Blog Thirteen: ... wish me luck?!?!

Okay, so now that we've caught up again, time to talk about how things have changed since January. Obviously, teaching is a really hard job, and I have had nowhere near the time or energy I expected to have for sewing this year. But when I look back at my goals from the start of the year, I haven't done that bad! 
- I went to the cosplay picnic, and the Hogwarts trip.
- I didn't do the Steampunk festival, and to be honest, I don't have the technical ability or the right mind at the moment to design Steampunk. I guess I don't get it properly? But the genre really appeals to me.
- I may not have done the "Four days four costumes" challenge that I set myself, and school production isn't even an excuse - I just would not have had time to make four costumes. NZLARPS have a booth at Armageddon and I wish I could join them there, but with only being able to do one day of Armagaddon this year, I REALLY need to go as Cait Sith. I'm nowhere near finished, and I have less than three weeks. But I am determined.

So my goals have changed now...
1. Have Cait Sith ready for October 22nd.
2. Have my Teonn (LARP) costume ready for November 30th.
3. Events to attend next year: Cosplay Picnic, Hydra and Chimera (Hydra being Wellington's version of Chimera), Auckland Armageddon, and possibly, if time allows, the Hamilton and/or Wellington Armageddons. Oh, and let's not forget Battlecry either! It's a tabletop gaming con and they had a Steampunk day earlier in February this year, but not having a Steampunk imagination, I couldn't dress appropriately. But it was good fun, I highly recommend it to any gamers!

With all those events, I guess I really don't have any definite ideas yet of what costumes I will wear. Obviously with the LARPs I have to wait to find out, but in terms of Armageddon, I guess half the problem this year for me was that last year, after cosplaying for the first time, I was so excited that I started planning all sorts of costumes based on things I was really into at the moment (eg. Codex from The Guild). But when my interest in those things waned a little (simply because there weren't any new episodes of The Guild or Doctor Who to keep me going) my enthusiasm waned also. And yet, because I started working on Cait Sith so early, I have decided to keep going with him. Maybe it would have been different if I hadn't started? Hmm. Who can say?

Anyway, I'm sure I'm boring you. What I really wanted to show you was what I've done since January on Cait Sith. I don't expect you to be wowed, because honestly, it's not much. Just the head of the moogle. I'm currently working on the body, and then after that the arms, the feet, the wings, and then putting it all together. Why do I do this to myself???

I won't bother with a diagram, but this is how I did it: essentially it's a tube of fleece with a light fabric lining on the inside, stuffed, made to measure on my waist so it sits above my hips (not easy to wear for guys!). The ears aren't right yet, I'm going to do them again. The eyes are black felt, and the  mouth I made by drawing it on with pencil, sewing around the outline, and then actually colouring in between the lines with sharpie. You absolutely cannot touch it for a couple of hours after having done that! I'm pretty happy with this, it's actually a really comfy cushion, so it's multi-purpose!

Also, I thought I might show off Cyril the snake, just for the benefit of my friends who were in Ophelia Thinks Harder, a feminist Hamlet by Jean Betts. The season is already finished sorry, but it was a lot of fun. Poor Cyril had to put up with a lot every night (eg. being used as a whip) but he became the mascot for the show. Sorry I don't have a better picture of him... For more info about this show and others, please visit www.mairangiplayers.co.nz

Cyril materials: green fur (he's about 1.5 metres long!), red ribbon, oversized black buttons, and 500 grams of stuffing!!!

Blog Four: Four costumes, four days: Cait Sith head

Okay! Here’s the first effort in my “Four costumes, four days” campaign. My one definite Armageddon costume for this year.

How to make a human-sized Cait Sith head, Final Fantasy VII (and expanded universe)

My sources: I actually got a heads-up (lol) from Deviant Art user cloudstrife597 and his Cait Sith plush pattern: http://cloudstrife597.deviantart.com/art/Cait-Sith-plush-pattern-Head-199708422 .But that was just my starting point. Obviously, this is for a human head, so the dimensions are a bit different.

Also, if you’re going to be a pedant about which version of Cait Sith I’m being, I took the ears from the original video game Cait, and I took the scruffy side-hair from Dirge of Cerberus Cait. Original Cait doesn’t have side scruffs, and Dirge Cait has straight sticky-up ears. I have combined the two, because I thought it would look cute.

Material: black felt, light pink thin cotton, cardboard painted gold

The pattern: 

 

I started with the back piece, fitting it to my head and then cutting and sewing together the two upper slits to make it more rounded (just so you know, the lower slit wasn’t inserted til the very last! This is because obviously I couldn’t tell if it was tight enough until the front part was done.)

Then I put the whole thing together with pins. And by the whole thing, I mean the whole thing, ears and all. You may be more comfortable if you insert the ears later, but I was confident enough to do them at the same time (the ears go between the back and side pieces, by the way). Also, it may help if you sew the forehead piece onto the side pieces at this time too. The reason why I have three separate piece here is because they conform better to the head than just one piece would. So, you sew it all in at once, both outlining the ears as well as attaching them to the rest of the headpiece. 

Once that’s all together, and you’ve made any more slits you need to in order to conform it to your head, stuff the ears and then close them off with small circles inside the headpiece. 

Then get your pink material, and cut it into triangles to conform to the ears. I chose to cut little hair details into them to make original Cait Sith. Note the corners nearest the crown.

As for the crown, I painted some cardboard gold and cut it according to the pattern. I then stapled it and stitched it together at the back with thick leather working thread, and used that same thread to sew it to the top of the headpiece itself, looping with wide gaps until I’d sewn around the whole bottom of the circle. 

With the same piece of cardboard, I made my golden megaphone!

I’m happy with: the fit! It fits comfortably whether it is secured on or not. I can wear it all day and not even notice XD

I’m not happy with: the ears being slightly floppier than I would like.

Blog Two: My first cosplay: Kyo backpack and Kagura dress

Going back in time first before I fill you in on what I’ve been up to more recently...

For my first Armageddon in cosplay, I went as Kagura Sohma from Fruits Basket. I didn’t really get cosplay until I got there and I got talking to other cosplayers and realised just how much fun it was. I almost went on a cosplay hunt, kinda, looking around for the next new person in costume that I could spot. There were some really awesome costumes there! Well done everyone!

Now I won’t claim the dress I wore for my own at all! For two reasons: First, I didn’t make the pattern. Goldwave on Deviant Art did. Here’s the link:

http://goldwave.deviantart.com/art/Kagura-Sohma-Dress-Pattern-82498183

Thanks so much Goldwave!

Secondly, I only hand sew. I was planning to sew this one myself, but my mum kept nay-saying, saying I needed to do it with a machine, and I just left it and left it until there were two weeks left... we asked a friend of my mum’s to do it but then a relative of hers died... basically, the day before Armageddon, my mum went to my aunty’s, where the family sewing machine resides, and sewed it up all day for me! It was hell! We were so stressed out. And I still feel terrible about it. I really owe my mum! The one part I did do was the sleeves. Hand sewn, of course...

So that was an absolute travesty, and I’m ashamed to admit it to the cosplay world, but there you go. Next time, I’ll do better, I promise! I need to learn to use a machine this year (well, need to buy a machine first -_-...) and I need to start waaaaay earlier in the future. Cait Sith is NOT going to get done last minute this year!

But even though I screwed up a bit on that front, I still had a wonderful time in my costume.

The part that I DID do was Kyo! For those of you not in the know, Kagura’s backpack is a cat, because she is in love with Kyo and he turns into a cat (that’s not a spoiler, right? LOL). Now there are all sorts of different interpretations of the Kyo backpack on the internet, but my style was with fake fur and LOTS of stuffing. Too much stuffing in fact, if you’re going for a legit look out of the anime. The backpack is a little more swingy and loose. My Kyo is stuffed tight with stuffing, but I like him that way. He looks fat in a cute way. And he’s so cuddly! I also made him intentionally a little ugly looking, with the lip-line uneven, the eyes grey buttons, and the bow made of paisley material. Because, like I said, this is my style of Kyo, and no one else’s.

And guess what! I DID make the pattern all by myself too! So in case you want to copy my style, or improve on it, I’ll put up the instructions below, as best I can. 

Kyo Backpack (Kagura Sohma, Fruits Basket)

You’ll need:

Gingery fur material (Kyo has orange hair, so he is orange in cat form, but you can do another colour if you want)

Red material for the bow

Buttons or eyes, however you want them

Lining material for inside the backpack compartment

A zip (mine was 7 inches)

Light coloured straps (about 1.5 metres, approx)

The pattern: Cut the furry material like so... (excuse the awful use of MS paint. If you want to see the more rounded edges of most of the toy, look closely at the photos)

Head: After cutting out the fur, the first place I started was the head. First I sewed together the small cuts. This creates that round shape you’re going for in a soft toy. (Incidentally, I made the head too wide horizontally. But oh well! I made my Kyo closer to the manga one, not the anime one.)

Then sew the two sides of the head together.

Body: Then sew the body together. I didn’t make any cuts for roundness here. There’s enough material here that you’re going to get that nice plushie roundness anyway once you put the stuffing in.

Stuffing: The great thing about this plushie is that you don’t have to worry about “where the heck am I going to put the stuffing in?!”. Because of course, you have that 7 inch slit in the back to work with! No worries.

I actually stuffed Kyo at this point because I wanted to start on the face and in order to do that right, you need the stuffing in so you can see the shape of the head properly.

Ears: You might have a different material for this part, but I just reversed the fur. It was backed with a rough brown material. I cut it into two little triangles and sewed it on in the middle of the ears. The stitching was really obvious, but that’s what I was going for.

Smile: First I drew this on with pencil. Then I went over the pencil line in sharpie, but really carefully and lightly! Once I’d done that, I sewed along that line, like a kind of rough stitching, back and forth along the line. Then I went over it again, much darker this time, with the sharpie pen. I ended up with a really bold line, just how I wanted it!

Eyes: They had to be large and dark, so I searched my button jar and found these. Best to leave these until after the smile so that you can get the position perfect. Once again I marked my position with a sharpie before going in with the needle!

Bow tie: Cut a small rectangle of your chosen material, then fold it together in the middle so that it fans out at both sides. To keep it like this, I wrapped a small piece of the small material around it and sewed it on just like that.

Backpack compartment: Decide how big you want your compartment. I cut mine like a trapezoid, with the longest end furthest inside the backpack, so it got wider as you went in. First off, sew your two pieces of lining together on every side but the one you want have as your bag. Then insert into the stuffed toy, and adjust your level of stuffing accordingly (check your phone and wallet and stuff fits inside!). Then sew directly onto the lips of the opening in the back of the toy. What you should have now is a fully stuffed cat with no holes in him!

Zip: But of course, you need the zip to make him keep his shape and hold all your stuff in. So sew that on too, inside the lips of the opening.

Tail: I actually left this until now because, what with all the fiddliness of dealing with the backpack compartment, I didn’t want to rip off the tail accidentally or anything. Take the tail piece, fold it in half, and sew it together. The bottom end is a little tricky, you want to fold the two halves that have been slit together, so the end will be like a rounded square. Then when you get to the top, just fold the two slit pieces together and sew them flat onto the back of Kyo in the correct position. I’d give plenty of room  for stitching it on, just to make it very secure!!

Straps: Finally, the straps. Just cut the straps as long as you want them, and sew ’em on! Have a look at a real backpack if you want, to see how they sew their straps on. It’s usually like a square with a cross inside. That’s exactly how I did my straps. Nice and secure!

And you’re done!

What I feel good about: This was actually the first serious sewing project I’ve done for about ten years – last time would have been in intermediate school! So yay me!

What I could improve on: The tail is the weakest part of this. It will stay on and it looks all right, but it just isn’t as strong as the rest. Also my work with the bag opening was a little bit sloppy. I had bits of lining poking out all around the zip. But the thing with the tail and the zip is that they are both hidden when you are wearing the backpack!

PS. I later used a very similar pattern to make a teddybear (sans-backpack compartment). Once you know how to make a plushie, it’s really quite easy! Give it a go.