It's done with mirrors!

[ladyofthethread]

Yay! I now have a full length mirror for my sewing room! My father had a big piece of plastic mirror cut at the store and even made little plastic brackets so he could hang it on the back of the door without drilling holes into the mirror itself. ^_^ My brother was complaining that it’s not completely flat against the door though and that it makes me look thinner as a result. :-P Also got some pretty curtains on sale for the sewing room but haven’t hung them yet.

The clothes for D’s new costume are nearly done and they look great. ^_^ I finished the tabard and now I just have to make the sash.

However… ARGH! I’m having pearl issues again and wondering if I picked the wrong thing when I got those light blue pearls. >_< I figured I should get a lighter color after finding the medium green pearls I did my first set of necklaces with came off looking very dark on camera. But seeing everything that I have now, the light blue kind of looks out of place with all the rich colors; I think it’s too pastel next to all the more saturated colors in the fabrics so I’m wondering if I need to go out and get another color.

And I’m finding that the weight of the pearls is making my layers bunch up unattractively on the right side of the costume. -_-; Going by the reference , the shortest strand should loop around the skirts with the ends at the left side of the waist and the center dipping down to about knee level while the longest goes down to the lower calf. That’s how long I’ve made my strands and the weight, especially on the longer strands, is pulling all the fabric against my legs and wrecking the A-line shape the skirts should have.

I’m annoyed because stringing pearls should have been one of the easier parts of the costume. >_< But I need a few sizes and resin pearls don’t seem to come in color larger than 8mm, which are too small to be the proper scale. (I’ve only been able to find the bigger ones in white, cream, and black and I don’t think any of those would be the best with my colors either.) So, that only leaves me with glass and Swarovski since they come in larger sizes and colors. My options seem to be either shorter strands or smaller pearls, neither of which would be as accurate. Suggestions on what to do, anyone?

Still tempted to try to put together that Kaleido Star costume I mentioned last week in time for NYAF. It’s this one:



I doubt anyone would know who the heck I’m supposed to be since Sarah doesn’t get much screen time in her stage costumes. XD; (Hmm… I wonder if anyone has even cosplayed Sarah before. I’ve never seen one and Kaleido Star cosplay in general is rare.) But it’s a pretty design and possibly doable within a few weeks. Plus, I should be able to cosplay the series with Carrie at some point in the future since she’s making a Sora costume. ^_^

Comments

[ladyofthethread.livejournal.com]

I wondered about using stiff wire but I think it would look awkward if I ever wanted to sit or do another non-standing pose. ^_^; I’m not that worried about how well individual pearls will show in full length pictures but about whether the entire strands are reasonably visible. From the costumes I’ve done before, I’ve found that even half inch wide trims can become barely visible in photos and it’s been a point of frustration for me. :-/ I might try going down to 10mm beads for the waist strands (the ones I have now are 12mm) but I really don’t want to go smaller than that.

Yep, I have the underskirt already. It was the first thing I made for the costume. I made it huge though so that I could do kneeling poses like the one from the manga. I think it was something like 90 inches of material gathered with an elastic waistband so I’m not sure how effectively I could poof it out without it showing a lot through the slits in the outer layers. I don’t want to come off looking like I’m wearing a ballgown. ^_^;;

The little capelet/hood is one of the main reasons I’m thinking of doing that costume now. It’s been getting cold here and that looks like it would be cozy to wear. ^_^ Kaleido Star does have a lot of nice costumes but yeah, it doesn’t seem to get cosplayed much.

[novaraven.livejournal.com]

To be honest I haven't even looked for pearls for my robe yet. I'm assuming the usual bead store will have what I need in ivory since it's a common colour. Last time I used the cheap plastic Xmas ones (10 mm size) because that's all I had around. It was a week before thing for the xmas con last year. ><

Do you really think 10 mm is too small to show up in pics as pearls? http://images.cosplay.com/showphoto.php?photo=933840

I though they were ok, but I do agree that nicer pearls would be better for a hall cosplay. Especially if it's entered in judging. ^^;

[ladyofthethread.livejournal.com]

Well, I think 10mm is the smallest I should go for the waist strands. I seem bad at guessing how things will show up on camera and usually end up doing my details too small to show well so I really don’t want to use anything smaller than that. It’s annoying because the colored plastic ones I can get here only go up to 8mm, just one size smaller than that. -_-

Yeah, I definitely want to get it judged at some point since I’ve put a lot of work into it. Probably at Boston since I’ve decided against doing it at NYAF. And I’d like to take it onstage so larger pearls would be good in that case so that they’re more visible. ^_^;

[novaraven.livejournal.com]

coloured pearls seem to be a pain to find. I've been checking out some of the wholesale places online but I can't find anything in colours that size unless they're glass. I think you may be stuck with painting them yourself to get the colour or just living with the hazard of adjusting your robe every five seconds.

I'm having a problem with my dragon. He wants to coil his tail the same way as the waist pearls are hanging and I think he'll get very tangled. Right now his head is over my right shoulder and his tail wraps around me on the left. I can't have his head on my left shoulder because I need to have him attach for supporting most of his weight on that shoulder since I'm right handed. If his head was on my left that means he'd be supporting his weight on my right and I wouldn't be abel to use my right arm much.

*head desk* Pets are such a challenge! I may have to attach the pearl strands via a brooch that I can remove when I have my dragon with me. Thats the only solution I can think of right now.

[ladyofthethread.livejournal.com]

Sorry for taking so long to answer. ^_^;

The way I’ve done my pearl strands is that I’ve put a huge lobster clasp on both ends of each strand. Then, I wear a tightly cinched belt over my robe and thread a metal ring (one of those “D” shaped ones you sometimes find in the sewing notions section of a store) onto the belt at the side. I use the lobster clasps to clip the strands to the ring on the belt and everything gets hidden by the sash. Doing it this way also prevents the weight of the beads from pulling on the robe at the left side and dragging it down. ^_^

Yeah, larger colored pearls are a pain to find if you don’t want them in glass or crystal. -_-; I’ve looked around a lot and they don’t seem to exist in plastic. Sometimes, I’ll see some in costume jewelry but it’s too expensive to buy and tear up for the beads since so many are needed for the strands. I just gave up on the pearls and bought gold acrylic beads instead. I got 14mm for the long strands and 8-12mm for the necklaces. I hope it doesn’t look too gaudy but they seem to show well.

Hmm… *tries to picture the dragon problem* Could you maybe attach a bracelet to his tail and slip it onto your wrist after coiling the tail around your arm? Having something to help hold the tail in place might prevent it from getting tangled in the pearls.