A fun and different Star Wars troop

 This year the Swedish garrison was invited to Gothenburg Book Fair, which is northern Europe's largest book fair and a huge cultural event. The theme for this year was "space", so we were invited to hang around and spread some space fun, especially in the area designated for children's literature and the like. 

We had a small booth but most of it was mingling around with visitors, and unlike a comic con and other kinds of science fiction convention I thought this was even more fun, because the visitors were really surprised and it was something fresh, unlike when people are more or less expecting us to be around and show off our costumes.

Since Gothenburg means a long journey by train I wanted to pack light, so I brought admiral Daala. Here I am in the Elsa Beskow diorama, Elsa Beskow is a classic 19th century children's author where the images are as important as the text in a way I guess she can be compared to Beatrix Potter.

What really made me travel though was the fact that my husband, who is an author after all, were there as well, so it was the first fair/convention we could be together. Well I trooped with the garrison, but when my troop duty was over I could change clothes and be with my husband and our other friends who are in working with literature in different ways.

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.

NärCon 2019 report

I'm back from NärCon with sore feet and a tired body, but loads of happy memories.

NärCon is easiest described as a cosplay, gaming and creativitiy festival, and it's the biggest cosplay event in northern Europe. It is on the campus of Linköping University, and it being outside and spread out is the reason for my sore feet, I clocked around 30 km of walking on asphalt, cobblestones and stone floors over 2,5 days.

This is just an overview of the most central part of the campus. The weather decided to go with the hottest days of summer, with temperatures reaching 30+ in the middle of the days. There are worse heatwaves out there, but it was.

Anyway this is my day by day report:

Tom picked me up at 8 on Thursday. It felt strange but I had actually been able to pack and be finished early in the evening on Wednesday, no stressing last minute fixes to be done. We got down to Linköping, had lunch, checked in and managed to be at Närcon at around 2 pm, which is a new early record for us.  I left my bags in the Nordic Legions' changing rooms and then went to see Mathias and Ann-Sofie, they had driven down with their caravan the night before. With my excellent skills in orienteering I managed to go to the wrong camping and got an extra km or so in the sun. Then it was time for me and Ann-Sofie to suit up as Asterix and Obelix.

They were a big sucess! We couldn't move many meters until people came up and wanted to take photos with us and it was so much fun. The menhir worked fine, but for some metal thingies in the back of the metal frame. This first time they weren't too bad, but every time I wore it I felt more and or that they pressed into my back. I also had a bit of moustache problem. I had glued it on with mastix, but it fell off when I tried to drink or talk too much. It got better later, I'm guessing that I built up a layer of mastix on the moustache that made it easier and easier to stick. We walked around until about 11 pm and then it was back to the hotel for a shower and some sleep. Thankfully this year we were in an hotel with AC.

On Friday we arrived at NärCon at around 11 again. NärCon is a festival and goes on 24/7, but there isn't much activity before lunchtime.

Tom as Luigi on Thursday and Friday

The Nordic Legions decided that it was too hot to troop in the afternoon, and we were going to concentrate on the evening instead. So I changed into Melisandre and walked around in that costume. Unfortunately I got some blisters  from my sneakers, the same sneakers that had taken me through Medieval Week in Visby and Star Wars Celebration in Chicago without a problem, so now I started to get some sore feet.

Most of the Cosplay Dalarna gang with Harry Potter costumes on Friday

There was a Game of Thrones meet-up on Friday afternoon. There were some official photos taken at the meet up, but I only have one on my own phone.

William and his family had really great costumes.

After that Tom had told me that there was going to be something called "garbage" cosplay, I told some other people and we went there. Basically it was a competition where you made up teams, had 5 minutes to decide what you should do and then 35 minutes to build it out of a pile of rubbish that they had placed on the floor. It was a manic wrestle for the rubbish, but our team (which was basically a Cosplay Dalarna team) managed to grap two big rolls of bubble wrap as our main loot.

The result

Linus as "Deal with it Gandalf the White". The judges were impressed that I had managed to make two functional garments, bascially a classic chiton held together with pins made from cardboard and a square cloak, out of the bubble wrap, and that we had so many details (pipe, staff, brooch, sword, ring and tobacco pouch). Yes our team won the whole competition. Go Cosplay Dalarna (and Sergio)! This was probably my favorite event of the whole convention, also bcause it was so unexpected and spontaneous.

There was a Star Wars meet-up in the evening as well, and the Nordic Legions decided to join. We surprised everybody else, who apparently thought that the 501st and Rebel Legion is just all about being serious. They were so wrong. We showed our totally unstructured way of organizing photos, and then there were a bunch of photos and films done. The photographer has promised to post the photos from that in the coming days and I'm really looking forward to it. After that we led the whole bunch of Star Wars costumers in a parade all over the festival area, and it was really cool to be around 30 people, with me and the other officers first, followed by stormtroopers, our rebels and then all the other costumers which were mostly dark and light jedi. The timing was so right with it being dusk so that the lightsabres really showed, but still light enough that people could take good photos.

Admiral Daala leading her troops

Overall the Friday evening was just perfect, with a lot of pure fun cosplay events.

Saturday I woke with some really aching feet. I had slept with them high over the night but it was obvious that this was going to be a tough day. I did get some time to go around the Artists' Alley and I found two prints of Ola Art that I just had to buy, it was tough to choose though. He basically takes cheap paintings that he finds in fleamarkets and changes them and add some funny texts to them.

In the afternoon I was responsible for a presentation of the Nordic Legions. It was a simply presentation about who we are, and then we showcased our costumes and what they are made of, including stripping down a biker scout and a stormtrooper to their black undersuits. After 30 minutes we asked the audience to come down and talk with us directly and ask questions. There were actually quite a few in the audience so I was really pleased with it. Since this was about showing what we do behind the scenes we broke our own Nordic Legions' rule and had both our buckets off, I'm wearing my glasses and we had two of the same face character. The important thing was to show that we are humans and fans and that it's not an impossible goal to become a member.

In the evening I skipped parading with the legions, I simply wasn't sure how far I was going to be able to walk. Instead me and Ann-Sofie did another round of Asterix and Obelix, with a lot of breaks, but in the end my body simply said no. It was a combination of sore feet, the metal thingies from the menhir into the back and the heat. The Obelix trousers are really comfy, but then I wear a big foam belt and a fur vest over them, and the menhir is made out of isolation material that reflects heat. When I took the belt off I could wringe out the trousers underneath. So I packed up my stuff and went civil. We met up with Tom and then it was a slow walk, due to talking with people not due to pain, until we left the area at around midnight.

On Sunday we simply had breakfast and got into the car and drove home. It was even hotter on Sunday than on Saturday, and the AC in the car can't handle those temperatures, so we had to take a lot of breaks just to get some air into the car. Still I was home at around 4 pm, which is the earliest that I've been home from NärCon, and it is nice to come home early in the evening from a con.

On the way back I also come up with a new project for next year's NärCon, with a focus on comfortable shoes and cool clothes, we will see what happens.

And finally here are some other cosplayers that I met and took photos of

Admiral Daala is 501st approved

Admiral Daala is now officially 501st approved.

I took my first application photos last Tuesday, and they looked great.

But the 501st is picky, and I got some feedback that I needed to fix. I had to remove one of the black ribbons on the forearm, and replace it with piping. I also shortened and made sleeves more narrow around the wrist, cleaned up the belt and made more narrow braids. They were small things, but those are the details that differ a good costume from a 501st/Rebel Legion/Reel Icons approved costume. They were also details that I knew that I had skimped on so I had no problems buying their critique. I think that is important to remember, it's always a very nervous thing to send in an application, but the critique makes the costume looks better.

The smaller braids.

New front photo. It's hard to take good looking photos of yourself, and with the phone quite low you get a nice view of my double chins.

I will bring the costume to Nordsken in Skellefteå and hopefully get some better photos there.

Admiral Daala belt

For the belt I had to use two strips of leather to make it long enough. I butted the end togethers using waxed linen thread.

The shape is a spiral, going two rounds around the body, but all the ends connect at the same place.

AFter I had a strip that was long enough I used paper bag clips to make the round centers. This would have been so much easier if I hadn't lost my awl and had to do the holes for the clips with a seam ripper and a small pointy (but not sharp) metal stick that I found.

Then I measured out where I wanted the vertical bars to be and cut them out of worbla.

I heated the worbla strips and wrapped them towards the back, so I didn't have to use any glue. I used four layers of watered down wood glue to smoot down the surface of the worbla.

Then I covered all the leater in masking tape and used gold spray paint to paint the buttons and the worbla. Even if the paper bag clips are gold, I wanted them to have the same shine as the vertical strip so I painted them as well.

Right side of the belt

Wrong side of the belt. I haven't decided if I'm going to glue the back ends of the paper bag clips or not.

The seam where I butted the strips together is hidden under one of the strips of worbla.

Daala flightsuit details

Yesterday I finished the flighstut, I also started on the belt properly and that's all I have left now. I have even dyed my hair to get rid of my pink streaks and have a more even red colour, even if it's still darker than Daala's.

Here are a runthrough of how I made the details

First off were the patches and decorations on the sleeves. I added all the details on the sleeves before I sewed them together and onto the main flighsuit, so that I could work on a flat surface.

Daala is wearing two patches. For the first larger patch I first printed the look of it and transfered it to a scrap piece of yellow fabric. I had also added fusible interfacing to the back of the fabric to make it more sturdy. I then outlined the shapes in black embroidery thread, and after that I filled the patch with small satin stitches in yellow. I did not make the two black bars of the patch.

I then cut out the patch 

 The patch was sewn on to the sleeve with a button hole stitch, using double strands of black embroidery thread, and after that I added the two black bars by hand.

 The other smaller patch I embroidered free hand direct onto the fabric

The strips of fabric are bias tape in turquoise and black that I sewed on by machine. Since the fabric is really stretchy I used a fairly large stitch to sew the tape on, so that it can more easily follow the stretching of the fabric.

The last thing to add were the pockets on the legs.

Each pocket and flap are just rectangular pieces of fabric. I've sewed them on with double seams to make them a bit more sturdy. I did add a length of cotton tape both at the opening of the pocket and at the hem of the flap to make it sturdier. 

The larger greeblie is attached to the pocket, and I will be able to pull the strap through it to keep the pocket closed. 

In order to get a big enough surface to glue to the fabric I added some smaller lumps of worbla until I got two attachment points on each greeblie.

The greeblie was then glued on to the pocket with E6000 glue.

The top greeblie is glued to the strap. I'm pretty sure that it meant to be a clasp that you can pull the strap through, but it was easier to glue it to the strap itself. At the bottom of the strap I have also glued a piece of worbla to make it stiff and easy to pull through the large greeblie.

The last detail is Daala's admiral rank bar. It was made for me by a friend in the Nordic Garrison.

Now it's only to finish the belt and then I'm ready to send in application photos to the 501st Legion.

Admiral Daala flighsuit

When I had the pattern I cut it out in my fabric. It's an olive green stretch twill. After I had cut it out I started to work on the piping. I had bought an olive green piping, but it was too light, so I put it in a teabath to see if I could darken it. Not much happened, but then on a whim I decided to test a scrap of my flightsuit fabric in the teabath, and it did change colour. Not much but it definitely added a darker tone and took away some of the green sheen of the fabric. Even if it's not good to do something like that after you have cut out the pieces I threw them in a giant teabath anyway. It did fray the edges and probably distort the pieces a bit, but it was worth it for the colour change. 

As for the piping. Well that was a failure. I put the olive green piping in a brown dye bath, and I got a perfect dark olive green, but it totally destroyed the edges of the piping. I've never seen anything fray that bad. I tried to save it by sewing several rows of zigzag- stitches on what was left, but in the end I simply didn't have any edge that I could sew on. Well then I decided to do the same thing, but with an olive green bias tape that I had bought from the same store. Unlike the piping the bias tape must have been polyester though, because it hardly took the dye at all. After that it was just to throw out around 30 m of piping and bias tape and I decided to go for black piping instead.

This was the first time I worked with piping, and except for the lines over the clavicles it was fairly easy to sew it on, by sandwiching it between the piping and then using my zipper foot so that I could get really close to the cord of the piping.

The clavicle pattern was a bit of a night mare though.

I just couldn't get it symmetric. After I had sewn it and ripped up one of the sides three times I decided to sew it on by hand. By doing that I could simply shape the piping where I wanted it to be, and then I sewed the fabric to the shape of the piping, instead of letting the fabric decide where it should go. I couldn't get it totally symmetrical, but at least it was better. This is one point where I think that the pieces had been a bit distorted by the dye bath so that the left and right sides weren't totally alike.

This is the main part of the flightsuit. I now need to add the sleeves, the collar and the pockets. The inseam is pinned together so that I will be able to add the pockets before sewing it all together.

One thing I'm really happy with is my silhouette. I have a stomach sticking out in one direction, and then my butt is a bit lower, this easily makes me look even bigger when wearing tight clothes. For the flightsuit I made sure that tehre was extra fabric uner the biggest part of my stomach, so that the fabric continued straight down instead of following the body. It might seem a bit contradictory, but by making the waist-hip area bigger it actually looks slimmer. 

Admiral Daala flightsuit pattern

For the flightsuit I started off with my vintage Butterick 4524 pattern. It is two sizes too small for me so I always need to make a mock-up for it anyway. The main changes this time was that the neck opening was too big, so I added a flap of fabric there, before cutting out the final pattern.

Another tricky part is that the reference images don't show any sideseam, instead the flightsuit has piping going down from under the sleeve to the pocket. When cutting out the pieces I kept the side seam intact, and instead I cut out a separate side peace.

As of now the pattern is a bit on the baggy side, but I rather do it that way and adjust it down when it comes to the actual fabric. It will be a bit trickier of course to do that with the piping but hopefully it will work out fine.

The sleeve pattern I'm using without any modifications.

I have also painted the greeblies with a acrylic brass paint.

While doing the greeblies I also made a pair of earrings for TLJ Leia, but I made them in black worbla instead of regular worbla.

It's interesting to see the difference. They have both been treated about the same when it comes to stretching and forming the material, then I have used three layers of woodglue with water as a basebefore painting it. As you can see the earring in black worbla is a lot smoother and look more metallic than the Daala greeblie in regular worbla.

Admiral Daala greeblies

I will try to take a break from my 16th century outfit and concentrate on Star Wars for a month or so. In early May I'm going to the convention Nordsken in Skellefteå and even if I have signed up to troop with my X-wing pilot my goal is to have one new Star Wars costume. My choice is between TLJ Leia or Admiral Daala, the thing is I can't really choose. I keep doing small things one of the costumes, and then small things on the other, so we will see what happens.

This is the Admiral Daala costume that I'm making.

I have now started to make the small greeblies on her leg pockets, and of course I'm using worbla.

For the square on the pocket flap I simply cut out a piece of worbla in the shape I wanted, sligtly trapezoidal, and bent the edges inwards.

There is also a small groove at the top, and I got to that one by cutting a top layer of worbla that didn't quite go to the top, and then I added a separate strip of worbla at the top, so all in all the greeblie is in two layers.

For the long piece at the bottom of the flap I definitely thought it looked rounded, but with bevelled edges. I cut out three straight pieces of worbla in different lengths and layered them on top of each other. Then I cut the ends to make them more rounded, and finally I molded them over a big wooden spoon. Using baking sheets to make sure that the worbla didn't stick to the wood.

Three layers of worbla, with rounded ends

Shape them over the spoon

Finished shape of the greeblies