The yearly costume recap 2023

 So it is time to sum up the costuming/sewing year of 2023. I have definitely felt that I haven't made a lot of things, especially for myself. The reason for that is very simple. I haven't been been happy with myself, and most of my costumes that I have done over the years have been too small. I mentioned earlier on the blog that I made a gastric bypass in November. Now most of 2023 I have been aware of that I was going to go through with the operation, and that has just made me even more uncomfortable in my own body, and sad over the fact that I couldn't wear the costumes that I used to wear. I even skipped the yearly NärCon cosplay festival, even if it was also because I wanted to spend my whole summer holiday with my husband. I did do some events though, and one of the biggest events I've been part of.

It started with Star Wars Celebration Europe in London over Easter. Since 2023 is the 40th anniversary of Return of the Jedi I brought my ROTJ Mon Mothma for the Rebel Legion photoshoot.

I am the ROTJ Mon Mothma in the front, just behind the ewok

I also brought my jedi costume, which is a really comfy costume to wear at conventions, and the one new costume I brought was my fandom fashion take of Constable Zuvio.

SWC23 involved a lot of walking so I switched the high heeled boots that I had bought for the costume for sand coloured sneakers instead.

I have used the dress as an everyday dress since then, I quite like it as a comfy regular day dress.

After Celebration it was all focus on getting dressed for the 500th anniversary of king Gustav Vasa's triumph parade in Stockholm, and that meant meaking sure that David had something to wear. I first made him a pair of joined hose, a black cap and a faux double and gown.

It's faux in that the double and skirt is actually one piece of clothing instead of separate, still I thought it looked pretty well. I also made a coif, a shirt and trousers for our friend Björn who wanted to walk in the parade as a peasant.

Björn borrowed a doublet and for the day itself David chose to wear his older coat instead of the faux doublet, also because of the fact that it was 25 degrees warm and the coat is cooler. Under the coat you can also see the vest that I made to attach the hose to, so that they didn't fall off. This is also a bit unhistorical since it would have been a sleeved doublet in the 16th century, but I wanted to keep it as cool as possible so I skipped the sleeves.

For myself I decided to wear my 1520s court gown, but I had to add strips of fabric in the sides to make it bigger. It is hidden under the arm though so it wasn't too visible.

After the big parade it was time to prepare for medieval week. My one project for the year was to make a bathing shift.

It was a really good addition that made it so much easier to go bathing and keep clean during medieval week. I also made a new simple shift and a small untergollar, or partlet, to cover the neck opening of my yellow kirtle. I have had to make it bigger, and with that the neck opening had become so deep that I needed to fill it in, or risk being undecent.

Here I am, with the rest of the cooking team of Stockholmsfänikan, in my outfit that I wore the whole week, which is basically the yellow kirtle, new shift and partlet.

I did one last dash of sewing ahead of the annual Christmas market, where our 16th century guild is present. David needed new and warmer trousers. By now the joined hose that I had made for him had fallen apart totally, I also added a new furlined hat for him and mittens and a wool partlet for myself. Most of these items were lined with the fabric from the worn out hose.

I am really happy with this photo since it is the first time in a long time that I could fit into my green gown, so I am hoping that the coming year and with more changes to my body I will find the joy of making costumes for myself again in 2024.

Floral Wars dress at the Rise of Skywalker premiere

Earlier this year I got in on ordering a version of the Floral Wars fabric from Knitorious Fabrics. Knitorious only do limited runs and you have to pre-order them, they don't keep stock of their fabrics. I had just missed out on their Star Wars fabrics last year, so now I ordered soe as soon as I saw that hey opened up their pre-order again.

When the invitation came for the prevew of Rise of Skywalker I knew that I wanted to make a new dress for it. The preview was in Stockholm and I would have to go back and forth over the evening, thankfully it was early enough that I could catch the last train towards Dalarna. I didn't feel like being in costume, and instead thought that it would be fun to dress upp for the event.

The preview was fun, and it was great seeing it with my friends in the legions. Now only celebrities were allowed to walk the red carpet where they had our costumed members, so I didn't get photos with them, just with the stormtroopers that were out in the foyer.

For the dress I once again used the Lena pattern from Simply Sew. This time I chose to do a shortsleeved version. My first try with the pattern ended up a bit too big, so this time I increased the seam allowances, and that made it fit a lot better.

The bodice is lined in a thin navy jersey and I used a heavier organic cotton jersey for the waistband. This pattern is really easy to work with. I cut out all the pieces in one evening and sewed the whole dress together in one evening.

I was really happy with the pattern matching in front. I cheat a bit and use a pin to make sure that the stormtrooper in the middle don't slide apart while I'm wearing it. I could probably add a few stitches there.

For the premiere I wore the dress with my smallest tuille petticoat to give it a bit of extra pouff. The skirt of teh dress is so wide that it hangs better with a petticoat under it. I also wore my selfmade lightsabre earrings, my Her Universe R2 pearl necklace and my Heroes and Villains handbag.

Shiny, dangly lightsabres

The people that I talk SW fandom fashion with knows that I quite often moans over the fact that there are so few nice looking earrings. I love big chandelier-style earrings, but most SW earrings are studs or just a small ship. There have been some nice lightsabre earrings, but now when I went out to search for them I though they were too expensive. Well then I decided that I could make my own. I went out to some Swedish bead and jewellery making sites and ordered some beads and looked for what I had at home. I don't do a lot of beading, but I have some supplies after my Luna Lovegood jewellery.

The beads I used were two tubular clear tubular rhinestone beads (tubpärlor med klar strass) and 6 mm firepolished czech glass beads in a deep capri colour. To that I also added a small bead cap, and at home I had wire, clamping beads and ear hooks. For best effect I would have preferred a silver or transparent wire, but black is what I had at home.

First  I put the base bead on in the middle of a piece of wire. 

For the next bead I threaded both pieces of wire through the bead, so the wire is inside all the beads except for the base bead.

In total I used 7 beads.

I then added the bead hat, to look a bit like the emitter on the lightsabre.

And finally the tube rhinestone bead. After this I put a clamping bead above the tube bead to push all the beads down on to the base bead. This was tricky and I had to redo the first earring a couple of times because the clamping bead ended up too high, which meant gaps between the blue beads and not a nice unbroken row.

Then I added another clamping bead, pushed the wire through the ear hook, and then I pushed both pieces of wire back through the clamping bead. Before I clamped the bead closed I tried to get the wire loop and ear hook as close to the other beads as possible.

The finished earring. I made the second earring a lot faster than the first one, and it also looked better so I definitely got better with practice.

Now I have a nice pair of dangly and sparkling SW-inspired earrings. I think most SW fans will see the lightsabres, but non-fans will probably just see a row of sparkling beads. 

ComicCon Stockholm 2019

It was time again for ComicCon Stockholm, which is the biggest comiccon-like event of the year in Sweden. This year I didn't bring anything new, but it was the first time I wore Luna Lovegood for a big event, it was also the first time that we had the whole HP crew from Cosplay Dalarna assembled.

Friday is always a slow day. I did a stint as X-wing pilot in the Nordic Legions' booth. I decided to have some fun with make-up though, I mean how often can you wear the green lipstick you got from your sister?

Matching lips and hairband

I finally had the opportunity to meet up with the amazing Britta though, at NärCon I had only seen her in a distance when she was wearing her costume. She is definitely one of the coolest and nicest cosplayers I know.

Saturday was crazy. Simply put they had oversold tickets and let way too many people in. It was so crowded that you could barely move. The queue outside was Celebration-like, stretching for hundreds of meters. It was great fun patrolling the queue though, and it's always fun when you do it in a group. This time there were four of us X-wing pilots going around.

I also had a presentation of the Nordic Legions. It was the same set-up as in NärCon, since I think that works really well. It was a bigger crowd than at NärCon, but also more kids who just wanted to see cool costumes and not listen to the "behind the scenes" of being in one of the big Star Wars costuming clubs.

After the talk I switched to Lune Lovegood for the rest of the day, and had a lot of fun with the HP Dalarna people.

When my bloodsugar dropped I even found some candy that was straight out of Honeydukes

The whole HP gang ready for action

We also made the Heroes Cosplay Walk on, but that was a mess due to the number of people and the organizers not setting a cap on the number of entrants. We got a lot of cheers from the audience though, showing once again that a group is always appreciated.

On Sunday I was in the Nordic Legions' booth as Luna, it was my first official Reel Icons troop. There were a bunch of different characters, which always leads to fun photos, but my favorite was the little girl who came as Luna and wanted to have her photo with me. She got to borrow my wand as well, and she was really cute.

Cape off with Batman

Dancing with Haddock, Tintin, Harley Quinn and Batman

Being confused over muggle technology

This is how it works!

Force vs. magic

Unfortunately I didn't feel very well, I had had a cold the week before, and now it returned. I got out of costume and finally got some good photos of my "I heart SW"-dress that I made a year ago.

I was really happy that I had hitched a ride with Monika and Niklas home, instead of sitting on the train. I then had to stay home from work for a couple of days, but now I'm hoping that I'm finally rid of the cold. Next event will be AvestaCon last weekend in October.

Photos are also from the Nordic Legions' camera, ArtyAnna Cosplay and Tinkky Cosplay

I heart Star Wars dress

This summer I picked up a piece of Star Wars knit fabric in the fabric store in Mora. It wasn't enough to make a whole dress, so I also picked up some solid navy knit fabric to go with it. This week I felt it was time to make something out of them.

The boring thing with making clothes is to cut out the pattern and then the fabric. By now though I have a standard pattern that I can then tweak to make different dresses. My standard pattern was picked up many years ago from the sewing magazine Ottobre. It is made for a woven fabric, but if I make it in a knit fabric I only need to eliminate the zipper in the back. What I really like with this pattern is that the bust is shaped with to big darts, and that makes it very flattering for my figure.

I made the bodice out of the Star Wars fabric and the skirt out of the navy knit. I sew on a regular sewing machine, using the overlock stitch that is both a zigzag and straight stitch. For the  darts and hems I use a regular straight stitch. It is necessary to stabilize the edges of the knit fabric with the overlock stitch, or go over them with a zigzag afterwards, or seam allowances will just roll up and look like sausages.

All my dresses end up in this stage. I have made the bodice and decided on the neckline. The original pattern has a much deeper neckline, but I just filled it in. This skirt is a long piece of fabric that has been gathered and attached to the skirt. Variations on the skirt is how much fabric I use, the original pattern is a quite tight skirt with just two pleats in front and back for shaping, and if I gather or pleat it to the bodice. I had planned on an even wider skirt, but felt that it would be too heavy and pull to much on the bodice. If it had been a woven bodice I could have had more fun with a big, twirly skirt.

Since I had changed the neckline compared to the original pattern I couldn't use its neck facing. I have learnt through the years that the neck opening really needs a facing, otherwise it will look wonky.

To make a new facing I simply put the facing fabric on top of the bodice and traces the neck opening. It's an easy way to make sure that you always get a perfect facing.

The sleeves are another way of making a lot of variations to the dress. The sleeve pattern I'm using is a standard sleeve that I know fit my big upper arms, and by sheer luck t fits perfectly with this bodice pattern. Sometimes I make the sleeve even wider, and I vary the length quite a lot. For this dress I made elbow length sleeves, simply because that was how much fabric I had left. After cutting out the bodice and the sleeves I just had scraps of fabric left. I wanted to add something more to the skirt though.

What I did was to find my biggest heartshaped cookie cutters and use them as a pattern to cut out a bunch of hearts with motifs from the Star Wars fabric to use as applications. I sewed them on to the skirt using a small and tight zigzag stitch.

The finished dress.

I wore the dress yesterday to a Lord of the Rings-concert and I got quite a few compliments from random people in the crowd.

All in all I can make a dress like this in the afternoon, the most time consuming thing was to sew on the hearts. It would take longer to make it in a woven fabric, but I like working with knit fabrics just because it's easy and they are forgiving when it comes to fitting.

Her Universe Endor Landscape dress

This is my newest addition to wearable cute Star Wars dresses, It's not really new though, in fact I bought it as a birthday present for myself back in February. Since it became possible to buy Her Universe products in Europe I have bought quite a few, and the site that is selling them has sales quite often. This is good because my opinion of Her Universe is really that it is hit and miss when it comes to both size and quality, and I'm very hesitant to buy them for full prize.

Official Her Universe photo

Back in March I posted about the Bespin dress that I had bought, and that I thought it was too big. I had gone up a size when ordering it to be on the safe side, I had bought it in a 2XL. The reason why I had sized up was this Endor Landscape dress, when it arrived it was way too small. In fact it was missing around 15 cm of width in the back for me to be able to close it. This is where Her Universe is inconsistent when it comes to sizing. Their jersey and stretch items seems to run big, while the Endor Landscape is a woven fabric and is quite small instead.

The quality of the dress is also so so. It is made of a thin cotton, that feels like sheeting. The print is really nice though. The stitching is sturd, but it is uneven. In the back one of the straps is fastened at the top of band going around the edge, and the other is fastened halfway down on the band.

Of course I got disappointed that I couldn't wear the dress, but I wanted to at least salvage the print and make it into something useful. Before going to Närcon I decided it was time to turn it into a wearable summer dress. I ripped away the zipper in the back. I then took a bit of black jersey and fastened it to edges, just big enough that I could stretch it enough to pull it over my head. I then took a purple satin ribbon and made thread loops that I fastend where the zipper had been, I also used the same satin ribbon as lacing.

At NärCon I wore it with my turqoise petticoat. It's needed to give the skirt a bit more flare. It fits great over the bust, with the cup being perfect for my C-cup, larger busted women might have problems though.

Once again my opinion of the dress is that it is fun, but you need to be weary of the sizing, and I recommend that you buy it at a sale rather than paying fullprice for it.

Han Solo premiere (spoiler-free)

Tonight it was time to see the new Solo: a Star Wars Story film. It was the first premiere in a long time where I didn't do any trooping, instead I just went to the cinema in Borlänge and watched the first showing.

Still even if I wasn't in costume, I wanted to dress up for the occasion, so I brought out my casual Han Solo cosplay.

I'm wearing a white shirt from Lindex, black vest from a thrift store, blue trousers with red stripes from H&M, my Daala black boots, and of course my Loungefly Han Solo purse.

All in all it was two enjoyable hours and I'm definitely thinking about seeing it again.

Her Universe Bespin dress

This winter Her Universe released a dress inspired by Leia's Bespin gown in The Empire Strikes Back.

This is one of the most gorgeous costumes in the whole Star Wars saga and it's on my dream list, when I feel ready to take on a fullength coat of embroidery.

The Her Universe version of the dress is in one piece, isntead of a tunic with a coat over, with the distinct collar and a few of the embroidered pieces.

I had to have this dress, and as soon as it showed up on emp-shop I ordered it. I also had a  30% off coupon to use since emp had failed with an earlier order.

I have recently had problems with Her Universe sizing. I am normally XL, and on good days L, but the last time I ordered a Her Universe dress in a non-stretch fabric it was a good 15 cm too small in the back, despite being an XL. For this I decided to order a XXL, since I really didn't want it to be too small.

I found the XXL to be clearly too big for me. Now this is a model that's supposed to hang loose, and as such it's not a disaster that it's too big. It makes it really roomy and comfortable, but it's maybe not the most flattering dress for my body. I would have loved a belt to emphasize the waist, just like the original costume.

It has a nice swing and drape to it. I love the embroidered pieces. The most negative thing with the dress is the quality of the fabric. It's not the first time I've felt that Her Universe is using really cheap fabrics, and for the price you pay I think that's a shame. The dress arrived really wrinkled, and it is a thin and flimsy poly jersey fabric. It will be really hard to take out the wrinkles. I will also be weary of using it too much since I don't want to wear it out too quickly.

I wore the dress to work today, and it's a great example of everyday cosplay. My regular style is definitely geared to fun and quirky dresses, so it defintely fits with that. I got really nice compliments from my coworkers, and thehy thought it was both a folkloristic dress and an historically inspired dress, nobody guess it was Star Wars though. I paired it with my black officer boots, that I also use for TLJ Leia.

All in all I really like the dress, and I must be careful not to use it too much. I would recommend using a discout or wait for a sale though, since I'm not sure that the quality of the fabric is worh the full price.