Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Good Thing I Love Her

My niece has asked me to sew a costume for her to wear at Comicon being held in New York next month. Yes, in a couple of weeks. I'm also in the middle of sewing for a design competition for Peggy Sager's ETAC event next month. I don't have time to make this costume. However, I love her so I said yes.


I'm starting out with a pattern from the Kwik Sew Bathing Suit Master Book and traced the leg portion of a Kwik Sew leggings pattern and added a toe. I sewed it up in a knit to test the fit, so now I have to alter the swimsuit pattern to have the straps and then make a skirt and belt. She has a cute young body so yes, it will be cut that close to her breast. Oh, to be in my 20's again.

I'm not sure why I always put myself under such time restraints. But then again, I always do my best work under pressure.

Does anyone know of a gold trim I could use on the suit and skirt that would stretch with the nylon lycra I'm making them out of? We bought gold braid and that will be good on the armor since we're using a ponte roma poly fabric stiffened with peltec. The gold braid won't stretch, however. I'm sort of stuck on how to handle that part of this costume. Any help you can offer would be very much appreciated.

5 comments:

  1. A non-stretch trim can be attached to a stretch base by just tacking it in a few places. With the garment on the person, attach or pin the trim (carefully) to the garment -- this way the base is stretched and the trim is not. By tacking every few inches, the trim is allowed to loop off the fabric rather than bunch up excessively.

    There should be plenty of ease to put the garment on, because the trim was attached at the dimension of the body. You might run into trouble if there is trim around the waist that needs to stretch over the hips. (I can't tell from the picture whether the gold around the waist is a separate belt or attached to the underlying garment).

    On the flip side, because the trim is attached while the garment is on the body, it shouldn't be baggy, and it shouldn't take too long, thanks to tacking every four-ish inches instead of all the way along.

    I hope that long description made sense! It's a tried and true method from my childhood for attaching sequins to leotards for dance performances.

    Good luck!

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  2. Thats an interesting challenge! How about gold elastic, or ecru elastic panited with gold fabric paint? (P.S. this new font is easier to read thank you!)

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  3. You are a nice aunt! I know there is gold elastic, but she might want something fancier than that, in which case I recommend Caroline's method (if the waist trim needs to go over the hips, you can put a hook and eye on the trim at CB, leaving about 4 inches of trim untacked on either side).

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  4. If it really has to stretch a lot, couldn't you make a fabric tube trim from some gold metallic spandex like this one?

    http://www.distinctivefabric.com/fabric.php?product=METALSPANDEX

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  5. What a good aunt you are! Hope you find some gold elastic trim, I'm sure the costume will be smashing. I'm hoping to get a ticket to NY Comic Con and will be on the lookout for her!

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