Costuming for Others

On occasion I will sew costumes for other people.  This doesn't happen very often as I am lazy with my own sewing and am generally putting things together last minute.  This means I end up spending the three or four nights right before a con sewing in the wee hours of the morning so that I have a finished costume for the event.  But this doesn't mean I don't ever make costumes for other people.

These skirts were made for two friends of mine for Grande Masquerade 2011.  We were all performing together at the Toreador Salon and so we all wanted to coordinate.  The gold skirt is just a simple panel skirt (6 I believe).  The red skirt was made with the two slits up the front much like my white skirt (which I wore for the performance).  The red skirt just had a  simple elastic waist.  I also broke down Katherine's red dress (see previous post) and used it to line the skirt which turned out really nice.

I made this top to coordinate with the red skirt.  Sadly the person it was meant for lived in Arizona so I had no one to do fittings with and I ended up making it much to big.  It's a little big for me, but it's close so I plan to adjust it some and use it for myself.  I was really pleased with how it turned out.  It's lined with leftover cotton from my gypsy skirt.

This is actually the second costume I've made for V.  The first was a plain black cassock.  When I get a picture of it I will post it.  This is for a Victorian character he plays.  I made the coat and the Vest.  They both had welt pockets so that was a little bit of an undertaking but they turned out pretty decently considering it was the first time I ever made one and the directions were terrible and hard to follow.

I would like to start making more stuff for other people in the future especially now that my skills are much stronger than they used to be but my biggest problem is time.  I work all day and I don't have many free weekends.

The Early Years

My earliest costuming projects were mostly for the renaissance festival.  I went to my first one when I was 8 and in 2000 Louisiana started it's own.  I've never gone to one out of costume and over the years I began making my own pieces.  Since my skills were still pretty fresh this mostly consisted of skirts.

This skirt was originally paired with a green one underneath.  The top was hitched up in the front so you could see the underskirt.  I also had a while chemise and tan bodice with trim that matched this overskirt.  The pattern was made up of pine trees, stars and suns.  The coins are sewn where they are because I didn't have enough to sew around the hem.

The chemise was made by a friends mom and I was just borrowing it for the day.  The corset came from www.crimsongypsy.com and is exceptionally well made.  I still have it and it hardly shows any of it's wear and tear (I bought it in 2006).
Around the same time that I bought the corset I started pulling together a gypsy ensemble.  I made a full circle skirt, shown in the two pictures above, made from cotton.  It alternated unbleached white panels with a creamy yellow and red striped design (not shown).  I made it before I understood some basics about making skirts and the waist is extremely big.  It closes with a draw string.  That's my sister btw.

This was from the year that I worked at the archery booth.  It was bitterly cold (it even snowed that year) and we all had to wear a lot of layers.  I made a capelet from a crazy orange fabric with gold stripes that my sister found and it was lined with a similarly colored fleece that was cut from a 5 dollar Walmart blanket.  I did not make my Jayne hat.  It was bought at D*Con.