Dragon Con Update

We are past the 2 month countdown mark.

I am hard at work on my Kaylee costume, which will be finished in the next week. I also have the deadline for the Inara Scarf costume - I just need to get the pants. Again, done in the next week. I keep looking for the jewelry, and am striking out, so I think I am going to have to hit up my BeadNut friend, and commission her to make the bling for all the Inara garb. She has a lot of resources that I don't, and don't have the time to look for.

Nearly 2 down.

The River costume - holy hell, COP and I both found multi-layered skirts at our favorite thrift store. We plan on hitting them with Kool-Aid in the next week, and with a white tank, the River togs will be nearly done. As much as we would like to knit our own sweaters, I knit WAAAAAY too slow, and COP is somewhat injured, so we are going to take pics, yarn that we are staining, and a checkbook to Knitting Wiz (I will have to let you all know how the staining goes - we are giving the Kool-Aid a workout on this set of costumes) and see what we can get done. She is a much faster knitter than COP or I.

COP found a perfect burnished leather jacket to tear apart and remake into a Zoe vest. The front won't even have to be cut much as the back panels of the jacket will work really well with the pattern of Zoe's vest.

And finally, the Inara Jaynestown gown. It's been giving me fits, the thought of sewing all that chiffon. I found a dress at Ye Olde Fave thrift store for 7.50. It's the right wine color, it has straps that I can build the brocade overdress onto, and it has not one, but two underdresses. This is something I have been concerned about, since in the episode, Inara's dress is several layers of chiffon only. I don't feel comfy in just see through chiffon, no matter that it is multi-layered. I want a solid underdress. So I am going to take out the second layer of this dress, and probably take off the overskirt of organza, since it is really stiff and not soft and floaty like chiffon, and just sew a layer or maybe two of chiffon onto it from waist level on down.

I was really stressing, since there is no pattern for this, and it is a three-tiered dress in terms of pattern. Since I have to do an obi for the Inara Shawl costume, I am going to sew the Jaynestown obi as well. Oh! And while small, a pleasing detail! The Jaynestown obi is tied with a twined cord, and looks like it has tassles at the end of it. I was picking up thread at Wally World last week, and saw the notions rack, and on it were tassles in the wine color of the cord that also had a rather asian looking bead on them. Perfect! So I can end my cord in classy looking tassles, rather than just ending them in a tie off type of thing.

While we are feeling the crunch, things are looking ok. The sewing is looking less scary than it was, and I cannot tell you how much of a relief that is. The fabrics I am working with are fairly intimidating.

So look next week to see the Kaylee (with parasol!!!) and Inara shawl costumes.

Cheers!

BAH