i spent 2 whole days trying to sew all the seqiuns on ryuuki... yes i'm repairing costumes again. expecting a photoshoot to come up soon for this one but it seems that i'm only making it look worse. goooosh, whatever. as long as the pattern looks much more obvious than it does previously...





oh and i think i haven't post the head dress one where i repaired the flailing stick behind. so now it looks straight with hard wires inside.

shi ryuuki (saiunkoku) shopping list

for the cloths

light lilac: $3.50/m x 2.5 = $9 (rounded off)
medium purple satin: $4/m x 2 = $8
lilac satin: $3.50/m x 1 = $3.50 (i lost my sample and ended up buying the wrong color. gosh)
purple satin (the correct one): $4/m x 1.5 = $5 (rounded off, last half metres anyway)
darkest purple hard satin: $4/m x 1 = $4
white satin: $4/m x 1 = $4
white hard satin: $4/m x 1 = $4 (yes, bought the wrong satin. wth. always bring your samples...)
lining: $1.50/m x 3 = $4.50
dark blue satin: $4/m x 1 = $4 (got extra for this cos it was leftovers haha)
red velvet: $2.50 x 1 = $2.50
yellow satin: $3/m x 2 = $6
green satin: $4/m x 0.5 = $2
brown satin: $4/m x 0.5 = $2

total: $59.50

accessories
gold ribbon: $5.90/roll
crystal teardrops: $3.90/ 6 drops
purple diamante: $3.50/ 6 diamantes
gold buckle: $1.50/piece
silver rope: $2.50/m x 2 = $5
threads (various colours): $0.70 x 12 -$0.50 discount = $7.90
gold sequins: $0.80*4packets = $3.20 (with one packet free!)

total: $30.90

others
fabric paint (pearlescent yellow): $4.70 x 2 = $9.40
grease paper: $1.20
inner fabric paper (for collars, etc): $1/m x 1 = $1
vaseline paper (for tearing off after embroidery): $8.95/m x 1 = $8.95
blonde zephyr wig: 3800yen/65=$58.50
hazel encore lens: $18

total: $97.05

grand total: $59.50 + $30.90 +$97.05 = $187.45

reflections/lessons learnt
whee! so i started shopping around in arab street with my sister for the first day and spent a BOMB. the next day i realised i had a lack of colored threads so i went to the craft shop inn amk. following that, i went to arab street again the next day to shop for the shortages.
and man. cosplay is really expensive.
and yeah, i've hit the $100 mark. anyway i think i still have some more cloth to buy for the clouds. sighss.
very very happy to have discovered the hard paper to put inside for my collar and pattern embroidery.
golden thread should be used singularly for sewing, it was disastrous since it kept getting snipped off, though triple threads would show the pattern clearly (compare collar to sleeves)
fabric is important in relation to the character (this was a kingly character, so i selected satin and velvet)
to make it as exact as possible, i did the inner and outwear even though i could have attached the extra layers to the outer wear easily. but you can reuse this kinda things so it's ok! it's like detailing down to things you don't see.
i underestimated a lot of stuff this time and had to pay for it with extra trips to arab, extra seam sewing, resewing, attachments, etc, which is NOT worth the effort if i could measure correctly in the first place.

oki, stupid ball ball which i've repainted with acrylic (mix of pink and blue), then coated it with some translucent silver spray, and finally a shiny coat (forgot what it is called but it makes things shiny... duh). by the way spray paint FAILS on rubbery surface. it broke into pieces when i squeezed the ball. before the shiny coating, it looks black:





but after that, it looks bluish!





and with the straps. still can't figure out how to hook the straps...




and yes after washing, spraying and painting, the lighted thing inside still works. :D

the front flannel was a pain. the clouds were a pain. see how they crumple up after i've sewed them on? i used my grease paper to set the patterns, then sew over the paper and tore it out. it works pretty well, but it got stuck when i did the outlines. still, it's so much cheaper than the vaseline paper...








and then i've to add the yellow and red extensions at the sides after i've taken more snapshots from the anime.





and the back is neater with a huge red flap. luckily i was forced to buy a metre of this cloth.





added a drawstring ribbon to tie it around my waist easily.





having done this, i went on to sew extra buttons for my top, the obi and fixed all the ugly parts behind the gold strips and inside the top... also added strongs to tie my headgear.





and i realised i was quite done. so i'm left with the ball-y. and i got this rubber ball-y which lights up when you bounce it.





ain't it cute. well i tried to spray paint it but it flaked off after i squeezed it. so oh well. gotta find another ball, or another way.

i'm so so excited! forgot to bring my handphone yesterday but i remembered today so here's one hoard of pictures for me to boast haha!
monday was so fruitful. i started my day working on the emperor headgear using corrugated board and cloth. here's what i have! now i'm just thinking of what strongs i should stick to it so i can really wear it...








and the back. maybe i will replace the yellow stick. looks awful.





then i worked on the belt. managed to snip the center section off with a plier and tie it with gold ribbons. yay!








and yes! my pretty top!





managed to sew on the embroidery piece to the collar:








and the sleeves.





it looks easy but because my estimation wasn't accurate and the cloth kept getting flopped (whatever that means), i had to unsew and resew a couple of time so it won't look so scrunged. and of cos, adding the buttons. the back of the lining looks horrible. maybe i'll treat it as a pocket.





then i went to fix my horribly underestimated obi by addding extensions. it looks pretty good now. i realised the underside is stitched on by the bobbin color, so you could actually have 2 different color on the front and back. stupid me, should have used it for my top. the troublesome part was changing the colors.





and i realised it was so messy (the back) so i had to cover it up. heh.





the last step was just adding buttons to it.








yesterday, i worked on the 2 golden strips. i had a horrible time unsewing ALL the gold lining at the side and sewing them again. this time, i unsewed it whenever the cloth flipped at the back or the layers doesn't sew well together. spent about 3+ hours just sewing the sides.





the back.





the tip of the back, which looks really awful because i underestimated the triangle section and the length.





and my swarovski crystals on it! pretty!

i am so pissed.
i just realised my obi is too short. alright i have a huge ass and i underestimated. that is the worst thing to do for tailoring. especially since i have to resew all the gold trims and stuff. sighss. or should i just split them in half and add cloths. hope it won't look too messy. and i'm still quite clueless about my embroidery. perhaps i'll try pattern drawing on a tracing paper, then sewing on that tracing paper since it can be easily torn away...
oh well. finally added on the collar and sleeves yesterday to my inner top. where i have understimated the length of my sleeves as well and had to add extra cloth. oh well, luckily i bought extra white satin...











now i have my hugie sleeves, yayyy

so i worked super hard and chionged the costume.
i swear i'm getting good in this type of top. (-_-`) finished it in 1 hour.
here's the inner top. the outer top is still missing one sleeve cos of my stupid colour blunder.





and then the inner skirt with the satin trails.





the outer skirt (light lilac). i may need to mend the trims.





stitched a zip on top. first time my skirt is made from a template... and actually looks like a skirt because of the cutting. AND fits my waist (it's usually toooo big).





my favourite! the obi. originally supposed to look like this:








and my half completed version with the gold trims!





added on the dark hard purple portion. realised my red was too short. so i cheated a little. gahh why does my cheat look so obvious even in this pixelated picture. :(





this tricolor flap is infront of the skirt. still missing the clouds.




probably gonna mend the sides so it looks more... hmmm straight? and this is the 2 golden strips that's supposed to be in front of the triclour flap. ok, it's a little 'wai1' but i tried my best. the ribbon is really hard to stitch on and it keeps de-weaving (whatever you call it...). so irritating. but i guess it shouldn't look too bad when pieced together. heh. it's still incomplete without the crystals and there's supposed to be another thin arrowed lining.





ok i should get back to work. my boss says he is giving me the highest salary amongst all his employees. wheeps. shouldn't slack too much eh. or maybe he was just making me guilty. baka.

this must be my biggest project yet...
recently got addicted to saiunkoku monogatari (colourcloud palace). their costumes are simply gorgeous! am going to work on the emperor robes for one of my favourite characters, shi ryuuki. here's how he looks like in his emperor robes: