Bellossom cosplay

Sometime in the winter at a Cosplay Dalarna meeting we started talking about cosplaying pokemon figures. I don't really know how it all started, and I'm not in any way a pokemon expert. I do play Pokemon Go, but that's everything I know. Still I was thinking about going to NärCon and wanted a simply and comfortable cosplay, similar to my Rarity cosplay. I looked around for different pokemons and found Bellossom.

I figured it would be a simple thing, make a vintage inspired yellow and green dress and add some red flowers in the hair. Then the time went by and the project grew, the more time I had to plan it. When I found out that there was going to be a pokemon cosplay competition at NärCon I realised that I would not be happy with just a simple summer dress. 

There are a few things I like with Bellossom and that I want to emphasize in my version. One big thing is that Bellossom is quite chubby, I didn't want to show off much skin. After googling for Bellossom cosplays for inspiration I thought that too many of them were a bikini top and a skirt, with a bare mid section. My plan is definitely to start the skirt all the way up at the bust, and unlike most other costumes I'm going to hide my body under the skirt and not show off any waistline at all.

The first step to the cosplay was to make a big underskirt that can give the main dress a lot of body, and make sure that it will sway when I move.

Enter the organza monster, it was even worse than my 19th Century snowball monster.

 I really didn't have a plan, but I had 10 m of green organza and 5 meters of yellow organza that I cut into strips and sewed together.

It got to be a very long strip of fabric. If I redid I would not have sewn all the pieces together but gathered each by itself and added them one by one.

Now when I sat and handgathered it all I felt that I was in serious risk of "death by fabric". Still since I didn't have a plan when I had gathered it all, it only was enough fabric for 2,5 rows of ruffles.

When I made my 16th Century hat and guards to the undergown I cut up a wool blend skirt, for this project I added the ruffles to the underskirt from that wool skirt. Instead of making a waistband I added two straps of ribbon to it to make it into an underdress instead of an underskirt. This will also help with making sure that everything is smooth from the bust and that there is no waistline.

On top of the organza ruffles I've added around 30 individual chiffon pieces, cut into pointy edges at the bottom. For all this it should be said that I've only zick-zacked the edges of the chiffon, I have not had the time or will to make a better finish to all those meters of edges. Now I have a big underskit with a lot of swaying motion in it, but with all the fabric on it it has also ended up fairly heavy.