Basic outline of Rydia!

Okay, last time I was going to put up a picture of the embellishments I put on the swimsuit and a picture of me in the incomplete costume!

What I didn't realize until I was blogging was that I actually had only terrible pictures of both. So I ended up taking two nice ones.

First are the decorative straps I added. I wanted to look less like I was going for a swim, plus the extra green fabric ties in all the colors I have going on this costume!

And now I glory shot of what I'm aiming for! This is the general idea of what I'm going for, although I think I'm going to tweak it some more, I want to look less like I'm going to fall out of my costume! :D

Costume update!

I realize I really haven't been on top of blogging lately...ah heh heh heh! What can I say, I got caught up in a video game and took a small break from costuming! But I'm back now and here is the newest on the costume!

First up! The gloves I promised last time. Although, I guess they aren't technically gloves, but sleeves. Anyway, I cut out some blueish greenish silk that I got, along with a bit of the gold silk. Then I pinned it, and sewed!

I like it, but I can't decide if I should add more gold or more blue? Also, I'm really disappointed at the quality of the elastic at the top of the sleeve...it is one of the items I actually went to Joann's to buy...it sucks! So I think I'm going to boycott Joann's from now on, unless I need emergency supplies.

I also added a nice blue lining on the top of the swimsuit to match the color with the sleeves.

I decided to do the cool applique stitch on the middle of the outfit, which I think looks stellar. (Not sure if this picture does it justice).

And I attached the necklace to the little strings and it's staying very very well! :D I'm glad I didn't have to glue it on. 

What I look like when I'm trying to decide what step to take next. 

I also am really excited about the fabric for the cape!! I'm planning on doing a double cape sort of thing, with gold and green. Check out the most fabulous fabric in the whole wide world! Yes, absolutely fabulous.

Shiny gold!

What is prettier than emerald green spandex? Why, a lovely gold piece of silk to compliment it!
As you can see from my last post, I sewed the larger gold decoration in the middle of the suit (after painfully hemming the piece. It took a looooong time since the silk just kept on wanting to unravel again and again!

The top part is a lot more complex then the middle piece so I was a little hesitant to start...

Then I remembered that my sewing machine had a handy dandy little appliqué stitch! Thank you sewing machine Gods!! 

I was a little worried about how it would look, if it looked too tacky...it was going to be a pain to unstitch it all!! 

 But it ended up working perfectly (I didn't have to hem a thing!! Hooray!!!) and I actually think I'm going to use it on the middle of the swimsuit! YAY!!

Next time I'll show you the finishing of the gloves!! Woot woot! 

Green, green and more green!

Yesterday my machine had a six hour long heart attack! Nothing I could do would make it properly work. I tried new thread, I re-threaded it a thousand times, gave it new bobbins, all while speaking very encouragingly! Finally it gave several electronic beeps and decided to work again!

In between trying to give my poor machine life again, I managed to hand sew several items!  The lining on the back of the bottom of the swimsuit was the first. I took in the top of the swimsuit as well, the torso was a little long for me, and it kept pulling funny.

I took apart the bottom of a shirt I never wear, and used the elastic for the top of the gloves.

I also managed to finish a nice whip stitch on  the top of the gloves.Yay! I'm very proud.

The major problem with the top of this is that I needed to make sure it would stay on. After my machine came back to life, I added a nice big strap to go around, connecting the two piece top  and the straps to the back.

It's really hard to wiggle into now, but at least I know it won't come off unexpectedly! It's practically glued on now!

Next part is to add the gold silk part! I got excited about drawing it on a scrap part of fabric, but it didn't fit the swimsuit at all! So I drew it again on another piece according to how the swimsuit was shaped. Now all I have to do it sew it on!

Silk, swimsuits and a whip!

First off, check out the awesome whip I got in the mail!

Maybe if I work really hard, I'll look as cool as this Rydia...

www.wika.com/finalfantasy

I have two things I'm going to be doing with this lovely fabric. (Isn't it the prettiest color?!)

First make little sleeves.

Then line the green swimsuit.

Speaking of lining the green swimsuit...I decided to add a little extra padding to the suit by taking apart one of my old ones.

Bye bye swimsuit!

I removed the pads and pinned them to the swimsuit. This swimsuit had a really bad habit of getting smaller and smaller until I was in danger of exposing everything, so I think these will help it...ah hem, flesh out so to speak.

 I needed to measure how much fabric was needed for the sleeves. It was no easy task! I had to pin like mad and then make sure I could comfortably bend, and then pin again! 

To be continued...