NärCon and the debut of winter Daisy

 After skipping it last year, of course I wanted to go to NärCon this year. After all it is the largest cosplay and nerd festival in Northern Europe. Me and my husband were originally invited to a party that would have made it impossible for me to visit more than one day, and when that party was cancelled due to some sad reasons I couldn't find a decently priced hotel. Then I realized that it only takes a bit more than an hour for me to drive from my parents-in-law's house to NärCon, and since we were visiting there for a week anyway it was an easy thing to drive back and forth for two days.

I of course was there with the Swedish Garrison, and could once again wear my Admiral Daala.

I am so happy that my gastric bypass has me fit into, and feel comfortable, in my old costumes again.

Twice a day we organized a Star Wars parade, where we started and then picked up Star Wars cosplayers alont the way, we also had a talk a day where we presented our costumes and organisations,  501st Legion, Rebel Legion, Mando Mercs, R2 builders and Galactic Academy.

I had great fun debuting my new Princess Daisy from Supermario at the Winter Olympics, or as I call it winter Daisy.

It was such a comfortable costume. I made it when my old computer had died that's why I haven't posted about it before. But it basically consists of a long sleeved t-shirt, that I patterned by simply tracing a t-shirt of my own, a pair of tights from a Burda Style Magazine pattern and a tunic that I frankenpatterend from free jersey dress pattern. The boots were a second hand find and then I just had to add a pair of thin gloves. The whole costume is made in think bamboo jersey, so it was like walking around in a cool set of pyjamas. I reused the crown and jewellery from my regular princess Daisy. The fake fur on the edges was actually from when I bought some fake hermine fur for medieval purposes, and I could carefully cut around the black parts to get strips that were long enough to edge the sleeves and tunic.

The most fun part was that I had found a pair of mini-skis in orange and a pair of ski poles with yellow ends on them, so I just painted the shafts orange, and then I had some fun taking photos on one of the grass hills at NärCon.

This is definitely a costume that will be my go to costume for comfy convention costume, but maybe I need to find something more to carry around instead of skis.

Favorite photos of 2021

 Despite a pandemic there were still some events taking place, the biggest being Medieval Week in Visby and ComicCon in Stockholm. I also got better at taking photos by myself with a tripod and selftimer. So here are my favorite photos of 2021, without any specific order.

Looking back on 2021

 So what a year 2021 has been. I had some really big, or rather one really big thing happening to me, and that really affected my costuming.

If you don't know in 2021 I met the most wonderful guy in the world, and he's now my fiance and we are planning our wedding for 2022. That being said, I got some things done, even if most of it was before I stopped being single.

Going back my plans for 2021 was

• a wool nightgown
• a simple 16th century shift
• a pair of 16th century hose
• a regency outfit for a ball
• finishing the 1520s courtgown by making the cape
• Princess Daisy 
• Jedi librarian

The regency ball was cancelled due to the pandemic, so I didn't do anything regency related.

Out of the plans I did make the wool nightgown a simple standard medieval gown that will work medieval farmer from the viking age up until the renaissance. I just realized that I haven't posted about it all though.

The simple 16th century shift was made by remaking an older shift, it also fitted HSM challenge four. 

Me wearing the new shift

Princess Daisy was a success, when I finally finished her in time for ComicCon Stockholm.

Me and Tom/woodsling as Luigi and Daisy

I think my jedi librarian was my favorite project of the year though, and the one I'm most happy with. It also got approved as a jedi with the Rebel Legion.

As for things I hadn't planned, this is what I got done.

The winter started out with restrictions due to the pandemic, so we and my friends in our 16th century guild met up outside in the winter, and I needed something to keep warm.

The first thing I did was an historical jacket. I made it to be generic and fit most time periods from the 16th to the 18th century. It was mostly based on 16th and 17th century images though.

Worn with my mustard kirtle and one of my 16th century hoods, but without the wulst, I finally felt that I had something 17th century to wear, as I did at the annual Christmas fair at the Falun Mine.

I also made a hood out of black wool.

The most unexpected project was when I got picked as a pattern tester for the Selina blouse from Scroop Patterns.

I finished the pocket for my traditional costume, an embroidery that had been started more than 15 years ago.

This was finished in June, and then I wasn't single anymore, which explains the lack of updates for the rest of the year.

As for the HSM challenges I finished a few at least.

Challenge - on your head

Challenge - closures

Challenge - zero waste

Challenge - joy 

Challenge - purple

Challenge - the costumer's new look

I have also started a bunch of cross stitch embroidery projects for borders to 16th century shifts and veils, and it would be fun to finish them and actually use them for something.

Stockholm comicon report

 After almost 2 years it was finally time for proper convention again! There were fewer tickets, so the crowds were smaller, and you had to have a vaccine pass or negative test to get in, but otherwise it was as before. It was so much fun being back together with cosplay friends from Nordic Legions and just others you meet anyway.

One of the guests was Evanna Lync, Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter, so of course I brought my Luna with me and had my photo taken with her. These kinds of photoshoot are one second affair, so you have to be prepared beforehand. I got a bit surprised when there was no plexiglass between us, so I lost some time and didn't exactly get the photo that I wanted, but it is good enough. She was really kind and it was she who placed herself really close to me and put her arm around me.

The rest of the Harry Potter cosplayers from Dalarna took a few round around the hall before I was going to be in the Nordic Legions' booth. I was in the booth with my jedi, but I kept the Luna wig since my hair wouldn't exactly look the best after quite a few hours under a wig.

I thought the blone looked quite ok as well. The jedi was really comfortable to wear at a convention. The only bad thing was that I had forgotten the belt that I hang my pouch from so I couldn't wear it. 

Saturday I started off as a jedi again, but this time in my own hair so no wig. We had some Nordic Base photos taken, and then a huge group photo in front of the replica of the Millenium Falcon (The Swedish Falcon) that premiered at the convention.

Then after lunch I switched to Princess Daisy, and it was soo much fun. She was fun to pose with, easy to wear, and it was pretty fun to take photos with more "serious" princesses.

On Sunday it was Daisy again, and now my friend Tom went as Luigi, we actually found quite a few cosplayers from Nintendo. Even if there were generally fewer cosplayers on Sunday than on Saturday.

All in all Daisy was a success, and it was sooooo great meeting all friends from the Nordic Legions again. I also managed to have three costumes, that all had very comfortable shoes. Daisy's orange sneakers were the best though.

Feet get tired even in comfy shoes though, and Milou was a bit sceptic when it came to the smell. Can't be worse than the stormtrooper armours in the changing room though.

Daisy crown and jewellery

 Of course Daisy needs a crown, earrings and brooch. This is where I got a lot of helps from my friends.  First Tom printed the crown, after a thingiverse design.

He also helped with finalizing the scale of the crown. Then I had to come up with a way to keep the crown on the head. My solution was to drill holes in the crown and attach thread loops through them. Then  I made a fingerloop braid that goes through the loops and that I can pin to through to fix it to my head. In hindsight I should have put the holes a bit further down on the crown, but I was worried that I would crack it if I put them too close to the edge.

This was a quick test to prove that it would work. Inside the crown I also have a hair donut, so I started with pinning that to my head, then I squeezd the crown over the donut, and the last pins are through the braid and into the donut. 

My friend Robin helped with casting the jewels in resin. The flowers are made out of 2 mm foam that were simply painted white. For the large brooch I reinforced it with a layer of worbla in the back, and I sandwiched a magnet between the worbla and the foam so that I can attach it to the dress. 

Finally the crown was painted gold with acrylic paint.

I also made a travelbox from cardboard and duct tape to keep it in.

Daisy's collar

 For the collar for Daisy I used two layers of fabric, a cotton sateen as backing and poly satin for the outer fabric.

This is the base layer, it's not a complete circle. I sewed the two layers together along the outer edge to stabilize them. Then I freehanded the petalshape of the collar and sewed the layers together at those lines.

I cut out the new shape of the collar, turned it right side out and pressed it.

I unfortunately foegot that I was working with poly satin and put the iron on my regular wool setting.  Oops. I didn't want to redo the collar, so I think I will be able tobhide that little mishap.

I also topstitched all along the edges of the collar.

I sewed the collar on to the dress byvhabd aling the topstitching. 

Resurrecting Princess Daisy

 I stopped working on Princess Daisy back in the winter, but with Stockholm Comicon coming up in November it is time to finish her.

The dress needed sleeves and a collar, I needed accessories and a crown.

I will come back to the sleeves later. My friend Tom has printed the crown for me so I need to find a way of keeping it on my head and then it's on to painting it.

I have painted a tennis racket orange and a baseball bat yellow.

Now I need to make earrings and the front brooch and I think I won't be too stressed to finish it.

Presenting Princess Daisy

I posted earlier that one of my plans of the year is to make Princess Daisy from the Super Mario universe. The idea was born on the way home from NärCon and definitely inspired by woodsling's Luigi.

My favorite Daisy outfit is her winter outfit.

But then last week happened and I had a bunch of pieces of a bright and lovely yellow-orange silk velvet. A colour that would be perfect for the more traditional outfit for Daisy.

I would not have enough fabric to get a full length skirt, but Daisy also has an early tennis dress that looks like this.

And that's the style I decided to go for, with some changes. First of all I want the skirt to be longer, so I can be comfortable in it. I'm also going to go for Daisy's regular teal jewels instead of the blue ones that she's wearing in this version. I also don't think I have enough fabric to be able to make full puffed sleeves.

On Thursday I whipped up a quick mock-up for a short full-skirted dress.

The bodice is my standard stretch dress pattern, but I added a couple of cm on each seam, because I want to be really comfortable and not have a tight fitting dress. I managed to get a bodice out of the silk velvet.

Silk velvet is really slippery and should be tacked down everywhere, or at least use a lot of pins. I chose to construct the bodice like I did my Lady Poe bodice. That is I first sewed the lining, and then I mounted the outer silk fabric to the lining. I then found a couple of meters of a cotton voile in my stash, and I gathered three lengths together to make the underlayer of the skirt.

The skirt was also sewn to the lining, not to the velvet. I also added pieces of cotton tape that I will use to hike up the skirt, everything to avoid having to attach anything to the slk velvet.

In the back I added a zipper, also to the lining, and then I handsewed the silk fabric edge to edge with the zipper. Overall the silk velvet is handsewn, it's so much easier to keep the fabric from slipping and controlling the tension compared to when I tried to sew it on the machine. The skirt consists of as many square pieces of fabric that I could cut out rom the silk velvet and then sewn to the lining. I finsihed by folding the outer fabric of the bodice over the skirt and hand sewing it down.

On the photo above I have just tied a white ribbon over the waist and pinned up the velvet skirt. Next steps are to make a proper waistband and sleeves, and then it's time to permanently fasten the skirt. I also want to make the skirt poufier. In this photo I have one of my tuille petticoats under the dress, but I'm thinking that I need more petticoats or tuille to get the shape I want.