Uppcon is green!

Today I got my Uppcon ticket! So now I'm coming! 8D (even though bad date, rush after school ends~)
I will be sleeping at my father's place a bit outside Stockholm and my twin Jäätynyt Enkeli will keep me company at the con. Dad might drive us every morning or otherwise we'll take the train, haven't planned yet how we'll get to Uppsala.

My cosplay plans aren't set yet, but this is what I had in my mind:

Friday - Gin Ichimaru (Bleach)

Saturday - Ichito (Asaki, Yumemishi)

Sunday - Toshizo Hijikata (Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan)

I might change Hijikata for Okita, not sure yet.. it depends. And Ichito is not 100% sure either, but I want to do a BOOM unique/cool cosplay for Saturday. XD Yeah.. we'll see but this is what my plans look like at the moment.

Finishing Ichito's "jacket"

 Hiya!

So today I finished Ichito's "jacket" hitatare? chihaya? I don't know thingy.
First off I attached the sleeves to the body and then I just hemmed everything. I left the sleeves open on both sides and the body of the garment is fully open at the sides too.

Sleeves are on.

Huge sleeves...

After hemming everything I just had left to do those chest cord decoration thingies... so here's how I made them:

Draw the shape.

 First off I went to our outside storage and cut off a tiny square of this one leather-ish plum colored fabric. Then I took a reference and drew the shape of those flame/flower/whatever decorations and cut them out.

Sew them to the ribbons... (notice sewing machine left fugly marks on them -.-)

... and then sew them to the collar of the "jacket".

And then it was finished. Now I can just tie them whenever wearing it. Although I could have made those ribbons a bit longer mom pointed out, oh well.

Ah, lovely thing ~

Now I have left to do the obi, "flap" with higanbana design, dark blue kimono, tekkou, bracelet, tattsuke hakama-ish pants, feet wrappings, shoes, eyepatch... err... let's just say everything else. OTL

Bye bye!

Ichito sleeve progress pt.2

Alrighty everyone, I did the second sleeve today. Here's the breakdown!

Preparations for marking every buttonhole...

Close-up of the marking process. Dots.

After that I started to sew the buttonholes. Again. I had to install the memory thingy myself this time, it worked after some errors...

... and then I got one like this. It doesn't look anything like a buttonhole man. -.-

I kept doing them anyway and when I had finished a little bit more than half the sleeve...

.. I finally got the first perfect one. Finally.

But that joy didn't last long because of course directly after that perfect one...

IT MADE NOT ONE BUT THREE MEGA DERP BUTTONHOLES FFFFFFFF-

Okay, machines will never work like you want them do. For every job well done they will pay you back with three times shit. Don't trust them.

Problem?

I promise, it trolled me.

But that wasn't the end of the trolling... because it seems three derpholes wasn't enough....

FFFFFFFFFFFFOOUUURRRRRRRRRRRR!!!1 Need I say more?

But when I had almost finished the sleeve something impossible happened...

It suddenly did two perfect buttonholes. What the fuck.

Wow, this thing sure can't decide if it wants to be my friend or not... OTL

Oh well, 43 buttonholes later and some raging I made the slits and threaded ribbon through them, just like I did for the other sleeve yesterday night.

Ah, it's handy to have the whole roll.

And well, then I just tied and burned the ribbon ends and it was done. Here's one in-progress pic:

Not sure if gusta.

The sleeves aren't attached and stuff needs to be hemmed and, err... lots of stuff left. But I'll finish this sucker! 8D

That's all for this time, laterz!

Ichito sleeve progress pt.1

Ah, lovely. I actually did some cosplay progress today, go me!

So, well.. here's some explanations and photos of what I did today. Sorry in advance for the crappy lighting, it was late... err, it still is but whatever.

 Okay, so first off I had to figure out a lot of things and mom helped me count how many "full patterns" (read: every different "ribbon loop" before it started over again) I could fit into the sleeve and stuff... I suck at maths, big time. Then I had to decide how close to the arm opening I wanted the ribbon to run, how big I wanted the buttonholes to be and how long I wanted the "long part" and the "short part" of the ribbon to be and how-- ... screw it, my explanations make no sense anyway so I'll proceed to show pics instead. xD

Ah, mass producing buttonholes.

Mom helped me to check how the memory function on this black sewing machine worked and after I found this machine part explanation after some googling because we couldn't find the manual we got it to work. Yay. She then set the memory function to make same sized buttonholes and then showed me how to sew a few and then I took over.

Buttonholes, buttonholes, buttonholes... Did I say buttonholes?

After what felt like forever my huge-ass-sleeve was filled with buttonholes. Yay. Some of them ended up being mildly derpy when others were perfect. Hah, machines won't do perfect work all the time...

Poor innocent fabric gets cut...

After that I snipped off all the loose threads and began to make slits into the buttonholes so they became... well... buttonholes. Only I wouldn't be using them for buttons.

Ah, lovely blue ribbon. Now it looks better.

 After all the slits were done I just took that blue ribbon and threaded it through the sleeve, making sure it was loose enough to not bunch up. Then I just burned the ends and tied them together and then finito.

Tomorrow the other sleeve will receive the same treatment run sleeve run! and hopefully I'll get some better photos of the thing and maybe I'll even have time to attach the sleeves to the jacket-thingy-whatever-it-is (it looks a bit like a hitatare or chihaya I think...) but before that.. *yawns*

.. I'm off to bed. Night.

Chibicon 2012 behind + Next con

Chibicon came and went. It was a not-so-big con held at Oulu's Pohjankartano, Finland. Finally a con in the north, big plus for that from me.
I must say I was surprised how big the con building was, it was amazing to hold a con in! Hmm, let's see.. the con itself was nice and I had a good time. Nothing really to complain about. Although I must say the number of cosplayers was surprisingly small.. needless to say the camera running was minimal because, well, there simply wasn't so much to photograph. Oh well, it was to be expected because it was Chibicon after all.
About the merchandise, well, it was the standard con merchandise pretty much - mangas, plushies, figures, doujinshis and a booth for ramune and other Japanese treats. I didn't buy anything because I'm saving money for the summer cons and because I didn't find anything that made me go OMGMUSTBUYNOW.
 I also went and watched the FFFight and it was entertaining.. although I noticed the same people participating twice... *shrugs* I also attended the Sengoku Basara panel which was nice.

I went there with my friend Jäärä who came up to my place late on Thursday. On Friday we con prepped and tested our Chibicon cosplays; we had a photoshoot outside. Most photos turned out pretty high on the derp scale but I think we got some decent ones too. Here's a few pictures:

The Kuchikis and their plushies.

FLY. REACH THE HEAVENS SEAWEED MAN!

Jarmo, the Seaweed Ambassador, went flying. Yes, we named him Jarmo. At one point I accidentally tossed him over our terrace field... good thing he didn't fall into that hole behind the snow and the fence itself... would have been harder to get him up. lol

Yo, I'm fine man.

I will upload more photos to my cosplay.com account slowly the coming days, so if you're interested be sure to check it out.

•Next con•

The next con I'm going to attend will be Desucon in Lahti, 8-10 June. I'm already longing for it! Gotta continue working on the cosplays...

It seems Kemi's comic/manga day will be held 18-20 May so I will be there too. What cosplay I will wear I have not decided yet.. most likely I will recycle an older cosplay. I will inform later when I've decided which one.

Started working on Ichito

Pfhah. 

I Finally stopped procrastinating working on cosplays and actually did something.
Oh sweet, I have the whole April, May and beginning of June to fart out an Okita and Ichito cosplay from scratch.. here goes!
I decided to tackle Ichito first because he is the more complicated of them two and will take longer to make. Surprisingly when I showed mom a picture of him she went "oh god that's SO PRETTY!!". You know, I was pretty sure she'd kill me because it was yet another kimono wearing character.. but nope, she didn't.

Okay, so to my joy we already had 3 meters of white fabric lying around in the house that I could use for his "kimono jacket". It rocks to have a mom who used to own her own fabric store and be a former sewer... that means we have an outside storage full of leftover fabric and more sewing supplies than I can use up in my whole lifetime. XD Love you mom. lol

So, this is what I'm trying to make:

The game he is from is very unknown and err, I don't have many references to go by. But I'll find solutions to everything~

And well, this is my new friend, say hello to mom's overlocking machine!

Saumuri on hyvää puuta~

I've never used one of these things before and I was scared to use it at first but gosh, this thing makes sewing so much easier! It cuts of excess fabric automatically and it makes the seams look professional and stuff. I'll need to use it more in the future.

So, regarding the costume... me and mum cut out the pieces for his "jacket" today and it's starting to look as it should, but I still need to fold in the hems or what you call them, the edges. The collar is attached but the sleeves are not. No decorations are done yet and his flap thingy we haven't cut out. I'm sorry but I don't really have any progress pictures more than one shot of the sleeve.

Wide sleeve is wide.

Sorry not so much more to say, hopefully more progress photos next time!

Desucon 2012 cosplay plans!

Alrighty. Here comes my cosplay plans for Desucon in Lahti, Finland, 8-10 June 2012!

Friday 

Character: Jushiro Ukitake

Series: Bleach

It seems our Finnish Bleach group decided Friday to be our group's "main day" so I'll bring my signature cosplay, Ukitake, then. He is my favorite character from Bleach! I will do the default captain version complete with shikai swords.

Saturday

Character: Ichito

Series: Asaki, Yumemishi

Oh sweet Jesus. This will be one of the most obscure cosplay choices I'll ever do... but I don't care because I drool buckets over his design, period. I don't care that he's a cursed psychopathic immortal missunderstood forever alone spirit... he is awesome.

Sunday

Character: Souji Okita

Series: Hakuouki

Ah, Okita. One of my favorite shinsengumis, if not my favorite. I decided to do this version for now because it's a chill "Sunday cosplay" and yeah, Ichito will be quite some work... and I'm a procrastinator.