susan pevensie Archives • Jessica Smith Creates

December 1, 2016August 23, 2022

Weekend of Corsets

After I had completed the skirt for my Ariel costume, reality set in.

I knew I didn’t want to wimp out and not make a corset, and by this point I had already bought the fabric and the pattern and denim for the muslin. I used Laughing Moon’s 100 Victorian Underwear Dore Corset pattern, which I got from Truly Victorian here. This post by Truly Victorian helped me choose what size to start with and which corset to start with. (ETA This link seems to be broken, and I can’t find the article)

So here is the story of my weekend of corsets (embellished due to the fact that it was about 3 months ago and for artistic liberties):

The Friday before DragonCon I grabbed the cut out pieces of the corset pattern(I had clipped them a few days before when I was in the mood to cut, but not carefully), and I carefully traced out a size, and cut it out of the denim. Did I not figure out that I should alternate directions of the pattern pieces so each side of the corset was one color? No I did not. Do I care very much? Nope! Gotta love underwear for that reason…

I sewed it up with one layer, and at first used a zipper in place of the busk at the front. It ended up being taken in a lot for the denim version, and I think this was mostly a combo because I am rather squishy around the tummy, so it was able to compress/move rather easily, and because the denim has some give. Not a lot, mind you, but a bit more wiggle room than I’d thought. And realistically I’m happier to “remove” fabric later than need more of it there. It is a heavy weight 100% cotton denim from Joann Fabrics, with a surprising amount of drape post-wash, but it’s pretty stable and thick.

I hadn’t yet finished the denim corset yet, since I didn’t have the grommet setting kit by that point, but I was able to alter the pattern for the Ariel corset.

Then Saturday rolled around and I cut out the fabric for Ariel. I had gotten a yard of Yaya Han’s corset fabric from her line at Joann’s… By this point I was in Joann’s every other day or so. It’s a nice enough fabric. Lightweight but still strong and stable. Thin, though, very thin feeling. In the future I wouldn’t use it for corsets, since it did strain a bit under the pressure, causing some extra rippling in the already slight ripple sections, but it would be good as a tough non-stretch layer for support.

I had raised the top of the corset by two inches, and aimed for that round sweetheart shape, and I cut away some of the extra fabric from the bottom to give it a soft point at the bottom. Then I ended up altering this more once I had tested with just one layer of fabric, so I could try to get less of the stomach-fat-that-is-now-hip-fat look. (Spoiler alert: It only kinda worked.) I then sewed the second layers together for both corsets (each of self fabric), and inserted the busk to Ariel’s (I had forgotten to purchase another for Susan) and inserted a zipper for Susan’s.

The boning was tricky, and the next step. I got all the boning from Bias Bespoke’s etsy shop, as well as my busks. I used spiral steel in the sides, and spring steel in the straighter front and back areas. To “cap” the ends, I dipped the bones in Plasti-Dip I got from Lowes. I should’ve done an extra dip on the end of all of them, but I got lazy and frantic about finishing.

I cut all the boning for both corsets at once, using bolt cutters and wire cutters. And then I’m pretty sure my friend conned me into going line dancing (**shivers**). So when I got home that night I was exhausted and crashed. On Sunday, I inserted the boning, and stitched the bindings on by hand. I threaded a length of Sugar and Cream yarn through the top of Susan’s so I could draw it more closed if necessary.

The grommet setting tool had been delivered by this point, but I had forgotten to buy grommets with it, so when they arrived on Monday I inserted them into both corsets, after practicing on an old underbust corset that I used for my TARDIS costume.

Oh, I definitely bought and inserted a busk into Susan after the con, which is why its there in the pictures. The zipper I used split every time I’d wear the costume, with only the tie and hook and eyes to hold it in, so I knew that a real busk was in order.

And that was my weekend of corsets! I don’t intend to have another such weekend, but they were pretty quick once I got rolling!

Ever take on two intimidating things in a weekend?

September 20, 2016August 22, 2022

My First DragonCon Recap

Why hello there, all you lovely readers!

It’s been a month since we last talked because… well…

link

First there was last minute DragonCon prep. And then DragonCon itself. And then the firm unwillingness to let it go.

But the time has come. Here is the overly detailed tale of my adventure with my two friends Ollie and Jo!

Wednesday:

I had everything packed ahead of time, except for the last minute stuff and snacks. That does not mean that I actually got out of my house on time, but that’s something I’m working on. The drive down was dull, but reasonably short, excepting the hour of traffic I had waiting to drive through Atlanta on the highway. 17 miles away from the airport for half an hour, and then another half hour to drive those 17 miles. But I finally got there and picked up my friends and we settled into our AirBnB outside the city.

Thursday:

We got up kinda late and did a bit of work on last minute costuming finishes, and then went downtown to pick up our passes. We had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and then took one of the DragonCon Newbie tours, which was awesome and a lovely help, since we realized that getting off the MARTA would not necessarily require heading out to the street before the hotel. The walkthroughs were fantastic! Then we headed back to the house to finish most of the costume stuff we hadn’t done before. Oh, and we got arepas from this awesome local place called Arepa Mia which were fantastic and I’d definitely suggest going if you’re in the area.

Friday:

This was our Disney day. My friend Ollie went as Belle, since she had a costume from a few years ago Halloween that she wanted to reuse. Jo went as Meg from Hercules, and I went as Ariel from the Little Mermaid. I’ll go into detail on my costumes later, and unfortunately we didn’t get any group photos on any of the days, except for this selfie that I forced us to take to prove that we were in fact there together. And for posterity, etc. (If any pop up online, I’ll show them). Both Ollie and Jo got a lot of shout outs and photos, and I met an Ursula (and I totally had no idea what was going on when she came over… Definitely a running theme of my weekend). Also I definitely had someone ask if I was Anna from Frozen. May I mention that Anna does not have the monopoly on black bodices and blue skirts?

This was at the end of the day, so we were overwhelmed, tired, and so so happy!

The first panel that we saw that weekend was the Legends of Tomorrow panel with Falk Hentschel and Casper Crump who were adorable. No lines for this one, we just walked right in. We tried to catch another DC television panel, but the line was huge, so we skipped it. We went to the first room of exhibitors which was overwhelming and exhausting… Outside of it, though, I got to meet my favorite blogger Jen of EPBOT and her husband, which was quite exciting. We went home, shed our hair extensions, heels (for two of us) and makeup, and we went out for pizza. Yummy yummy pizza!

Saturday:

I termed this our British media day. I wore my TARDIS outfit, newly revamped for the summer con, Ollie went as Clara Oswald, and Jo went as a Gryffindor headgirl (or maybe Lily Potter… It oscillated). So this was my second day in heels, but we were determined to see as much as we could. We got in a long line for the Flash/Arrow panel. It was nice to be in the shade of a building, mostly, but it was still nearly an hour of waiting… I got a lot of oohs and ahs from across walkways and the like of my costume, but few people got it until I turned around… I’m thinking of adding in a fascinator with the top lantern to help the effect.

I saw one of the cosplayers I admire, who I originally found through Peggy Carter cosplay research, KatarinaCosplay in her Captain Carter outfit (which is apparently from this game called Marvel Puzzle Quest, which I’m avoiding at all cost for fear of getting addicted…) and said hi briefly, but it was in the middle of the Marriott floor, so I didn’t stick around… And we were already late getting Ollie to the photo ops. The thing that was personally most squee-worthy for me on Saturday was going to the Walk of Fame and Allison Scagliotti’s line was almost completely empty, so I jumped in and got my Warehouse 13 Farnsworth signed… I’ve learned so much since I made it, but it’s still one of my first props and I would have always kept in a special place in my heart, but now even more!

Right outside an Osgood found me (which I totally didn’t realize she was Osgood, because I’m silly), and we took a couple of pictures! We had dinner at the food court, then headed home to change before going back to Atlanta for the Heroes and Villains Ball. At this point my feet really hated me, so I changed into my Kaylee. I think we were all glad we went and tried it out, but it wasn’t something that any of us really needed to stay too long at so we about-faced and headed back home.

Sunday:

This was my third day in heels and also our most panel-intensive day. Jo went as a casual Barbara “Babs” Gordon, Ollie went as Arya from Game of Thrones, and I wore my Susan Pevensie costume. We started our day at the Torchwood panel where we sat next to this awesome steampunk Ood. It was entertaining to look to the side and see an Ood nearly bending in half laughing. Because we all spent nearly the entire time laughing! Then we got in line for the Pond Family Reunion panel, which had already wrapped nearly all the way around the building before we even got there almost an hour and a half early. This time we were on the sunny side of the building, which was not the most fun, but the panel was worth it! Jo split off before the PFR panel to go to a Welcome to Night Vale panel, and after our panel Ollie and I headed to the Warehouse 13 panel which was hilarious!

During the course of the day, Ollie found a lovely Sansa to have a “reunion” with, and all of the GoT group she was with loved Ollie’s costume. I saw both a White Witch in full battle regalia from the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, and a Susan in her green dress from the same movie. It was great seeing the Narnia family representing! After the Warehouse panel I was feeling a bit panic-attacky and all of us were getting tired, so we headed home. One of my favorite moments, though, was on the MARTA platform, when I was in the middle of removing as much as I could without losing things or revealing anything untoward, a young girl that was part of a non-DragonCon-attending family taking the same train as us told me that she really liked my dress. It’s one thing to get compliments from other costumers and cosplayers and fans of the fandom, but another to get them from a young girl who might one day group up to be a fan of the same thing, or her own favorite things and perhaps get dressed up herself. Oh, and we got pizza again. Because it was fantastic. I’d definitely recomment Fellini’s Pizza in Decateur GA.

Monday:

Last day of the con, and very few people were dressed up, so we stuck out even more. Which was nice. We did our Miyazaki group cosplay that day. I went as a summer-ish appropriate Nausicaa (with Teto!), Jo as Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle, and Ollie as Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service. Jo and Ollie were both instantly recognized by almost everyone, and they got lots of pictures. One of the first people we met that day recognized me and that made my day, since I was happy to be in sandals instead of heels and not corseted, so I had made up my mind early in my designing process that I wouldn’t even care if I was recognized. I was going to be comfy. A lot of people asked for pictures in all sorts of configurations of the three of us, which was cool.

Jo and I attended the Everyday Steampunk panel, which was full of great ideas, then caught up with Ollie for the final Legends of Tomorrow Panel of the weekend. No lines for either and we even sat in the first row of the Legends panel, because the lady in charge of seating liked our costumes. We then toured the exhibitor’s hall again, and I picked up a wooden sword and a lovely prop dagger with a lion on the hilt.

We parted with Hollyn who headed to the airport, and then drove back to my place.

All in all, it was a fantastic first convention, and definitely one that I’d like to attend again. In fact, I’ve been debating whether to buy next year’s ticket now…

I’ll start posts soon on the costume elements that I haven’t shown you yet, and soon I should be working on Cinderella and some non-costume sewing!

But I will leave you, in the meantime, with a derpy picture of me in my Ariel costume… Because that’s how I roll!

October 20, 2015August 19, 2018

Farewell to Narnia

It has been a long journey to get here.

I started planning this costume nearly three years ago, just before I started this blog. I had fallen in love with it when I first saw ‘Prince Caspian,’ and even working in a costume shop, I had never thought about making it for myself.

During my senior year of college, I finished my first overbust corset, thinking that it would be used for this costume… I’m still a little sad that I won’t be able to use it for this costume. I also got the fabric for the underskirt and the dress itself, which was quilting cotton and poly-satin, respectively.

Last summer I made the “sleeves” and the underskirt, and attached the sleeves to the corset. Not my brightest idea.

In late summer, or early autumn, I showed you the two posts about creating my quiver.

Over the past year, I drafted the overdress from the corset pattern, constructed it from the lining fabric (turquoise satin) as a muslin, then used those pieces to cut out the real fabric and sew it up. That was early autumn of last year. Then I stalled for months. At the end of the spring semester I started sewing the trim onto the top, and when I had the trim mostly on, I stalled again deciding what pattern I really wanted to paint. I got so fed up with it mid-July that I started on it with dots and then worked on the pattern as I went. I finished the painting mid-August, right before school started, and happy with myself, forgot that I actually needed to finish it.

I decided on the last Monday in September that I needed to finish the dress and get it photographed that weekend. This costume deserved better than my living room.

So a friend volunteered to be my photographer, and told me about this awesome library, and here are some of the photos!

It’s about time after 2.5 years, right?

Maybe I’ll get pictures outside sometime, but for now I love these pictures, and this library!