Quick project!

I’m going swing dancing with P and a motley crew of other people tonight. P’s picking me up around 7ish. Do I have time to make something to wear?

I don’t know, but I’m definitely going to try!

The question is…what shoes shall I wear?

Anju Maaka #5

Currently watching: Avatar season 2, episode #3:…can’t remember the episode name, but it’s awesome.

Ugh. This petticoat. This lovely, wonderful, obnoxious petticoat. I never want to see white satin again.

Henyways, I had to gather the five panels (!) and sew them to the waistband. The panels are so thick and heavy that I couldn’t sew them to one waistband, so I sewed 2 to one waistband and 3 to the other, then sewed them together at the top of the band.

Here’s me trying on my massive petticoat. (please forgive the hair)

 

And here’s a different shot.

It’s going to be even bigger once I put the elastic in. It’ll just be ginourmous!! Hopefully I can do the casing and elastic tonight during night watch, and get started on the jacket-dress too.

Oh, I’m tired.

Anju Maaka #4

Currently watching: Avatar season 1 episode #17: The Southern Air Temple

This’ll be quick, as I have to go make dinner. But here they are, all five petticoat panels. There’s not any ruffle trim…well, I didn’t do it quite right, and I have to wait until the petticoat is completely done. Oh, well.

Onto the waistband!

Anju Maaka #3

Currently watching: Avatar season 1 episode #13: The Blue Spirit

THIS IS GOING TO KILL ME.

So last night, I finished the edges of about half the ruffles when I went “Oh yeah, sleep. I’ll get up early tomorrow morning.”

Fast forward to 10:25 am. I awake after having a dream that I gave birth to quintuplets (3 girls and 2 boys), and that while I was asleep Patrick named the girls Ingrid, Gertrude, and Catalina, and didn’t understand why I was distraught, and then go “Oh wow…yeah, didn’t get started…I should do that.”

So I worked away steadily, until Patrick showed up and distracted me. We watched Hocus Pocus, which I had never seen, and is a very good movie, by the way. But in any case, I did not work as hard as I meant to.

But seriously. Twenty 6″ by 45″ ruffles that must be hemmed, gathered, sewn, and seam-finished to twenty 17″ by 20″ panels. And notice that I’m now on episode #13 of Avatar. Last post, I was on #3. I’d say that deserves a bit of a break. But although it’s a pain, it is rather satisfying to see those piles and heaps of smooth, shiny, crisp ruffles .

Next, I’m going to sew the 20 panels into five four-panel strips, and make the bit of ruffle detail that goes across the front.

Oh, and the Avatar box set on the pile in the middle marks the panels that will make up the top layer. They have the prettiest ruffles in my opinion.

Anju Maaka #2

Currently watching: Avatar season one episode #3: The Southern Air Temple

So far I’ve cut almost all of the pieces for the petticoat. First off, 20 panels to create the skirt.

The panels were made by cutting 17″ long pieces, then cutting them in half along the foldline. Eventually there’ll be five layers of four panels each.

Then I trimmed the sides of the panels.

Because they taper at the top, they’ll flare out more at the bottom.

Lastly, the ruffles and the trim.

There are 20 hem ruffles, each 6″ tall and as wide as the fabric width, and 6 ruffle detail pieces, each 3″ tall and as wide as the fabric width.

Now comes the real fun part. I have to hem all twenty ruffles, gather them, and sew them to the panels. It’s going to take me all night, seriously. So this is probably my last post for the night. Check back tomorrow to see what’s going down!

Anju Maaka: #1

Here are my glorious supplies in all there glorious…glory.

12 yards white satin ($1 a yard at Walmart!)
6 yards black cotton
1/2 yard interfacing
One package 1 1/2″ wide elastic
Small black snaps
12 small black shank buttons
Remnant of white bias tape
6 yards 1″ wide black grograin ribbon
Spool of black thread
Spool of white thread
Pieces 1, 2, 3, and 7 from McCall’s 4948
Avatar: The Last Airbender seasons 1 and 2
Arrested Development seasons 1 and 2
Tin Man

All I can say is thank God for Walmart.

I’m missing some 1/4″ wide elastic, but I’m okay at the moment. Hopefully I can either scrounge some up or send the ever-loyal fiance Patrick to find me some. Or I can walk to Walgreens. Either way, I’m easy. Wait, no. Not that kind of easy…

Introducing my obsession with overly huge projects!

MTAC, the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention, is coming up. I’m not like “woohoo, cosplay, OMGGGG!” but I do like me some fun anime costumes. I want to do one big one, so I’m going to be Anju Maaka from Chibi Vampire Karin.

Chibi Vampire Karin is a very fun anime about a girl named Karin who is the middle child in a vampiric family. The only problem? Instead of sucking blood, Karin produces blood. It’s some great, funny stuff. The anime’s on Veoh and available on DVD. I recommend it highly.

I am going to be Karin’s younger sister Anju. Anju is a full vampire, very solemn and adorable, and carries around a talking puppet/murderer named Boogie-kun. I like playing younger, but usually I end up as one of the loud, outgoing, constantly-on-a-sugar-high children. So being a grave Lolita will be fun!

Here’s the episode where my dress comes from. (For specifics, go to 15:00 and watch from there). She only wears the dress in that episode as far as I can tell, but it’s my favorite and it’s pretty simple-looking to make. Just…time consuming. So while I’m home for the weekend, I’m going to knock out this costume while watching all kinds of glorious DVD boxsets. Wish me luck!