MEROKOOO!!

Meroko has been the cheapest cosplay I've ever done. The biggest reason for this was that I made it mostly from my old cardcaptor sakura cosplay. I Hadn't been  wearing it for several years and I wasn't even planning to wear it in the future. so.. Instead of selling it, I gave it a new life as a Meroko. 

The process was fairly easy. I started the costume by making a base for the hat from camping mattress, duct tape and hot glue. I had mattress left from my previous cosplay, so the total price for the costume so far was zero.

Sakura

Sakura when all the pieces are showing (except for the petticoat)

After it was done, it was time to destroy sakuras outfit. Sakuras outfit consisted of 5 parts: undershirt, underskirt, main dress, petticoat and hat. From the bottom of the dress I made a pleated skirt. The hem was tiny bit too short, so I didn't get to place the zipper the way I wanted.  The zipper used in the skirt was also from the sakuras outfit. I had to seam rip the ribbon from the bottom. I ended up shortening the skirt from the front side a little. The top of the skirt is finished with bias tape - made from the sakuras outfit~

From the underskirt and undershirt I made all the ruffling. The ruffling actually took the whole underskirt.. and most of the shirt... and If I would do it again I would probably use a tiny bit more fabric. The ruffling was hand stitched to the skirt, which wasn't the wisest way to do it. I should have consumed more time planning the skirt construction, but I just wanted this to be easy outfit, so I didn't.

Sakuras hat was transformed into merokos hat. Though I had to use Sakuras left over fabrics I had saved for several year, since there were no big enough pieces for the brim and I had to make the brim and for that reason I had to make the brim under the hat from two pieces. The hat is fully lined and the lining I used was a leftover from sheryls costume. Ears for the hat were made from fabric I got from my granny, so no money spent there either. The inner part of the ears is fleece that was leftover from some kigurumi I made ages ago. (At times like this I'm happy I have a lot of fabrics stored) There is wire inside the ears to give them shape.

Sewing lining for the hat.

The top being made

The Top was made from sakuras dress. Sakuras wings are attached to the back of the Merokos top with wire. The top opens up from the zipper at the front. The zipper was actually bought for this cosplay, but because I had my gift card, It was basically free (at least for me). The top is also fully lined (with sheryls left over lining), and it has some wadding. I also made piping for the edges by putting wool threads inside bias tape (made from sakuras outfit). 

I altered the zippers pull tap a bit with leftover craftfoam and worbla. The pull tab was the coated with wood glue and painted with acrylic paints.

craftfoam and worbla ready to transform the pull tab...

Transformation complete!

 I also made the ring/buckle for the belt with wire and worbla. Speaking of the belt, all the dark blue fabrics were from grandma. The fabric is actually knitted velvet - not quite the material I wanted to choose in the first place, but I ended up liking the results quite a bit :3 

Almost ready!

And then there are the shoes. which ended up like this:

The shoes are made from old pair of platform sneakers, which is the reason I had to cover them with fleece before covering them with the red fabric. The buckles are from old shoes I altered for Asuna. The big circle is from camping mattress.

The wig I used for this cosplay was one of the first wigs I ever purchased. I had to straighten it and make the ball curls. The ball curls were made with a lot of glue, seethrough tape and wire. They are not too neat but look decent enough. The number one reason for me to use glue was that I wanted the curls can be taken down if I want to.

The gloves were made the simplest way possible, the same way I made sheryls gloves (link). I also made safety pants, since the skirt is really short. And the socks I already had purchased for daily use before even starting this costume. 

And that's all about the costume and how I made it!

Cats always choose to sleep in the place they are most in your way.

Oh, and the final results looked like this:

Tracon 2016 ( ᐛ )و

Tracon was over a week ago and for me it was an okay con, could have been better could have been worse. Nothing special. I think it was mainly the weather that made tracon a bit dull this year. Anyways I'll start this conblogpost with...

 ....friday:

Me and my bf had purchased the tickets early in the march. And not just those ticket's that you can print out or show from your phone. But the actual physical copies of the conbracelets... And as you may have already guessed one of those bracelets went missing... And it was friday, just a day before the con, before we noticed that it was missing.. So we searched the whole house and it was nowhere to be found. We were desperate at this point since the con was sold out and the chances of getting a ticket at the evening before the con were basically zero. But against all odds we managed to get a ticket! And so the conweekend was saved! 

✧Saturday✧

I was cosplaying Meroko from full moon wo sagashite on saturday. At the morning it was cold so I was questioning my choice of cosplay. I thought I was going to freeze and I brought some blankets with me to prevent that. To my surprise It wasn't as cold as I had imagined. I ended up using a blanket only for a very short period of time, But the fact I was inside the building for the most parts might be the reason for that. 

I was surprised how much attention Meroko got. It was really nice to see that many people had a soft spot for Meroko eventhough she's from an older series and the outfit isn't super complicated :3

As usual I went to watch cosplay competitions. I was kinda disappointed with the competition. There weren't many participants and the overall quality of the skits were lower than last year. That being said I really did like the winners skits. Hopefully the competitions next year will be better.

The weather was unfortunately bad this year, Tracon has made an effort with the outerior for the last few years and I really like to just hang in the area and watch well made cosplays walk by. This year I didn't hang outside at all. except for the part when I went to eat and when we took pictures of Meroko.  

✧Sunday✧

I was wearing Sheryls iteza gogo kuji don't be late-costume, but I didn't took any new photos of it. For some reason I was really tired on sunday and didn't really do much on that day (probably because I woke up super early on saturday and couldn't sleep that night because of the excitement ˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖° ). The highlight of the day was to watch the anime music concert. That sums up my Tracon. Next I'll make a post about Meroko's outfit and after that I'll start some new costumes~~

✧・ﾟSheryl Nome close-up ・ﾟ✧

Here's a little close up on all the pieces I made for Sheryl Nome's Iteza gogo kuji Don't be late costume:

✧Jacket✧

(excuse the un-ironed hem ;___;)

The Jacket is made out of polyester fabric. It is fully lined. There is also shoulder padding added to give this jacket a more structured look. The buttons on the front are fully functional and there is also couple sew-on snaps to old the front panel. The buttons on the cuffs are only for decoration. There is only couple darts in the whole jacket: two next to the front panel, one in the middle of the back piece and two on the sides of the jacket. The decorations on the shoulders is sewn on by hand.

  

shoulder decoration

one of the snaps

✧Pants✧

The Pants are made out of same material as the jacket. They are fully lined. There are seams on the side of the pants as well as on the widest part of the pants. There is also wire added to the widest seam to make the pants stay wide while wearing them. The waistband of the pants has Velcro. I'm quite happy how these turned out, since i'm not too familiar with making pants. 

✧Undergarment✧

The undergarment has four pieces, two of which are visible while wearing (shorts and collar) and two of which are hidden under the jacket (suspenders and top). The suspenders are made out of elastic band and there are buttonholes, so it is possible to wear the shorts without suspenders. The top and shorts are made from faux leather. Both of them have a zipper on the side. I made the top a little wider than it is supposed to be :P

✧Hat✧

I'm not too happy with the hat. It came out too wrinkly and the cap is a little too big... But I really do like all the decorations and how the hat looks with everything. The Hat has eaten a lot of craft foam to keep the wanted shape. And it is fully lined. The decorations are made out of craft foam and worbla.

✧Belt, gloves etc.. ✧

The Belt is made out of faux leather, wire, craft foam and worbla. It doesn't have any darts and the buckle can be taken off. 

Gloves are made out of stretchy cotton. There is decorative button sewn on. 

earing

Sheryl WIP 2

The jacket was quite easy to make. I made the patterns using mannequin, which is not something I usually do. I wanted the jacket to have only one short seam on the front  and It would have been hard to make without the mannequin. Overall I'm quite pleased how the pattern came out. 

patterns for the collar front back and sleeve. Though I ended up changing the collar a lot. 

I put some interfacing on the upper back of the jacket and also to the front panels and then just sewed the blue parts of the jacket together. as simple as that. Then I sewed together the lining. At this point I had to make the collar and the cuffs. the Cuffs were easy to make but the collar was a little more troublesome. First I made it as the pattern above suggest... But it didn't work out. Then I curved it.. and It was too flat. Then  I added a narrow straight rectangle between the curved collar and the neckline. And that worked out! and interfacing is put on the lining at the cuffs and the collar.

After the collar was sewn in place I pinned the lining to the blue fabric and stitched them together close to the edge. Then I added yellow bias tape to finish the hem. After that I attached the cuffs to the jacket and added bias tape to them as well. After that I made buttonholes and added buttons. And made all the other tiny finishing  touches by hand.

Tadah!

pretty cuffs :3

The pants/legwear kinda just came together without any problems. I made lining to them as well and I had to add wire to make them hold the shape I wanted.

Lining and blue part.

Wire being added to the seam. It is sewn on the seam allowance

I made a lot of stitching into these, like this perfect stitching which was easy to make....

....and this a little harder stitching to make.

And this is how everything looked laying flat on the floor.. without bias tape and cuffs

The gloves I made using a pattern I found from here. It worked quite well, except the fingers were a little bit too long for my hands.

The belt was made from a faux leather and since it had a little stretch, I didn't have to add any darts to make it fit better. Because I didn't find closure big enough I decided to add boning to the front of the belt. So there's two rigile boning to hold the fabric. 

not too neatly sewn, but there will be buckle to hide all the mess.

The buckle belt I made by sandwiching worbla and craft foam and curved the creation a little. I added wire to the back to make it possible to add to the belt. The decorations for the hat were made with craft foam and worbla. I coated all the pieces with wood glue and then spray painted them. After that I added some highlights with black and white acrylic colors.

I heated the worbla a bit, placed craft foam pieces, added worbla to the top and trimmed the excess.

Then I made the wirethingies and attached them to the back of the buckle with wirblapieces.

sketch, stencil and cut pieces from craftfoam.

waiting for wood glue and paint 

The hat didn't work out as I wanted. I first tried to make it more triangle, but ended up making it round. Then I had to add support to the front to make it stay up and I also added some cotton wool to make it hold the shape better. I'll make another post on the details later~

The first versions patterns...

✰ Animecon 2016 ✰

✰Saturday✰

I was looking forward to wear this cosplay for the whole week. I was really happy how it came out and It looks so good in pictures ˭̡̞(◞⁎˃ᆺ˂)◞*✰  and I really enjoyed wearing the cosplay...  Until the sun decided to say hello...  The whole week had been rainy and cold but on the saturday noon the sun started shining and It was so hot! Just imagine wearing faux leather shorts, belt and fully lined jacked. My belly was so sweaty ●﹏●。 Next time I'll choose to wear this I'll make sure it's somewhat cold day 

Anyways, on saturday was the pokemon musical which was probably the highlight of the con for me. At first I wasn't too excited to see it and didn't think it would have been as good as it was, even though I had heard good things about the musical. I'm just so glad I ended up going to see it. I also went to watch cosplay competitions which were nice, Other than that I pretty much wondered around the con.

I also happened to find the one kitten plushie I fell in love with in tracon X. In Tracon it was sold out so I didn't get my hands on it but now I have her :3

The cute kitten I bought. I named her pallero.

✰Sunday✰

Umi advertizing coca-cola o(〃＾▽＾〃)o

I ended up wearing Umi on the second day of the con because I wanted good pictures of her. And of course I didn't even find a nice place to take photos.. And the photos I did took were really bad because of the direct sunlight and background ;____; argh. I just wanted to have a cute flowery festival feeling background for her.. well maybe someday in the future

On sunday I went to watch group cosplay and cmv competitions, as usual, and also watched a little bit of cosplay date. I've been joking for a while that I should cosplay king julien from madagascar, since I'm quite good at mimicking him. And after watching the cosplay date I got a perfect idea to go as king julien to the cosplay date. I already have all my lines made up and now making king julien is starting to lure me even more（๑✧∀✧๑）

Next time I'll make a second wip on sheryls costume and detailed pics and description on all the costume pieces, so stay tuned~