We are new to the whole cosplay world, only because we haven’t really been to any cons. Shane and I take Halloween very seriously, so cosplay is a natural progression (right?) Here is the beginning of my first serious cosplay costume: Merida!
Fabric: The fabric is a lightweight linen blend from JoAnn Fabrics. I can’t even begin to describe the color as I was stupid enough not to check the name. I know I have enough, though, I bought the whole bolt which had about half a yard more than the pattern called for. It really is the perfect color, you’ll see it shift throughout this blog with lighting, but it is pretty true to how it shifted in the movie too, so I’m super happy 🙂 The accents will be a slightly cream linen, that you see to the left of the first image.
Pattern: I selected McCall’s M5499. I spent an hour searching through the books for something that would be as close as possible, for the best price, knowing I’d have to change it a bit. I settled on McCall’s for a number of reasons, but mainly because I felt like the dress on the right by itself was very close to Merida’s, with the exception of the sleeves, which I knew I was going to have to drape and pattern myself. The back is a lace up. Not a corset-tight-as-possible look, but a relaxed-this-is-how-they-did-it-before-zippers look, which is exactly what Merida would have wanted.
On to some crappy photos of my first session!
That mirror is embarrassing, so please disregard how grimy it is. I was on a roll, so cleaning a mirror was not a priority. I used the shortening/lengthening areas of the pattern to place my waist, and it actually worked a lot better than the last time I tried to do it, so that’s cool. For me being so short, I cut the length as it was for then and it has since seemed to work out better than expected.
The SLEEVES. Ohmigod, the sleeves. First, I cut out the sleeve that was listed for the first dress (Not the one I was using with the bell sleeves). This I put on and marked where I wanted the sleeve sections to sit on my arm. I really should have paid attention to the amazing Merida blog by Angela Clayton, and maybe my life would have been easier, but I love to make things complicated that end up looking pretty decent, so there’s that.
Sidenote: Check out Angela’s effing gorgeous Merida here! http://doxiequeen1.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/the-making-of-a-merida-cosplay-brave-part-1/ (She makes her wig, which I just didn’t want to attempt for a first time.)
Here is my sleeve. I ended up starting with the two sections, then eyeballing in the right amount of puff for the cream parts and strips, pinning it all together and shoving it through my machine. I think that that was a good tactic…(Sarcasm) But, I am pretty happy with them overall.
You can see the original sleeve cut out at the top of the middle picture. That’s also about how much cream fabric went into the elbow, before I trimmed it off. The ruffles at the edge were made by ironing a length approximately 3x as long as my wrist width and then stitching it with no backstitching at the beginning or end with the longest, straightest stitch my machine could do. I then gathered it by tugging on one of the threads (Can’t remember if it ends up being the main thread or the bobbin thread), pinned it, and sewed it.
Thus ends my first session on Merida, I don’t expect this to serve as a tutorial, but I hope it is interesting and maybe helpful 🙂
-Kelsey
Cosplay and Chainmaille 