Sarah's Costuming Blog

New Blog

I'm starting a costuming blog now. Keep up with all my costume progress! Pictures will be included of what I'm doing and how my costumes look! I'm currently in the process of making 4 new costumes for Dragon*Con and I have people asking me all the time how it's going, so here's a quick and easy way to find out!


This is me from Shore Leave 2005 in my Flame Handmaiden costume. I had help making it (THANK YOU TANYA!) and I've received many compliments on it! I made it from a silk velvet that I ordered online, used a pattern for a Medieval Knight costume, altered the pattern for the sleeves (OK Tanya did that with me too hehe), sewed it up (again with Tanya) and we dyed it using RIT Tangerine Orange and Yellow dye. We dipped the entire dress in the yellow except for the very bottom, let it soak up, then quickly dipped the bottom to get a lighter yellow fade. Then we drained the sink, put the dress on a hanger upside down and make the orange dye. We dipped in the hood past the shoulders and left it in there, then took foam brushes and brushed the dye down (well up) into the yellow. After a while, we emptied the sink again and flipped the dress over right side up and let it dry that way, which helped with the fade effect. Then I bought red crepe backed satin fabric and made a belt with it. I bought a red turtleneck shirt, bought fabric to match it, made a hood, extended the sleeves and VOILA! There's still a little more to be done (I need to put interfacing on the hood to make it a visor like and put trim on the sleeves). The dress sleeves was the hardest part because it had to be done inside out...to this day I can't remember how we figured it out, but we did, and everything turned out really well! Unfortunately, I washed it recently and the nice pale yellow I had at the bottom is now an orangey-yellow :-( I might use dye remover and dip it in yellow again and then just dry clean it from now on. I don't wear it often enough to be incredibly expensive to dry clean.

posted by Sarah @ 4:23 PM