Finally, an easy-to-sew glove pattern & design that I like!

I never did figure out the right way to do the gloves on the bodysuit template. The best I managed was a cobbled together mess that covered up my hands, but that is a pretty rough definition of “glove.”

But by digitizing the simple trace-and-sew gloves pattern I found months ago and laying a design on it in Photoshop, I finally have gloves that will work with the suit. The gloves pattern fit on the same yard of fabric that included the latest shirt pattern, and it probably only all fit because the shirt was too short.

So…yay! Of course, I still have to sew the other glove, but no hurry. I have a bit of a wait for the lengthened shirt pattern.

Happy Friday everyone!

Returning to the Quest with a Successful Failure

You ever hear that phrase, “Always go with your first instinct?” Well…I’ve disproved it many times in my life (most especially in my dating life (and let me clarify that I mean my past dating life, in case my girlfriend is reading this)), but in the case of this latest Spider-Shirt, it is actually true.

I had initially designed it to be a good few inches longer, but then something made me think it would be too long, so I shortened it. Guess what? It’s too short. By a few inches.

But even still, I am actually very pleased with the way it came out other than that detail. It was very easy and relatively quick to put together. I did it in just a few hours last night, including having to tear out and re-do one stitch.

Other than the length, the fit is good, it looks good, the neck is more than high enough to work with the mask, I like the design…

I will have to re-work the length in the design file and re-do the shirt, of course, but this is clearly the first costume design that is ultimately going to work out in the end. So I am okay with that.

Yeah, I am going to call this a successful experiment in that there is a clear path forward to what works.

And once I get the kinks worked out with this traditional design, I can apply it to the Ditko design with even greater confidence.

Oh yeah, by the way, I’m back from my Japan trip. Been back a few days and–let me tell you, jet lag is a real thing, especially coming from a 13 hour time difference. Not that I doubted the existence of jet lag. I have just been surprised at how hard it hits and how long it takes to recover.

Anyway, I am obviously getting back into the sewing groove, but there will likely be gaps in between posts as I wait for the parts of the costume to arrive. Theoretically, I will have some in-between stuff to work on.

Today…back to work for the first time in over a week. I’m mostly ready. It’s just that “jumping into a cold pool” kind of phenomenon; once I’ve gotten that jump over with, it’ll be good to be in the water.

See you soon, everyone.

Long time no post, so here’s–well, something

It’s been a busy week. In addition to preparing for my upcoming trip to Japan (less than a week away!), I was in the midst of interviewing for and being offered the position of Digital Library Manager/VuFind System Administrator. So that should be interesting. There will mostly be preliminary stuff before I go to Japan, and then I actually officially assume the position (that didn’t sound right) while I’m gone.

Anyway…the point is, I haven’t done much sewing stuff. But I have mostly finished the design for the separate shirt for the traditional costume. I might do a few more tweaks, but it’s mostly ready.

If budget allows, I’d like to try and order it before I leave for Japan so that it’s here soon after I get back. Once I sew this and the gloves together, I theoretically (fingers crossed) will have the sewing done for the traditional costume. But then, I’ve thought I was almost done before!

Happy Sunday everyone!

Maybe Just a Little Sewing this Weekend…

I decided to go ahead and see what I could salvage from the traditional costume, and so set to work ripping some seams and removing zipppers, slicing and dicing…

Now I have a pair of high-waisted Spider-leggings:

I could probably take a little more off the top. If I do the shirt, it will have velcro along the bottom to attach to velcro along the line of the bottom of the red belt portion remaining on the impromptu leggings, to keep it snug and hide the leftover pattern of the former torso section.

I also now have a standalone mask, with a velcro-thingy to snug it in the back (the velcro area will mostly be hidden if I end up doing the shirt):

So, I feel like the work on this costume doesn’t have to be a total loss.

Anyway…happy Sunday everyone! Rest up for the week ahead!

 

Sigh… The Good News and the Bad News and a Sad-Funny Sewing Story

The Good News

On the one hand, there were several things I did a lot better in making this second version of the bodysuit. I got a bit better at recovering from mistakes, figuring out certain aspects of the pattern, zippers… And I got the thing more or less together with relatively minor flaws (mostly), some of them fixable:

The Bad News

So it’s just too bad that the thing doesn’t fit.

Why doesn’t it fit? Well, that’s probably a combination of my lack of knowledge and experience, and the inherent trickiness and lack of room for error in this template. Plus, I am not convinced that the sizing is quite right for the template. I adjusted it according to the instructions for my height, and did my best to adjust horizontally (no instructions for that). The horizontal part is probably my bad. It’s tricky to measure the shoulder and upper torso, the way it comes together there. But the height aspect seems so far off… I don’t know.

Theoretically, someone shorter and less broad-shouldered than me (like maybe a tall Hobbit?) could wear this, but it has enough flaws in the shoulder/armpit area that I won’t bother trying to pass it on (plus, I have other plans for it, as you’ll see below).

Regardless, I don’t see myself using this template in bodysuit form again anytime soon. I am feeling pretty good about my multi-piece design that I will be starting on soon. It is based on patterns I have actually sewn successfully before.

That’s right. This is far from over, Spidey costume. I’m not giving up.

In fact, if the Ditko version of the multi-piece costume goes well, I think that I can salvage a good bit of this traditional costume attempt. I can separate the mask and I think the leggings, and sew a shirt to match using the above-mentioned pattern. I already have gloves on the way. Then I could have a multi-piece (with boots attached) traditional costume as well. This would require some tweaking of the existing pieces, mainly involving removing zippers and re-sewing some seams before slicing it apart. But it’s doable.

The Funny-Sad Sewing Story

Now, switching back to the subject of the process of sewing this traditional costume… As I said, despite the overall disappointing ending to that process, I feel like there were some areas where I really improved my sewing skills. Installing zippers is one of those areas.

The main zipper install on this costume was a particularly impressive feat due to how it takes two corners (curvy corners, but still) at the bottom of the “belt” in back. I actually put off finishing the thing for a week or more due to the dread of that zipper install. But I buckled down and starting fighting with it, and…well, it wasn’t easy, and the whole time I was doing it I doubted that it would work at all, but in the end, it really wasn’t that bad. I installed one side, then the other, finishing stitching it, and then was dubiously test-zipping it for the first time, thinking “no way did this actually work.” And then…

I zipped the zipper pull right off the end near the unfinished armpit seam. Right off. Zipped it right off the tape.

I was aghast. I was so aghast I couldn’t even get properly enraged. I wasn’t happy, but I was just too flabbergasted at what I had done to get truly and fully angry.

As it turns out, it wasn’t impossible to get it back one, and with a bit of help from YouTube, I did. Of course, it turned out not to matter in the end, but still. It was a memorable moment of Triumph-Seeming Defeat-Triumph. Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat and so forth.

And even though I don’t have any desire to do a bodysuit style costume that requires zipper installation any time soon, I am not nearly as scared of zipper installs as I used to be! So there’s that.

Brief Partial Hiatus Followed by Longer Full Hiatus

There won’t be much cosplay action for me in the next couple of weeks. I don’t have the early pieces for my Ditko multi-piece yet, for one thing, but I also need to get serious about planning for my Japan trip (Japlanning, I call it).

Also, I have an interview coming up for the position of Manager in my department, so I should probably dedicate some thought and preparation to that.

I don’t imagine I will be sewing while I am in Japan, so this blog will lie dormant. However, you probably will hear from me in a different form during the Japan trip. I will probably do a travel blog. Maybe a Tumblr, since there will hopefully be a lot of photos.

Thanks for following, everyone! We’re not done here yet! (At least, not until I impoverish myself with this whole costume effort…How did that 17 year old Peter Parker afford to make costumes and web-shooters and web fluid?)

Ditko Multi-Piece Design, 4th Grade Homework, Unicorn Blood, & Flu Vaccines

Costume Stuff

I have completed work on the multi-piece Ditko design! (Boots and mask are off-screen in the above image.)

I will probably order the shirt portion in a week or two, which–along with the mask and boots that are part of the order in process–will leave just the leggings and gloves. The only thing I am a bit sad about is that the leggings and gloves portion will not fit into a yard’s worth of fabric, despite my rotating and rearranging. That doubles the cost for that portion.

I might be able to make the leggings shorter at the base, considering that the boots will cover that part anyway.  I need to do some fresh measuring and maybe some experimenting with the black leggings I made way back when.

The Non-Costume Stuff: Fourth Grade Homework, Unicorn Blood, & Flu Vaccines

As I mentioned before,  most of my available time has been in the early morning, when the noise of sewing is unwelcome in my household. The daytime hours are all about going to work, of course, and the evenings have been about squeezing in my workouts, runs, and the jump in homework time that my daughter is experiencing as part of starting fourth grade!

I also got my annual physical exam yesterday, as “encouraged” by my health insurance. I get strangely interested in my blood work results nowadays. Probably a sign of old age. (The results are all good, in case you were wondering. My blood is kind of like unicorn blood: immensely pure and possessed of magical healing properties.)

The doctor, as usual, encouraged me to get the flu vaccine. I have never gotten the flu vaccine. But then, I’m not sure that I’ve ever gotten the flu either. If I ever contracted the flu, it had to have been back in high school. I don’t see much reason to get the flu vaccine.

Here’s my logic:

A) Point: The flu virus evolves year to year
B) Point: Due to the evolution of the flu virus, the vaccine in a given year is a “best guess” vaccine based on last year’s flu strain.
C) Point: In any given year (to date), I will have not gotten the flu the previous year…
D) Therefore, my antibodies were sufficient to prevent the previous year’s flu strain.
E) Therefore, my body’s antibodies are at least as effective at preventing the flu as the current flu vaccine formulation.
F) Conclusion: There is no reason for me to get a flu vaccination.

I can’t claim that this theory is based on any real medical or scientific evidence. But it makes perfect sense to me. Plus, stating things like this to my girlfriend is always a fun way to make her shake her head and roll her eyes at me.

 Happy Hump Day Everyone!

Mostly Digital Progress…

I have the new fabric printing on the way, with the easier glove templates for the traditional costume and the standalone mask and boots for the Ditko suit for testing and hopeful final inclusion in that version. But I haven’t had a good block of time for sewing more of the traditional costume. I mean, not a good block of time when the rest of the house is awake and would not resent me for running the sewing machine. So I have been focusing on the modified template for the Ditko suit with separate shirt, leggings, etc.

This started out as just slicing up the existing bodysuit pattern, but now that I am a good bit through my second sewing of said bodysuit pattern, I am finding more and more reason to replace entire portions of it with patterns I have used at home.

For example, the shirt. The bodysuit pattern has the back side of the shirt split vertically. And because of the mask being connected at the neck, trying to slice the pattern into separate shirt and mask required having these odd and lonely neck/shoulder side pieces.

But there was just no good reason to deal with all that in a standalone shirt pattern. So I digitally re-created the paper shirt pattern I came up with way back when and adapted the webbing and color pattern to fit.

Also, considering that I have fought with the leggings portion (specifically the crotch/inseam) of the existing template twice now, I will be re-creating the leggings portion in the template using the slightly modified leggings template from Sew So Easy that I have had such success with in the past.

While I’m at it, I am going to use the simpler form of the gloves pattern. Ultimately, the only parts of the original template I will be using will be the mask (modified for separation), and the boots (modified for separation).

There are a couple of other advantages to doing the version with separate pieces. For one: No Zippers! Zippers stress me out. And the separate-pieces costume will be easier to get in and out of. Plus, I can order the fabric printings in smaller chunks. I can spread out the costs, and reorder replacement pieces if needed without having to reorder the whole thing (and redo just those pieces rather than the whole dang thing!).

Next weekend, I’m hoping to have time to finish off everything but the gloves on the traditional costume. The fabric printing with the gloves should come soon after that. Theoretically, I can have the traditional costume done before I leave for Japan. But there is a lot to do for that trip, so we’ll see!

The Crotchening Part 2: Redemption

There’s always a lot of debate about sequels, and whether they are ever better than the originals. I think that–as with so many things–you have to judge such things on an individual basis. Sometimes the sequel is as good in a different way, but other times it’s an obvious cash-grabbing abomination. And sometimes it’s better. Spider-Man 2 (Raimi series), the Dark Knight, Captain America: Winter Soldier…and the Crotchening Part 2.

If you haven’t seen the original Crotchening, check it out. Or don’t. It’s not that exciting. Basically, it was my first attempt at spandex leggings, and I ended up with major bunching issues at the crotch seams. It’s a kind of tragic tale because in this original Crotchening story, the crotch in question could not be saved. But in this new story of the Crotchening, there is a much happier ending. There is triumph.

Now, I should have taken a “before” pic, but I was too concerned with the problem at hand, i.e the fact that there was a small but unable-to-unsee crease front and center on the seam of the crotch, coming up about a half inch from the seam. I tried and tried to rationalize it away, to say it’s “not that bad.” Even my girlfriend tried to convince me that it was not a big deal.

But, no, it was a big deal. It was unacceptable.

So last night, I tweaked, picked at the seams, tried minor hacks and fixes, but these were either minimally helpful or just made it worse.  Finally, this morning, I decided that it was a do or die situation, and got out the scissors. Maybe if I cut out just the least amount of fabric possible so that I could re-sew that section of the seam… If it didn’t work, then this costume build was over halfway through.

Unbelievably, it did work. The crotch has been saved.

Oh, and I got other stuff done before that too:

The Mask/shoulders:

The Feet/legs:

There are still some pretty big steps to complete, but at least with the salvation of the crotch, I feel like it’s worth continuing to those next steps. I know it sounds a bit melodramatic, but when you’re wearing a skin-tight spandex bodysuit, you really don’t want to draw any more attention to the crotch than necessary.

As for today: I will be happy if I can successfully sew the gloves together. They gave me fits last time and never did turn out exactly right. I’m hoping the guide numbers/letters I had printed on the fabric this time will make it more clear.

One step at a time.

 

Traditional Spidey Costume Progress

So, even though I don’t feel like I got much done in overall terms, I got the hood zipper installed, which is a major load off my mind. Invisible zipper + Spandex + web pattern + curvy seam = major stress + much seam ripping and re-sewing!

Today, I hope to close off the seams above and below the hood zipper, and then sew this rear torso portion to the mask/front torso/legs main portion, which will have the mask, shoulders, and back done.

Until next time, true believers…

 

Let Me Explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up…

Update 1: Traditional Costume Fabric

So, finally, my new costume fabric with the “traditional” Spidey design is on the way, and should–fingers crossed–make it here in time for my 3 day weekend, i.e. when I actually have time to do something with it. Yay!

Update 2: Web-shooter Props

I was brainstorming “found” items to build web-shooter props, but I think I might actually make them mostly out of Worbla or another thermoplastic material. That way, I could get the size and appearance just right, including painting them with metal and leather finishes.

Update 3: Spider-Shoes

Did a little looking into shoes that I can cannibalize for the structure/soles of the Spider-Boots. I am starting out by looking for aqua shoes/aqua socks, because I like the sturdy rubber tread they have. Here is my best candidate so far: cheap, and they appear to have a toe and tread structure that could be separated (with the remainder to be discarded). The idea is to put the tread portion on the outside/bottom of the costume socks, and the toe structure under the costume socks, over my toes, to get the right shape.

Update 4: Eye Frames

While I am reasonably happy with my Worbla frames, I may look into an alternate bead-based thermoplastic that is more suitable for a mold that I could make out of clay. But I will have to be sure that the result would be a big enough improvement to be worth the effort.

Update 5: The Multi-Piece Ditko Style Design

I have been hard at work modifying the Photoshop template for the Ditko design so that I have a mask/shirt/gloves/pants/boots type of costume. I ran into some pretty uncertain territory modifying the existing torso/arms portion of the template, so I have switched to building my own shirt portion based on the design I have actually sewn before, and will adjust the colors/web pattern to fit. I feel much more confident about the shirt portion now.

That’s about it for now. I’m looking forward to getting the traditional costume started.

And for those with a three day weekend… Friday isn’t too far away!

And even if you don’t get to enjoy an extended weekend, or a weekend at all, try to give yourself some time to relax and enjoy. I recommend making a super hero costume.