll. Kinda. If you have a good imagination. Wait, that's not really very good at all...besides, the sleeves are still too long.

For the sleeves, you follow the same sort of instructions as for hemming the top. I folded the ends down 1/2" but it was still a bit long. 5/8" would work if you wanted longer sleeves, 3/4" would probably look more natural.

There are two ways you can sew the sleeves.

Tutorial 6

The first is the lazy ungathered way. Just fold it back and sew a seam.

The second way, not pictured, is to sew two seams with a hole in the middle so you can put cord/thread in and gather it. It'd make a puffier sleeve.

If you don't already have cord or thread, put it in. I doubled my sewing thread and pulled my needle through the casings to make it stronger.

Now that you've got the sleeves and top hemmed, it's time to check the length. Try it on your doll, or the closest doll you have, and take a peek!
(Tip: let the neckhole relax so you can get it over the hips. Then tighten it so it fits at the shoulders once it's on!)

Nopetticoat

And here it is! I think it looks better with a ribbon or a skirt to keep some waist definition. I didn't hem this at all, since I wanted it loooong, but hemming the skirt is just like the sleeves or the top. The only real difference is that you should trim the extra (if it's a lot) outside of the seam.










Now, because I was going to be wearing a hoopskirt, I put Hello Kitty Pullip's stock petticoat under the chemise for extra poof.

Petticoat

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Oh yes. Here are two pictures of me from MechaCon. Visible also is my good friend Muffin.

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See, unlike MTAC (which will probably never be finished. Too lazy), I've got a con report up! Granted, I was only there for one day this time, and not all of the day at that...

It took an hour and a half for me to get totally ready and in costume. Another two and a half hours to get to the con. I warned my friends (first-time congoers!) not to spaz out, and yet, I got so excited by all the cosplayers (someone even took my picture before I got my pass!!) that I was barely containing my glee by the time we got our clips. I put mine on my corselet and started off to the dealer's room...stopping along the way to get a picture of a Sailor Venus. ^_^; I didn't buy anything in there my first time around, so we left and took more pictures on the way to Artist's Alley. I stuck around to get myself drawn as a chibi (for one dollar, it was good) and got about five or ten more pictures, including some taken of me. After that, I kept up a loop from Artist's Alley to the dealer room, taking pictures and getting them taken, for a while, until it was time for us to go to the Ouran event. That was, of course, filled with love and awesome. "Haruhi is so poor...she can't even afford socks!"  We took our two appointments (the raspberry tea was delicious *_*) and went back downstairs for more loops. I did end up buying Full Metal Panic! TSR 03 (and later 04, at Best Buy) from the dealer room, but not much of anything else. Because we had to get back before it got too dark (the route we took had bad roads, especially at the end near my town!), we missed the cosplay contest (>< boo), but before we left, my friends and I chipped in to buy me some cute pink boyshort panties from the Anime Beach booth in the dealer room. :] After we went to Raising Cane's for dinner, we stopped by Best Buy (TSR 4, hooray! They'd sold out in the dealer room) and Barnes & Noble (my dad bought me Yotsuba&! 4, which I forgot to look for at the con), and went on our way. I barely stayed awake for half an hour before falling asleep...I can't believe I ran the entire day on three hours of rest. o_O

Overall, it was fun. I'm sad the panels I wanted to go to were during our Ouran appointments, and that we couldn't enter or watch the cosplay contest, but it was still a fun and rewarding day.  I really wish the dealer room had been better (and that they had the Yomiko figurine that I wanted) but tons of people liked my costume, and I saw a bunch of really fun characters.  My friends had so much fun and loved it. We're already thinking of what to cosplay as for the next time. :D

My pictures are on my Photobucket here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v75/starcat/MechaCon%203/

BUT I have better pictures than just of my corselet! My cyberlox falls arrived on MONDAY (the fourth day since I ordered it, and the first business day after it was shipped! SO fast!!) from I Kick Shins and I immediately tried them on. They're bouncy and fun, and of course, once I had those on, I just had to try on the rest.

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I do have another style of wearing the cyberlox falls that I'm considering, however, it is less comfortable than the pigtails. I'll probably try that tomorrow when I take this for a spin to the Harry Potter release party at Waldenbooks in Alexandria, Louisiana. It'll be doubling as "Evil Hermione" thanks to my friend Apricot. :D

Another note: in these pictures, the split is pinned, and neither skirt nor chemise is hemmed. The split has already been sewn properly, and the hem will be done tonight! After that, all that will be left is to paint the black design on the orange skirt, and then it's done!! O_O I can't believe it's done so soon. I am sooo thrilled that this has turned out so well. ^_^ It's going to be fun to wear, I can just tell.

Hello again! During part of my little vacation I actually went to Chicago, and while I was there, I learned some good basic makeup techniques. So, when I actually get something fit to be seen, I'll look pretty for my photoshoot. Which will be when...? Hopefully later today! The corselet is being worked on -- it's actually in my lap right now. All supplies have been obtained, and the only part missing is the hair.

Unfortunately, due to an unexpected price increase, twist falls are no longer an option. I'm instead going with Cyberlox Falls in metallic black, orange, and metallic orange. Or maybe just metallic black and plain orange...I'm not sure on the length yet --which is bad, because I need to order them today. @_@

I've also switched from embroidery to using dimensional fabric paint. You know, that puffy stuff. I'm looking at using it in little dots to outline my design, which I think could turn out even better than embroidery... tests look promising!

And now for today's picture: the jewelery I have so far. I've gotten a pendant and black lacing but I'm having problems putting the two together, so it's absent from this image. The background orange is the skirt fabric.

Jewlery_jalissa

I love the unintentional lighting effect. =) Also, see the plastic black rose? The pendant I have is an orange jade carved rose -- very pretty. I think the effect I'm trying to go here is for a sort of modern renaissance -- if anyone knows of a better name for this type of fashion (I don't quite think it's steampunk) then please let me know!