One day in town... with cosplay in mind!

 Hi everyone!

Sorry this post is actually from 28th May, I didn't have time to write it earlier so now I'm writing it in the middle of the night.
So today I finished school very early and instead of walking to town and directly taking the bus home I decided to look around for cosplay stuff. The cosplay stress has been gnawing inside me very much the last day and it didn't help when I realized Desucon is not this weekend but the weekend after that... oh mama save me.

Oh well, when I got to the shopping center I went into Tiimari and the bookstore.. Tiimari didn't have anything for my cosplay needs (and even if they had I could probably find the item for half the price somewhere else...) but from the bookstore I bought some black thin round elastic band. I will use it for his bead bracelet. He only has it on his left hand.

Oh yes, bad guys have nail polish ~

Öblöblöb.. err, then I went into Citymarket (general big store with food, clothes, make-up etc) and bought a bag of make-up sponges and Herbina brand fragrance-free hair spray. Both of course for cosplay purposes... and the hair spray I'm not even going to use on hair... it's going on my face. I'm so cheap I don't buy proper make-up sealers. lol

After that I left the shopping center and headed for a second-hand store, the one I'm most familiar with. I was looking for some shoes with a slightly upwards pointing 'nose' that I could modify... had no luck. Went to the next second-hand market that is called Vaarin Vintti ("grandpa's attic") where I've only been, hmm, three or four times now I think. The judo jacket I saw there weeks ago was still for sale, 10 € lol. Oh well, I was looking for shoes, not judo jackets! But I didn't find any good enough shoes.. everything that was semi-ok (not pointy though.. so still kinda wrong) was too small for me and when I found one with right size it was way off in design. I looked around the whole place at least three times to make sure I didn't miss anything.. I didn't. Bleh.
So after I had dug through the two second-hand stores I knew of in town I decided to try and find again that one fabric store I found last Saturday when I was in town with a new friend. Turned out said fabric store was in front of me when I was standing facing away from the other second-hand store's entrance. The fabric store mostly only had curtain fabrics and not so much clothing fabric... but I found a yellow brown-ish kinda mustard-y but not quite colored fabric that could maaaaybe work for Ichito's obi. I got a free test piece of it. Yay.

It doesn't want to photograph it's real color.. it's not that shiny and a bit more yellow (flash photo)

After that I started walking down a street I had not walked down before and when I got to the corner I passed by something that looked like a third second-hand store... with the exception that I didn't even know of its existence until I walked by it, stopped right in my tracks and went inside. XD
I didn't have to search for many minutes before I found the shoe part of the store... and my eyes spotted these beige mocca-ish (I guess) shoes with a nice upward-ish nose. It's not sharp but at least it points upwards. I tried one of them on and noticed they seemed just a tiny bit too small but still okay. These were by far the best shoe candidates I had seen today (and only cost 5 € and were in good shape) so I decided to buy them. Hey I'm running out of time and I highly doubt I'd find something better for this emergency so let's go with these. As the Finns say, "cosplay ilman tuskaa on teeskentelyä" which translates to something like "cosplay without pain is pretending".

Close enough shoes... now just to make them green somehow...

After that I paid a visit to another fabric store, this time searching for a dark blue fabric for Ichito's kimono. I found one that I thought was fitting so I ended up getting 3 meters of it, lol the store owner was soooo confused when I tried to explain I was doing a kimono and I wanted it done a certain way... guess that's why mom was like "lol you bought like 1 meter too much fabric, she either tricked you into buying more or is just generally bad at what she's doing". Yeah, mom used to own a fabric store too... I tried to call her prior to buying but she didn't answer ahjfsgjad. Oh well, I at least have extra fabric if I mess up... and if I don't I probably have enough to make a vest or something like that. *shrugs* 
I also bought a tiny bit of this light gray very stretchy fabric because I figured gray elastic bands do not exist, just white and black ones. I will use that gray fabric for his eye wrap thingies and possibly even hair tie.

Let's finish with a photo of the rest of the purchases of today:

Make-up sponges, hair spray, black elastic band, gray stretchy fabric, dark blue fabric.

Goodbye for now!

Ichito's 'flap' pt.5

Woah, feels like I've been working on this thing forever... and I'm still not done. :c

Oh well, today I got the bottom of the front 'flap' sewn closed so a little bit closer to finish it. So I started by folding in the edges like I did on the back piece some time ago. I had started sewing it closed half-way when I noticed that it derped.

Not cool...

Turned out the lining is a bit too short so the white fabric made this fugly bump in the corner that was just eww do not want.

So my plan A didn't work out on the front as well as it did on the back piece. Let me show:

My original plan (finished back piece)

So when that didn't work I went and asked mom for advice and she said to try and fold the front (with the paintings) over to the lining side and nothing more. It did seem to work after a pinning test.

Pinning front to check...

And then just sew. I folded in the excess lining neatly (it was longer) and then folded the front slightly over the folded lining.

Lining side of the front

Front of the... well, front

After that I stroked the lining to try and get out bumps and shit and pinned it in place, at the top part, so that later I can sew the lining completely attached.

Pinning lining..

But I have one problem... I can't decide do I want to do a wide elastic on the top so it stays on my hips or if I want to do some kind of ties...

Sayonara!

I'm ready for Uppcon! + Desucon panic

 Alrighty, so I just bought err, mom bought a train ticket to Uppcon (or well, actually to my dad's town because I'll be sleeping there) so now I have the sleeping place, con ticket and train ticket ready! Now only to finish the cosplays in time...
Oh, and you guys have no clue how stressed I am for Desucon!!

I only have 12 days to finish one and a half cosplay pretty much and during that same time I need to deal with my final school rush too lol. Wish me luck... I'll be needing it.

Bye!

Animecon cosplay plans + con ticket arrived!

Here is my Animecon (14-15 July 2012, Kuopio, Finland) cosplay plans!

Saturday

Character: Masamune Date (kimono version)

Series: Sengoku Basara

Ah sweet, this will be my first Sengoku Basara cosplay ever! For not too long time ago I watched the anime and I found it really enjoyable actually. Masamune and Hanbei are my favorite characters and I will eventually cosplay both of them, but for now I'll start my journey into the Basara world by doing kimono!Masamune. Small steps now and next year badumtssh armor version! I will be part of a cosplay group with some other Sengoku Basara cosplayers, both friends and new people! I'm excited!

Sunday

Character: Hajime Saitou

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan

I'm in a total Hakuouki obsession currently! For Animecon I decided I'm probably going to be Saitou so that he will be seen in both Sweden and Finland at least once this year. It seems that two of my friends (who will also cosplay Sengoku Basara the other day) will also cosplay Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan characters on Sunday so we will hopefully have a mini group. Yay!

_________________________________________________

This pretty thing arrived today:

Con ticket yayness~

I am so hyped! Now I just need to order the train tickets to Kuopio and back and then it's shalalalala~

Immortal spirit's ninja pants pt.4

Finished my 'ninja pants' today!

So here is today's progress ~
First off I continued with the ties. I ironed them prior to sewing to make life a bit easier.

Ironed and ready for the sewing machine

Started sewing, folding in the edges...

 And several meters of ties later I just had left to pin it onto the pant's top part and sew it on.

Front pinned

I made sure to cover the "pleat seam" on both the front and back. That's why the ties are not as wide on the body...

Front sewn (back pinned)

And after that I had a pair of almost complete 'ninja pants' for our immortal but kinda psycho spirit.. namely Ichito. xD

Front

Side-ish

Back-ish

Now I need to make the feet wrappings and also finish the 'flap' and after that I'm off to try and find another dark blue fabric for his kimono because, as I said earlier, I didn't find more of that one we already had at home. So I will most likely have to buy a whole different fabric.

See ya!

I'm coming to Animecon!

Hi!

I just ordered myself a ticket from Urumi's online shop, I'm coming ~
At first I thought I won't attend Animecon this year because I already have planned 4 other cons for the summer but... damn my awesome friends Jäärä and Zkitsune are going there and I just thought that "fuck, I'm coming too!" because I want to meet with them and see their Animecon cosplays so bad and sfhjgkfhks! Luckily pre-order train tickets to Kuopio are pretty cheap (only about 35 € there and same amount back) even on adult price...

Cosplay plan list will be up as soon as I know for sure on which day the Sengoku Basara group will be...

Immortal spirit's ninja pants pt.3

Hi everyone!

Remember earlier when I said that after I'd finish the eyepatch I'd continue working on the hakama? Well...

I LIED

Oh well, I made progress today instead. So it's all good.
Earlier I had tried to sew a straight seam all around the pant legs and tried to pull the thread so that the fabric would wrinkle... but it turned out to be a major pain in the butt so I decided to hell with it and let's just do lots of pleats instead...

Pleating, pleating...

I think it took... 4 or 5 tries before I got both the pleated pant leg and the 'feet tube' to match. 50 cm around. I test pinned them together to see that they actually did fit.

Test pinning

retard!ninja pants. One leg sewn, other untouched...

After that I repeated the steps for the other pant leg. That one didn't take as many tries to get right. Good. When that was done I took in the "feet tubes" because they were a bit big at the ankle and up.

Take a bit in so it fits better...

And then mom helped me cut out four pieces of the same fabric for the ties. I zigzaged around the edges and sewed three of them together at the ends so I had one super long tie and one short. The short one will be for the back and the long one for the front.

Ties

After that I got tired of sewing so I decided to quit for today. Hopefully tomorrow I will finish the ties and attach them to my 'ninja pants' so I can actually wear them.

Bye.