Fitting of Sakura

Here are  the promised pictures of Sakura fitting. Little Haa-chan looked so adorable in it!

In the first one we are testing how to shut the sleeve opening because of a calculation mistake the sleeve opening was smaller than it should have been. We were not able to get the "pouf" into the sleeve because of this. Also the collar needs adjusting. Those sleeves are really heavy and they look like they are pulling the dress off the little Haa-chan!

 The sleeve we left open for the fitting to test how well she could move her hands.

 Back with the unfinished train embroidery. Sorry about the mess on the table.

The back sat so nicely on her.

 And one very happy cosplayer! You can see how differently those two sleeves are sitting on her. Now to hunt for the wig!

Sakura's dress near complited

Sakura's dress is close to completion. To my dissapointment the bell sleeves were found too small to attach properly to the body of the dress, but with two weeks to the deadline of three costumes, I do not have time to redo them yet. The cosplayer of Sakura is visiting us this weekend, so I'll update fitting pictures then. I am dissapointed about the sleeves thou, but I'll need to redo them later.

Just a little update!

Just updating here on where I'm going with the outfits.

- Sakura's dress is coming along nicely, only the sleeves are missing because I ran out of ribbon again.

- Fai's kimono is not coming along nicely, we are hardly on speaking terms. How is it that with Sakura's dress, which is ultimately more complicated than 8 rectangular pieces of fabric, I had no difficulties whatsoever?! As soon as I sew one seam, I notice that I have to rip open another to do adjustments. Blah.

Back to work now...

Starting with Fai

Since I was unable to continue the Sakura dress as the store had run out of the gold ribbon I decided to start Fai's kimono. To make the cutting quicker I lined the top fabric and the lining fabric on top of each other on our living room floor. I got the fabrics nicely lined up and then...

Kiki decided there was something immensly curious underneath the fabrics.

After 200 bells...

So, over somewhat 200 bells... 177 are on the "half hem" on the back. Now all I can do is the bead embroidery on the cherry blossoms, because my local handcraft store had run out of the gold ribbon I've been using and it takes about 2-3 weeks for them to restock.

Jingle Bells

Sakura's dress got it's first jingly bells!

Jingle bells!

 You can see the fabric paint peeking under the seam. It looks so much lighter on camera, but it's much darker in real life.

 The cosplayer herself stitched the bells to the lace (with the aid of Fai's cosplayer). First one on the left is mine, I stitched one up to show her how it's done.

Undersleeves beginning to look finished.

Kiki thought the train was the most intersting thing ever.

Getting ready to be bell'd up!

Tomorrow I'm having a friend coming in to help me, so I made the "flaps" ready to be bell'd. I found a nice pink lace ribbon in our local handcrafts store and we are attaching the bells onto it.

Here's the pictures!

Kiki was found napping in the fabric bag.

Drafting the front piece.

Kiki finding the unfinished sleeves a better place to sleep.

After 4 coats of fabric paint I gave up on trying to paint the cherry blossoms and cut them from the light pink fabric.

Close-up of the pinned cherry blossoms.

After they have been sewed on.

Close-up of the sewed cherry blossom. There's two layers of hardening fabric inside the top.

Gold layers added.

The pink lace waiting for the bells.

Drafting the train.

Finished train

Close-up photo.

Tomorrow I can show the images of the added bells.

Peak at Sakura's sleeves

 I got Sakura's collars sewn in a couple of days ago and started with the sleeves. It's rather hard to see the white bell sleeve on the left arm. I also realized that I need more of that dark red crépe taffeta I used for the collar. In the image the sleeves are only pinned into the doll to see the lenght.

Sakura's dress in beginning to take shape.

Kiki making sure I do not lose pattern pieces.