Modesty's Costume Closet

 My brain has ping-ponged into all aspects of this costume and for now I'm looking into how to make the Shrine Maiden Costume. I am utilizing all my experience with making kimono and kimono-like costumes to make this. Not really futzing much with the original look.    Design Considerations Accuracy with some flare Making room for puppet arm vs regular arm Simplifying the design so it's not a hassle to wear and keep on (I hate having to worry if my pants will slide off or something.) Pieces/Layers Juban/Undershirt For style points, I'm making this red. The "Puppet" arm may need extra consideration such as an opening in the Juban sleeve at the front or under the arm. I could also do this for both sleeves so I can switch primary puppet arm if I wished.  Kimono This will be a plain color or small patterned top with semi-detached sleeves. The left sleeve will be the primary "puppet sleeve".  The length of the kimono will only come just above the knees...to sa

 When I originally started thinking about a puppet-related costume, I came up with three ideas: Rod/Cable Puppet Kasugai Crow Hand Puppet Goro the Kitsune Walk-along/marionette Kirin/Unicorn The reality is I can't do it all. As you may surmise from the title of this post, my focus for now is on the Goro puppet. Like I said, I had been plotting out all three and have some pretty interesting research results from my time spent figuring out how to make a crow, but I'd be much happier making yet another kitsune. I have the things that I like! And right now, it's Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia, and Kitsune. I'm simple like that.  I'm rambling, aren't I? The Inspiration and Initial Research The character I have in mind is from my visual novel project (6 years so far in the making). He is highly anthropomorphized, expressive, and mischievous. However, I have never made a puppet of this nature so I need to ensure I do not over-complicate the design.  His beast form At t

 Here's some photos of the full costume on me.  I would not call this the photoshoot. I did just get my photo backdrop so I will likely do more but it will have less of my apartment mess in it. LOL.  What Went Right: - Most of my plans went well! - Learned to knit! - Did some cool designing on things even if some of it was improvised.  - Dyed fabric - Sewed a lined kimono successfully - Kept a regular pace and finished in 2 weeks (over the course of 4 months.) - Ended up creating a new character and I'm perhaps making a story with all the kitsune I came up with. It's a lot. I'll share character designs later!  What could go better:  - Creating and attaching the sleeves, hindsight.  - The neckband doesn't stay down properly.  - Hair chalk did not work very well, will need to wear a wig - My kanzashi broke. The hot glue was not enough - Bought one more kimono pattern for reference - Bit more fabric research...find something that irons! - Faux Fur fox Tail or Yarn tail

 As of 4/10/2022, the wisteria fox costume is complete. I completed the final touches that I wanted to make. And here's what I did.  Kanzashi Piece I had purchased a hair piece but I felt like it needed to be a little bigger to cover my human ear so only my fox ears were prevalent. I know how to fold these things but had to get new ribbon to do it. It took a few tries but eventually I created this hair piece.  Wisteria Kanzashi  I used the instructions from this video for folding the flowers, but did my own construction of the hair piece.  Mask This was one of those things where I could ponder forever at this blank canvas and never come up with any ideas. I tried doodling some patterns based on references but still wasn't really happy with what I was coming up with. So, I just had to sit down and go to town with paint and get it done. I had a couple elements from references that I was kind of using but mostly just painting. There's no turning back now. To be fair, this is t

 Made the tail. Finished hand sewing the sleeves and I'm not 100% happy with them but I also don't want to futz with them anymore. I just won't make future sleeves in the same way.  How the tail will work is this. I'm using the default nylon webbing belt that it came with. The obi will fit over it.  Things are really coming together quickly now. The only things left are details. I'm going to hand paint wisteria flowers onto the kimono. But I'd like to use stencils for some of the parts. I found some vector graphics and made files for my 3D printer. This past weekend I ran some tests with the newly armed 3D printer/cutter. Unfortunately, it is not ready to cut vinyl or paper at this time. The bed on my 3D printer is not level and no matter how I fiddle with it, some parts of it remain uneven. (Likely a bit of warping or something. Hot metal can do that.) So I'm looking into getting a CR Touch to auto-level my 3D printer. Which will help in the long run.  In t

This weekend was non-stop sewing of the Obi belt because I didn't feel like hand sewing the sleeve lining. But JOKE'S ON ME, because the obi required quite a bit of manual sewing. Not that I hate hand sewing, but it is inconvenient.  For the most part I followed the recipe Simplicity included but I did have to extend the belt just a tad. The largest size was about an inch or so too small and I was nervous it wouldn't fit around me. My instincts (for once) were on point. The belt fits where it's supposed to. Had to hand sew the hook and eyes and I had to hand sew the back support to the obi itself.  The dress form is to MY waist size. Where I deviated from the pattern was with the tie in the back. I needed something that would look formal, but not cover up my awesome tail. I did some Pinning and found a couple of styles I thought would work and I could easily figure out how to pattern.  Back bows Both back bows were just looking like rectangles of fabric inserted through

 Today I've attached the sleeves to the body. All that's left is hand sewing the lining to the sleeve seam and such.  It looks finished!  Guh...attaching sleeves with lining is so fiddly. I think the instructions in the Simplicity pattern make more sense. I may "re-do" the sleeve attachments since I don't think I got them quite right. But most of this week has been lost to 3D printing projects. But hey...I like how this is coming together.  The next steps will be to make the Obi belt. This project was what I was distracted by this week. I've written more about this project in my Modesty Studio Blog . 

 It was painting and applique today. Now all the outer pieces are decorated according to the template I made. Here's what I did.  First, I tried to iron out some of the wrinkles. Due to the nature of the fabric it has to be cool ironed. Which still pretty much did nothing. After a solid effort, I decided to forget about it. So I went to making a template of the flames using old wrapping paper.  Clipped down an old shower curtain. I applied the template to the sleeve with painter's tape. I used Turquoise Design Masters spray paint . Both sides of the sleeve have flames. The back has smaller flames than the front which is where the fox applique will go.  I worked on the kimono in sections. It's a repeating pattern.  Ugh...so wrinkly still.  The paint dries nearly instantly so I set these things aside and work on the applique. First, I needed to paint the face.  I used an iron-on Ultra bond to stick it to the parts of the fox which consisted of the body, tail and head. Unfortu

 Another little side jaunt into the progress and pitfalls of the project.  💢 Once again, I made an error in my calculations. (Math and I need couples counseling.) However, it's not just the number that was off but the fabric too. When I was first cutting the pattern I did not factor in the length of the sleeves very well. I have one outer sleeve and one sleeve lining.  In my head I thought, I should be able to get the other sleeve and lining with about a yard more fabric from a 60" bolt. I didn't want to spend $12 per yard again so I went with the slightly cheaper $6 version on fabric.com. And then I just had to wait for it to arrive.  I got it on Saturday after our mini-winter in Texas when the leasing office was open again. When I opened the bag, I noted that this version of Peachskin fabric was thinner than the one I was using everywhere else. And what was worse, I laid the pattern piece and realize...shoot...I can only get ONE sleeve out of this, not two.  So, I went

 Still waiting on that last bit of Peachskin fabric, so no kimono progress. But I was able to start working on the tail.  Obi and Tail Mechanics So first, the animatronic tail arrived which helps with where to place the tail on the costume. It's a tinge heavier than I expected so I do not think I want to attach it directly onto the Obi. The tail comes with a nylon webbing belt and a clip plate.  The tail comes out of the bottom of obi. While waiting for the tail to arrive I did make the above doodles to figure out where I could attach the clip plate. The Obi pattern requires a backboard which it suggests to be made from cardboard. But I could use something a bit sturdier like PVC board to make it strong enough to hold the tail. I could possible attach the clip to the Obi directly! However, because I want to reuse the tail skeleton for future projects, I will not go the route of attaching the tail directly to the obi. Instead, the current plan is to go the route of wearing the defau

 The extra yard of fabric is on the way! It's coming via USPS so might be a while so in the meantime I'm assessing what I have for other parts of the project.  Paint and Fabric Paint One of the major things I am doing for this project is hand painting wisteria vines throughout the kimono. I will also include blue flames (foxfire) as part of the sleeves and lower edges.  Checking my box of paints I was happy to find that I had paint meant for fabric in a shade of purple! Miraculous! Who put that there? I also have acrylic paints in red, blue, and white so I can mix different shades of purple and pink. I also had a couple shades of green. I also found my Liquitex Fabric Medium so I can use all my acrylic paints. (Except the metallic ones apparently.  Luckily, not planning on using metallic paints. I don't think.) For the blue flames, I was thinking of painting it on too and luckily I found my Turquoise Fabric Spray paint that I used for Princess Zelda's apron .   I do lik

 There's a saying in carpentry. Measure twice, cut once. It's so true for any cutting as it turns out. Oh, I should say that today I cut out the pattern pieces in fabric. Most of them.  You would think this is enough fabric! Unfortunately, the fabric I got was actually NOT a continuous 7 yards. Which kind of worked out sort of. If I was not making this a lined kimono then this would have been enough. However, the other trouble was because I mixed patterns and made a miscalculation. I followed the suggested layout for the McCall's pattern since I was only using the sleeves of the other Simplicity pattern.  Using these sleeves. The size of the Simplicity brand sleeves was longer than the McCall's sleeves. So while I used the body of the McCall's pattern and the layout would have worked for all that, I ended up not having enough fabric for everything.  What I did manage to cut out were the outer pieces for the main body of the kimono, the "contrasting" neck p

The project moves forward by inches. I managed to scrounge up enough energy to cut the paper pattern pieces that I need. And seriously, that's all I could do today. While the migraine has subsided, I spent a long time chatting with my parents as is my Sunday custom and made some taco pasta.  And while I thought I would have all of Monday to do things, I managed to snag a massage appointment so part of my day will be taken up by that.  Modifying a Pattern to my Design What I ended up doing today was cut paper pattern pieces. Now I could have drafted my own kimono pattern. Honestly, it's not super complicated compared to some articles of clothing. A lot of Japanese clothing is a series of rectangles or angled shapes. However, I like it when the work is done for me. So I am blending two commercial kimono patterns that are technically meant for costumes.  Highlighted the yardage I needed I have mentioned before that I do feel a twinge of regret not making my own pattern, but I'