Boot Testing & Unexpected Leggings

A costume. Well, most of a costume. That needs some detail work.

Well, all of a sudden, I am one glove and some finishing work away from a finished multi-piece costume. How about that?

I got the printed fabric for the leggings really fast, and so threw those together this morning. (That is such a fast pattern to sew!) I decided to go ahead and put together what I have, minus the mask.

I need to sew the other glove, hem the gloves, fix and hem the tops of the boots (I just cut these off of the ill-fated bodysuit I sewed a while back), finish the eyes for the mask, hem the top of the collar, finish off the hem of the shirt, and add Velcro to secure the shirt to pants and boots to pants (I think I can do without Velcro for the glove<–>sleeve connection). So–practically done, right? (Oh, I forgot I need soles for the sock-boots too…)

Speaking of sock-boots, don’t think that I have forgotten the tutorial! I was doing some tweaking and testing of my boot pattern today. I just wasn’t feeling to confident about my instructions, partly because I have never sewn from them in their exact form (again, the boots above are from the bodysuit pattern, while the ones in the tutorial are my own pattern).

To test what I’m working on, I used some spare fabric from the leggings printing to rough out a sock-boot from my newly modified pattern. I did this the old-fashioned way, making a paper pattern, tracing onto the fabric, and then using permanent marker for the test web lines. The pattern under the boots below is an old version, so ignore that!

The pattern itself works fairly well, except that I need to make it longer/taller to give it a better chance of staying up on its own. The best knowledge from this mock-up came from drawing the lines and seeing where they fell. Now I think I am closer to having a good idea of how to do the lines for the digital pattern to get it to come out right in the final printing.

So…stay tuned and stuff.

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!

 

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.