Amira's blouse

The blouse meant first bigger challenge. First of all - it had much more complex embroidery than I had done so far (and last time I ever did any embroidery was grade 8 I think almost 15 years ago.. and I was horrible at it).

Second (and much bigger problem) was that the embroidery design was not constant in manga. It looked nice and in "same style" but not the same. I was just browsing the mangas over and over again to figure out what are the common parts of the design but in the end, I just went to copy machine and copied (with magnification) around 30+ pages, set them on the floor and tried to make sense that way.

The honest answer: no - there was not a common theme or pattern. Some of the manga images, that were next to each other had same kind of pattern but from scene to scene  but they were never same from place to place in manga. Very different and varying (you could argue that she had more than one blouse put :P). Therefore.. I decided not to figure out the exact style from multiply images but I went with the cover of first volume. It only shows half of the sleeve, so.. that was my reference. I used other scenes to see how usually one side correlates to another side and "created" the parts that were not visible on the cover by myself. Let's just say - it took more time and effort than I first thought.

 Then. Starting with the blouse. To be honest, the first try was counted as failure in the end but let's go with the flow as I did. I first cut out the pieces of nice red linen, sewed them together (not the right move, will explain later) and then started doing the embroidery.

Mess in the floor when I try to figure out the pattern

The pattern was very simple as from my research into Turkmenistan national costumes, I did not find any specific patterns but what was stated was that they did not had anything too complex and usually blouses consisted of just simple slightly modified rectangles. So, I went slightly above it for better fit but I did not use any specific pattern from outside sources. From the front I have triangles at the sides to fit better with breasts and on the back, I actually used three pieces (one central, two at the sides) with slight curves for better fit in waist. I could probably have used rectangles there too but I thought, as it is going to visible anyway, that separate pieces give better fit and look nicer. Sleeves were very simple rectangle shapes with matching curves at the top to fit the bodice.

Mock-up. Looks good but way too long

Ah, I just had enough fabric :D

 For the choice of stitch for the emboridery, from my research, I thought, chain is the most suitable. On most of the images from manga the embroidery on blouse was like a line, therefore chain would fit perfectly. In very few rare pictures the embroidery on blouse did looked like satin stitch but that goes into the line of inconsistencies from author. I used the same machine embroidery thread for chain stitch as I used for underwear (3 threads together).

Putting sewn together blouse into a frame and drawing the pattern guide

I started with the blouse, did the collar first, then the bodice in front, moved to back (not the right move, will explain later).. Then I did the sleeves that were not sewn onto the bodice. As I said, the first try was failure.

Not the best embroidery..

The main reasons:
 *I had not use the specific chain stitch tool that was historically used in the area before so I would highly recommend practicing a lot. I would say my first bodice was my "trial piece" in the end.. I just wish I could have chosen easier route.. like just random straight piece of fabric

*The tambour embroidery requires it all to be very stable and tight. As in the image above- it was not. Sewing everything together was my biggest mistake in this step! Embroidery first, then cutting out.
*I tried using machine embroidery stabilizer (to overcome previous problem) but when tearing it off, it just ruined the embroidery and did not worked very well at all. Waste of time!

So, when I finally got to sleeves, my embroidery skill had developed a lot. I finally managed to have nice tight framing of the fabric (as nothing was sewn) and everything looked just so much better.

Actually, if you look one of these, the bottom embroidery around wrist is much better on left one but much lower quality of right one

Close up.

So, after I finished the sleeves, I just could not bare looking on the bodice, I went back to the fabric shop, got more of this red linen and did it all over again. Considering I spent 2-3 weeks on bodice, that was a blow but I was just so much better on this now.

So, first of all - I did not cut anything out before the embroidery. It was huge amount of fabric to move around but it worked so much better this time. Much less tearing and unevenness after the embroidery

 This is the nice compassion of the improvement of my skill. The top one is the second try, the one at the bottom is the first try

 And the back redone. Yeah, here I actually had to do some sewing as I decided to have three pieces but it was still quite flat and in some places I used smaller frame.

Then I did some sewing. First it was the top of the front and backs (and completed the lines at the sides that you can see on back but not in front). Then I sewed the sleeves into the bodice but sides and sides of the sleeves were open. I also needed to add the line for the sleeves. I did not dare to do it before sewing them together to make sure they are evenly distanced from the seam.

I sadly do not remember exactly what was the problem but those lines were huge amount of work and I redid them at least twice. I think the distance from the seam was the problem. Other than that - just stitch the line and then those little nods after some distance. Making those nods match was also not possible before sewing it together.

Then the lining. That was the moment I was heavily thinking if I would afford the silk or not. It should have been silk but silk was so expensive. I looked on artificial silk but it was not the right color, looked very weird (the quality) and was also much more expensive than I would have liked. So, in the end, it was the common lining material I used. Little unauthentic but practical thinking won - if I would have gone with silk, it would have cost a lot and noone can see it as it is lining. Probably not many people know anyway about the right materials so.. yeah.. something in me feels sad about this compromise.

Stitching the lining together (you can also see my super cute pin holder seal :D)

 

I set the lining, fixed it with pins and handsaw everything together. It all looks super nice in the end and it felt so nice to finally finish it. It took me around 2 months to do it. Most of it was embroidery that is just super time consuming. I spent all my weekend almost non-stop doing it and the first failed attempt was a blow.

The only thing left was how to close the blouse. In one or two images I can see buttons in manga. In majority of images there are nothing as it is easy to draw clothes to be "just on". Historically it is a mix. For the chyrpy it is no question - hook-and-eye closure. I found material about that. I did found other nations around the area who used hook-and-eye for most costumes around 19th century. But buttons were also heavily used on surrounding areas, specially for blouses. So, in the end, I could not find one certain answer for this and I went with "look". As on manga, you cannot see button on the cover, I use hook-and-eye to hide the openings and it would make it easier to but it on and take it off.

Posts:
*Getting started
*Underwear
*Skirt and trousers
*Blouse
*Coat
*Jewelry
*Boots
*Accessories
*At Animatsuri
*At Eurocosplay

Amira's skirt and trousers

After the underwear, I did the trousers as I found it to be "easier" than other prospective parts. The pattern for them was very easy as I found from the literature that very simple and wide trousers were used. I actually even found a drawing (small drawing in scientific paper) how the trousers looked. So, I did the pattern, keeping in mind that the trousers seemed to have a buff around the boots. (The thing I did not consider was how the trousers affect the boots :P I did remembered it luckily in the end when I made boots).

The sewing was very simple. I did not use waistband as there were none mentioned in the literature - only cords. The bottom was covered with embroidery inspired by the refernce:

So, the result:

The skirt was trickier as I started to realize that different images in manga have different embroidery for the skirt. My main reference had two layers of spikes and the first test I did for the skirt (that was probably way before I actually started making anything and while I was still doing the research) was done with machine:

It was way too big, not natural and did not had this feel I desired. (Plus the red was off but I mean, I hadn't found the right die from literature yet).

So, I dropped the idea of machine embroidery for skirt quite early and the underwear actually only convinced me that this was the right choice.

The reference problem remained:

 My main reference (right) had this more complex embroidery but the secondary (left) had embroidery style that was much more often used in other covers and on manga. So, I was little torn. Do everything as in one image or use the most "common" style. I went with common at this point but later (with the blouse), when I realized there is no common ground, I continued using only the main image.

Then.. it was just hand embroidery and lot of threads of red mouline. It took me around two months I think? I loved that on the volume 2 and 6 cover I could actually see the stitches and mimick them :) It was much nicer than just figuring how to fill a red line.

On reference the skirt has really nice volume so instead of just full circle I used three halfs. It had nice volume on its own but in the end, the hard coat is "taking down" the volume. (I ofcourse hated the three halfs due to the fact that it took 1/3 more time to do the embroidery. Imagine.. everything else had some variety. With skirt it was just same thing over and over again for meters. I think I actually measured the outer side of the skirt. I do not remember precisely but was it 8 meters? And three lines + those spikes.. It was very monothone).

 Again, no waistband as it was not used in the area On this image above I have horrible modern cord. In the end, I found nice cotton cord that had this kind of natural white (not bleached) look o fit perfectly with the fabric of the skirt.

(Later I actually found image from manga where Amira's skirt is visible that proved me again that cords and tunnels were used and that fact was also known by the manga's author):

(This image has different closure to the top than my version but as I said - I discovered this much later. I actually think it was in August? I was making skirt and trousers at the beginning of the year. That was one of the surprising things. I thought I covered the mangas very thoroughly before I started but during the process, I sometimes were just flipping pages and I found new details I had missed like tens of times before..) 

Here it is: trousers and skirt. Looking very nice :) I really love the volume of the skirt and I was little sad the coat pushed it down so much.


Posts:
*Getting started
*Underwear
*Skirt and trousers
*Blouse
*Coat
*Jewelry
*Boots
*Accessories
*At Animatsuri
*At Eurocosplay

Amira's underwear

The first thing I did with the project was the underwear. It is slightly stupid, considering that no one can see it as I would be wearing it under everything else. But on the manga, it was visible and it sounded like a great idea how to try out the fabrics, methods and get started.

I went with simple cotton for the fabric for the underwear. It could also have been silk. When I did my research into the central Asia clothing, there were almost 0 information I could find about underwear. So, I had to use my own imagination. For me, the central asian clothing sounded very practical and it had to have materials that were available. Therefore the choice for me was between cotton and silk. Considering that silk is more fragile and clothing should be durable, I though using the cotton sounds more feasible.

Then, the embroidery. The manga nicely shows the details of Amira's underwear and my original plan was use machine embroidery. So, I designed the embroidery files for machines. I do not have fancy machine. Quite simple and very basic Husqvarna 600e so my options were limited. Specially with the top. I wanted those little arrows to have very specific angel for embroidery to match their angle on design. Sadly, my program that came with the machine did not allow me to have this. Also, some of the arrows were really nicely converted from design to embroidery design but some needed a lot of extra work

Main embroidery files, all together..

Also, some of the embroideries, like the top and bottom border needed more than one frame. Oh my.. switching between frames and trying to get it match. Some fancier machines, as I googled, do those control stitches so you can make sure everything is fine. In my case, nothing like that. And I can only have four frames - no larger designs that would obviously become very big problem later in the project.

Anyway, somehow I got my designs into the program and started the embroidery. It took ages. Again, I had used the machine for smaller projects before but this.. The needle became blunt and started to break the thread (ofcourse I did not know that breaking thread can be caused by blunt needle.. I endlessly tried to figure out what is wrong with machine settings). The connections were super hard.. in many cases I just had to fix the connection points in the end by hand. And then the main motive. Now, I am super sure that it should only have the outline embroidered but back then I thought all of it should be covered. It took quite long...  many hours..

In the end, all the embroidery was done, connection points fixed and I laid patterns (that I actually just made out of nowhere just looking on the reference on the manga) over the embroidery. That was one part where I did not had too much troubles. When the patterns were in position, I did the little holes at the back of the top.

Sewing was easy part. Trousers came out nice. I decided to line both the top and bottom. I would almost be sure that if central asian people wore underwear, it was not lined, but it hid all the bottom side of embroidery and having this nice material against my skin felt so much better than leaving then unlined.

The only challenge with the trousers was the fastening. On the manga, it looks like the trousers have no channel for the fastening - it is just trousers and then robe is used to keep it on place. Sounds actually feasible as my research showed that they used very simple patterns all around their clothing. Having only robe over the fabric to keep trousers up - sounded very unsafe for me, so I did make a tunnel for the robe to have safer fastening. The shape is off compared to how the fabric looks on manga but yeah.. I like to keep my trousers on.

The top was more problematic. I used the mannequin to do the pattern and check it. I did sew a mock up without the holes that also looked fine. But when I had everything tone for the top and I put a ribbon at the back to fix the top to place, I realized my mannequin (even if having smallest possible settings) is slightly larger than me.. so, the top is little too big. I hope to go back to it and fix it before the convention when I have time.

The ribbon at the top.. Again, you can almost see the texture of it in the manga. First I did a ribbon from yarn following simple braiding. Then, as I looked more and more on the texture I realized that i could probably copy that, So, instead of simple and very quick braiding with fingers I did some research to figure out how to braid that specific pattern. It took some time and it required much thinner yarn than I originally had but in the end - again - super happy to have more of the original details on the costume.

The one thing that bothered me slightly was that somewhere later I discovered that the design should probably not be filled but only the edges like in rest of the costume. And the propositions were off. So, it was always "to redo" list but I never got to it before Animatsuri as, yeah, it is underwear. No one can see it.

But after animatsuri, I went back to it. First, I undid the machine embroidery on trousers. That took days. I would not recommend it to anyone. Then, I went back to tambour embroidery to redo the central part with only outlines and better propositions. I actually took the design from that reference image, used perspective crop in PS, got it out of perspective and printed it out few times to get right dimensions. Doing the embroidery itself was easy.

I also redid the top to match it more like in source. I added in top of the current "tunnel" new side that can be "rolled" and that is sewn over the first tunnel making it look nicer but is more secure than just having this rolled top.

Also, after local qualification I did the socks. There were two images from the manga I found. One was the reference I used for long trousers and the other one was randomly discovered. They seem to have matching designs. I know that probably somewhere else there is another design as I saw one cosplayer to make very fancy socks. Sadly, I could not discover the reference (maybe it was not in the volumes I own and when switching between online scans, I missed it). I would have loved that design but hey.. I had to stick what I found.

So the first step was figuring out the pattern. I was sure that there is the main edge motive at the top and probably another where sole and main body are connected. But the motive on the socks was hardly visible on both images. So, I just looked the generic shape, looked on authentic embroidery done in Kazashtan/Turkmenistan and used my own imagination.

For the fabric I planned to use cotton I also used for the skirt (after I ruined a nice light cotton I specially bought for socks while trying to "weather" it with black tea. It worked little bit too well and white became brownish beige). My plan was to do the embroidery during a weekend before Eurocosplay when I was in countryside but somehow I had not put the fabric into the bag. Like seriously. I had everything else I needed and more and not this fabric. Luckily I had put another white fabric into my "make Amira costume while traveling" bag. It was super nice and super expensive linen-silk blend that I first got for the scarf but as it was so expensive, I only got it like for 25-30 cm that would have been one length of the scarf and I found it not to be long enough for this complicated thing she has at her hat. So this super expensive small piece of fabric was left without purpose and somehow forgotten in the bag. So, now it was perfect time to use it. It would be little bit fancier than I would have assumed for common socks (that can be expected to be worn a lot and probably be worn out quite quickly).

Anyway.. To to one side of the embroidery took more than 2 hours. So, 8 hours for total during the weekend. Then I got back home, I cut out the socks based on pattern that was deducted from foil/tape I used for boots patterns.  Sewing it together.

And then, next two evenings - non stop embroidery to the sides and top.

And then the weathering. I was much more careful with black tea this time. I got some darker spots but it did not do what I wanted. I tried to use spray bottle and black tea but still not exactly. In the end, I just went to the basement in the apartment where is concrete floor and lot of dust- that actually did miracles and I just danced around little bit on the basement until I got some wear on the areas foot is touching the ground. I used sanding paper a little to help to get some extra wear for the sole.

Back to the apartment and some washing and the socks looked like they have been worn by real person not just made like in the image at the top.

So, the socks were actually finished night before flying out to Eurocosplay and when they were drying, I just hoped I will not forgot them as otherwise last week of non-stop work would have been waste.

But yeah.. I started with underwear and finished the costume with socks :)


Posts:
*Getting started
*Underwear
*Skirt and trousers
*Blouse
*Coat
*Jewelry
*Boots
*Accessories
*At Animatsuri
*At Eurocosplay

Lucrezia Borgia - Decorations: Wig, jewelry and pearls

So, when sewing was done, the dress was not.

The first step was the pearls. When you look at the reference images, there were a lot of pearls. So, again, it was much cheaper to order them from ebay than to buy them locally. I did not knew which size would be best (or which white tone), so I ordered few different sizes of green, two different colors of green and two different colors of white. Pearl white was perfect with my yellowish main fabric and the moss green worked fine with my mint green fabric. It was not perfect but close enough.

I started adding pearls to the bodice. I followed the reference image as closely as possible but because my bodice was slightly longer I had to do some creative modification. Then, I added silver stripe to the bodice and pearls there too. Even though it took some time, I actually loved adding the pearls. It was that kind of relaxing activity. Not very complex, things going all right and the result was really nice.

Then came the pearls on sleeves and it was trickier as I had to make sure that the pattern I had for the pearl groups would fit into the circle around the sleeve. So, I did not follow the pattern all the time, trying to hide the "mistakes" to the not so visible areas. (and then I discovered that sleeves have to be slightly larger and I undid the stripes and pearls..)

And then the dress was mostly done. As I removed the undergarment sleeves from the undergarment and sew those into the main dress to make sure they stay in place, I also decided to do something similar with the undergarment visible under the bodice. I used pre-gathered lace for the most part and in the front, I sew rectangular piece of fabric, with elastic ribbon and pre-gathered lace. All done by hand. Worked well enough.

Then came the accessories. The main thing was the wig. I ordered two different blond wigs - one with lace front, other without it but slightly more yellowish tone and slightly longer. While they were on post, I started to work on the netted caul. The pattern I used for the base dress came with a guide for the caul. I thought it was going to be short, considering the refrence for the headstyle I had.

 

So, I made it larger at one end. I used a pillow as my base for working and used pins to position the same silver thread I used in the dress to make the net. When the base was set using pins, at every junction, I had to sew the pearl and sew the junction together. Again, it took ages to do it. But in the end, I actually had the net and pearls. It tooks lot of pearls. Then, I used the same green ribbon I used thousands times with this dress again to do the sides. It is a nice little piece of caul that I got but it took hours to make.

 Then I got my wigs. I decided to go with the lace one as I thought it will be easier to do the hair line as the hairstyle was drawn back. I did few not so successful tries trying to figure out how the hairstyle could be made (I mean - I saw it on the reference images but it was not so easy to redo it. I started to get quite desperate at one point. I mean - I can sew. I have learned so many new aspects with this projects but hairdressing.. I now need to learn this).

Oo my.. it looks almost brownish on this photo

So, again, few hours of research and I decided not to start with the braided hair at the top but to curls at the bottom. Then I just tried to add a lot of volume to the wig and figure out how much hair I can use for the braids. I handsew the caul into the wig to keep it in place and it most have been 101 try with the braids when it started to look like it actually reminds me what I see on the reference. To be honest, wig was nightmare. And I have no idea what I can do to gain more skill in the field. I guess it will be testing and testing and testing.

 

I also added two small ribbons of green with pearls at the bottom of the wig. i did not sew them in (as it thought it will not work). So, on the con, acutally, i was losing one of the ribbons all the time.. somehow I always found it and asked someone to put it back.

The jewellery. I did not made the details myself. I spent hours in web trying to find close as possible components. I think I am 99% happy with what I found. Not all of those components were on the right color. The jewels were most off. So, I bought some transparent glass colors (the jewels were plastic but I thought it will work) that were meant to stick after you heat them in oven. I could not heat plastic in oven so I just hoped it will work and add this kind of more bluish feeling to the color. It worked brilliantly. And due to the fact that I had multiply colors (blue, black, white), I was able to mix different shades and the result was much better than it could have ever been with purchased colored items.

I colored the jewels and beads, I put it all together using small wire, clewed in the endings, tried it on and realized it was too long. Damn super clew! It was hard to take it a part, remove few beads and do it again. But the result was good. I am super happy about the earrings as I do not have piercings I managed to find components that look like piercing but actually are not


The final element that I missed was the ring but I was off for a conference just before the con and I did not managed to deal with it. Luckily, while on conference, I managed to do some shopping and find very similar ring for just few pounds.

Final set of jewelry

• Start
• Main dress
• Sleeves
• Decorations: Wig, jewelry and pearls
• On convention 

Lucrezia Borgia dress - start

So, I would say that my first ever really big and complex cosplay project is Lucrezia Borgia dress from Borgias. I missed one year of Animatsuri due to being in Japan duing my research for PhD but as I came back in the end of 2015, I knew I can come to Animatsuri in 2016 and I really wanted to take part of the cosplay competition now when I had seen the event once (2014).

Back then I did really simple cosplay just to wear (and blend in more - as I felt totally out of place) - Irisiviel from Fate/Zero. (The first blog post in this blog is actually about this costume.. I never actually finished that series )

Photo: Kristiina Saar

I loved the char, I loved the anime and I loved the costume but it taught me a lot about cosplay. It does not matter so much how precise they details are if the costume itself is very simple. More elaborate the costume, more attention it gets. The first event taught me that attention actually matters and details matter a lot. So, for my first real try with cosplay I decided to go with Lucrezia.

Why her? First of all, anime is actually not my thing. Animatsuri and all the anime fests, they are great places to wear costumes but that's it. First I thought that you can only cosplay anime but more I learned about cosplay I realized I can do whatever I want. It doesn't have to be anime nor connected with Japan at all nor from game. I can also cosplay movies and shows.

I have always wanted to do renaissance dress almost as badly as I have wanted to do English Elizabethian time period costumes. When I had made up my mind that it will be one of those time periods, I knew it is going to be Lucrezia from The Borgias. I always loved that show for the costumes. Even when I knew the characther and show, the exact costume was much more complex.

Lucrezia wears so many fancy costumes during the shows three seasons that I had hard trouble finding my favorite. You can see and read about all the costumes here. My choice in the end was down to three dresses (the one I chose, the wedding dress and I am not sure what was the third one.. blue dress from season2 maybe). The main factor was that I really liked the ribbon sleeves. So, in the end, I went with the dress she wears in the end of season 2 and the start of season 3. It is this kind of mint green dress (I think) with lovely sleeves and lot of pearls as decorations.

So, now when i knew which dress I want to make, the next step was finding the pattern and fabric. Pattern was easy. I went with simplicity's Renaissance pattern.

I used the main pattern (on the left on preview) as a base but to be honest, I needed very little of it and I could have done it without it. The bodice was the only thing where I used the pattern and I modified it heavily to fit the pattern of the Lucrezia's dress.

The next step was the fabric. The problem was the color of the dress. There are three good quality stills:

 

 

So those were my reference images. In the top images, (season 3) the dress looks goldish, in bottom image (season 2) it looks greenish. There is another dress that looks to be the same dress with slightly modified sleeves worn also in season 2 that looks totally blue (shot during the day). So I had no idea should the dress be blue, green or golden. Also, as green is hard color to photograph and the silk reflects a lot of light, I did a little trial and error with different fabrics and light conditions and took photos until I got a fabric that gave me the most similar result to the dancing image (that i think as yellow but more neutral lightning than season 3 images).

So, I had my green fabric but the pattern was problematic. I tried to find something with similar pattern. I actually even found something but it was silver fabric. So, it would have gone with bluish tones but not with the nice warmer mint green I had. So, I decided to make the pattern myself and I do not regret that at all! This is the only way I could get exact copy of the pattern used on the show.

Pattern tile cretaed in Photoshop

So, I just used the middle reference image as it had largest resolution, zoomed in and recreated the pattern in Photoshop. I used a company that can print your own fabrics. Its not very cheap but much better than using the stamping method I used with Jacob Frye costume. The result was amazing but...

Two size tries and first test-print - totally too brown so I added more blueishness

Drawing the patterns was just time consuming and despite having good resolution sometimes it was quite hard to see the exact details and figure out the exact size. i think I managed to get close enough. (Also, in the end, I needed to transform the drawing to vector so there was extra task of learing how to use vectors and modify them)

First print - it was brown on test run and now it is totally blue. Nooooo.. But it was so nice to get a block of your own designed fabric. Loved it :D

The mint green I used in the end and another jade color fabric at right. I considered using the jade fabric but it did not fit with the blue either. So - I spent twice the money to do another print (fabric was cheap but the printing :S Lesson learned: do test prints until you are happy despite it takes time)

It took me two tries to get the right color. I used the exact same kind of fabric for the base of the pattern than the mint green. It is not pure white but has slight warm yellowish tone. So, thinking of printing technology, I first made the pattern slightly more bluish (after testrun that gave me brown instead of green) thinking the yellow will have an effect. The answer was - the yellow had minimum effect but the blue came out so so strong that it did not fit at all. I had just printed almost 3 meters of fabric that I could not use. I was not happy at all.

Plenty of test runs and final fabric with right kind of green

So, I had to go back (that was effort by itself as the company was off the beaten track) and the lady there did many trial prints to get the right color. Despite having the color guidance and printout on paper, they looked different on fabric. Anyway, in the end I had the right color. It was maybe slightly stronger than I would have liked but the printing machine had limits and as I have seen so many times with design works before - printing green is nightmare.

Anyway. Now I had both green and pattern fabric and I was ready to make the dress:

• Start
• Main dress
• Sleeves
• Decorations: Wig, jewelry and pearls
• On convention