But that's a post for another day! While I move, I thought I'd take the time to go over a little project I undertook earlier this year. You see, even though I've only officially started my latest cosplay recently, I've been thinking about it for much longer. I've been sketching ideas, diving into fanart, and relistening to The Adventure Zone essentially since I finished the last cosplay, and I knew early on that I'd need some better garment sewing skills to pull a new cosplay off.
Since I didn't have much in the way of clothing sewing experience already, I needed to learn. And what better what to learn than to take a class? I found a costume design course thanks to the recommendation of a good friend and enrolled immediately.
Now, this was an awesome class. I learned so, so much about sewing, even though I've known the basics since I was in elementary school! I got all of my measurements (super useful just to have on hand, but you need a friend to help), learned about reading sewing patterns, and even tried my hand at drafting my own. The class centered around three major projects, designed to increase in complexity as the course went on. In this post series, I'll show you the results of my projects! Hopefully, you all will be able to see how much improvement can be made in a short period of time, if you're dedicated to the work and have a good teacher.
I'm getting ahead of myself though. Let's start with the first project I did.
The project description was fairly open-ended: I could make any kind of simple, unstructured shirt. No darts, no set-in shoulders, just a few pieces of fabric meant to cover the upper half of your body. In the spirit of the costuming nature of the class, I wanted to envision a character who would be wearing the garment. I settled on a sort of water-nymph girl (I'm weak for fantasy) wearing a loose tunic-type shirt. I sketched a lot of different ideas, some of which I might come back to someday, but there was only time to make one of them! Here's the one that I settled on.
I liked the idea of lots of pleating giving the garment shape without having to use things like darts or seams. The belt would prevent the tunic from being too tent-like, and the detailing on the bottom would be embroidered in a sashiko-like style to give the impression of waves and seafoam. I had ambitions.
This is what I ended up making. Pretty different from the original, right?
Well, all of the changes I made to the original design were made for good reason. I forewent the pleats for simply gathering the fabric at the waist with a belt, for example, because the pleats just would've made the bottom of the top too full. I didn't need the pleats to get the effect I wanted, so they went.
I also added sleeves, where my original design was sleeveless. As it turns out, sleeveless shirts are a bit tricky to sew. In order to finish the armholes and keep them from fraying, you need an extra piece of fabric called a facing on the inside of the garment. That would mean drafting another piece of the pattern, making sure it fits, and sewing it together carefully. I was quickly realizing that sewing clothes is much more time-consuming than I imagined, and the sleeveless idea got scrapped in favor of short sleeves that could easily be turned in and stitched to finish.
Finally, some of the detailing got left off simply because I ran out of time to finish the garment! I didn't get around to embroidering the hem of the tunic, and instead of sewing a wide fabric belt, I whipped up a quick crocheted number just to give it the shape it needed. That being said, these things are easy to change, and I fully plan to embroider the hem at some point, just because I think it'll really elevate the look of the tunic. (That's definitely a project that's a while away, though. Gotta finish a cosplay first!)
And there you have it! My first proper sewn garment! It's a humble start, for sure, but I learned so much from going through the process, and I know there's room to make it better if I so choose. I'll be back next week with project #2 of this series, so stay tuned if you want to see how I applied all that I learned. Until then, though, stay crafty!
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