How to make a new Cosplay skirt in ten easy steps.

“How to make a new Cosplay skirt in ten easy steps.”

This week’s Project

Level - Very Easy

New Skills - adapting a previous pattern in a new way

Which of the Four Basic Patterns - Simple Skirt

Our story continues

I made my way through the throngs in the convention center searching for my mother’s author booth. Normally, it would amuse and delight me to see so many generations in so many costumes, custom, handmade and store bought but today it was just annoying that I couldn't get through the mad crush. Mom had texted me twenty minutes ago while I was in the middle of moderating a panel on the importance of authenticity in Cosplay. Mom had texted 911. Mom texting,yikes, would wonders never cease?

I wasn't being a very good daughter seeing as how I’d gotten the 911 text over twenty minutes ago, but I knew Mom and knew it was likely to be a Mom emergency and not a medical emergency. Besides if it were medical I would have seen the EMS response team by now.

A very skinny man in a green indeterminate superhero costume bumped into me and did not excuse himself, he also somehow managed to brush my butt with his left hand. I gave him my angry glare and he jumped back, I swore he was tearing up from freight. How was it possible that a skin-tight Lycra costume was hanging on him all loose and baggy? Poor thing this was probably the only place in the world he felt even a little safe. Who was I kidding that was true of me too. Like it or not, these were my people and they always had been.

As I contemplated this fact, I walked right past Bash Woodruff. He stopped in front of me and lifted his gray top hot and inclined his head in my direction. Today he had a Gary Oldman in Dracula thing going on and, of course, it looked perfect on him. I tilted my head in return and gave him a straight-on almost confrontational look back. He bowed in half at the waist then stood up and continued on his way.

I turned slightly to watch him as he passed behind and to the left of me and he turned at the same moment to look back,he gave me a slightly triumphant, slightly fiendish smile before turning again and disappearing into the crowd. I stood frozen to my spot in that half turned pose. That, I told myself was not somewhere I needed to go. I did not need to be a plural wife in a polygamous Vampire sect.

I spotted a throng of wispy goth children in dark wings gathered around a booth to my left, and muttered, “finally” under my breath.

Even though I couldn't see my mother behind the crowd,I would know her fans anywhere.

“Excuse me”, I muttered as I pushed myself more aggressively through the crowd.

Some little Goth Lolita pushed me back at which point, I was forced to give the actual “evil eye” as opposed to the metaphoric one and the poor girl fell off her platform Doc Martins and onto her ass. I decided I’d wait until later to feel badly about my moment of bad girl weakness. Usually, my Presenter’s badge accorded me a little more respect in the crush but not with Nightingale’s fans.

I pushed around to the side of the booth and nodded at my Mom’s security guard, supplied by contract by her publisher, “Hi, Doug, how are you today?” He smiled back and let me through without answering my question though it was pretty obvious how he was doing. Two other guards came up as the line for autographs became even more chaotic. I went up to Mom and kissed her on the cheek.

Mom looked up distracted and smiled at me waiving me into a chair that had somehow automatically appeared behind me.

Mom smiled at the young person of indeterminate gender who was standing in front of her, “Who should I make it out to dear?” Asked my Mom about the autograph?

“Peeler” replied the young person in return.

Mom scribbled something quickly and handed him/her back their now autographed copy of Fiendish Fey Frenzie.

No sooner had that young fan stepped away than another stepped up. “I’m your biggest fan, Ms. Nightingale, I've read all your books and can’t wait for the next to come out.”

“Thank you dear. Who’s your favorite character?”

This made everyone laugh because the young woman was obviously dressed as the lead female faery princess from Mom’s books. She was in a purchased high-end,but not custom, costume.

Next,the the young lady in question startled me by turning and asking me to sign the hem of the costume. It was from my line of costumes created to match the characters in my mother’s book series. No one ever paid attention to me when Nightingale was around, a fact that I really liked. I loved seeing my Mom come into her own later in life and while Nightingale loved the attention, I did not like it very much at all. It cramped my style, made me feel self-conscious and awkward and it made Nightingale a little jealous and snarky sometimes. But not today. My Mom nudged me and handed me a Sharpie as the young woman lifted the hem for me to sign. I went to sign on the wrong side of the hem so no one could see it, but the young lady corrected me. “And could you make it really big so everyone sees the signature?”

“Sure” I said, “my pleasure.” She smiled but was not too pleased because now everyone was staring at me too. For the next two hours, I signed autographs and costumes sitting next to my Mom in Nightingale’s author’s booth that was put together by her publisher as an homage to Nightingale’s own special author’s universe.

I stole a side-long glance at Mom. At the age of 65 my mother a fifth generation witch and die hard eccentric had retired from the job at the Post Office that she had held for forty-five years, and begun to write. Something that had never occurred to her to try before she had all that free time and energy. The fictional world she created, which bore a startling resemblance to the one in which she had raised her four children, was an instant hit with young adult readers.

I heard the alarm on my cell phone, which was tucked neatly into a beaded Victorian drawstring purse, go off. That meant I had ten minutes to make it to my workshop upstairs. I jumped up, gave my Mom a quick peck on the cheek, waved good-bye to the Fiendish Fey Frenzie fans and dove head-long into the crowd in a hurry to get upstairs to my, workshop on “How to make an easy Cosplay skirt in ten easy steps.”

After I was half-way to my destination it occurred to me that I never did find out what was so urgent that Mom had texted 911.

This Week’s Workshop

This week we’re adapting what you learned in last week’s workshop http://automatadove.blogspot.com/2013/12/doves-adventure-begins-with-how-to-make.html to a new length and new waistband casing method to create something different for your Cosplay costume closet. This week we’ll make a shorter skirt with an elastic waistband and we’ll do it in ten easy steps. This skirt shouldn't take more than a few hours, at most, to complete.

Step One: You begin by measuring from your natural waist to the length you want for your skirt add four inches to this total and cut two panels that length.

Step Two: Next measure your hips at the widest point.

You now have two panels that are the length you want your finished skirt plus four inches more - 2 inches for the waistband casing and 2 inches for the hem.

Step Three: Then make sure your panels are the width of your hips dived by two then times 1.5 or times 2 depending on how full you want your skirt.

So to make this easy, say your hips are 40" across. Divide 40 by 2 you get twenty. Times twenty by 1.5 and each panel should be 30 inches across. If you want a fuller skirt you would make each panel 40 inches wide. Since the skirt is already so full we are not going to add additional seam allowance. So the finished skirt will actually be 59 or 79 inches across, since we will take a half each seam allowance on each side of the skirt. If you want a skirt that is medium full times the width by 1.75 instead of 1.5 or 2, and if you want it even less full times by 1.25.

Step Four: Zig-zag over all raw edges so they don’t fray and unravel as you work.

Step Five: Next face the two right sides of the panels together and pin one half inch from the edge. Sew two straight seams on either side.

Step Six: Now turn your waistband one half inch over and press.

Step Seven: Then fold over an inch so that the casing is on the wrong side of the skirt. Stitch that seam. Remember to leave an end open to insert your elastic.

Step Eight: Measure your waist and cut a length of waistband elastic just slightly smaller than your waist, too tight and the skirt will be too snug and won't fit over your head and shoulders, too loose and it will fall down. Using the safety-pin method thread the elastic through the casing. Be sure not to lose the end in the skirt or it’ll be extra work to retrieve and start again. Make sure you sew the ends of the elastic together securely so it doesn't come apart with wear.  Close the opening you left to thread the elastic.

Step Nine: Next we’ll make our hem. Remember we left two inches at the bottom beyond how long we wanted the skirt. So fold one inch towards the wrong side and press this down, then to make this really easy just fold over another inch so that you have a clean finished hem that won’t fray.

Step Ten: Now sew the hem. You have a finished skirt!

Now, it’s your turn.