Post-con Posts! Black Gold Saw - Jacket

If you couldn't tell by the sudden deluge of updates, we're baaaaack and ready to finish up our cosplay tutorials from this con.  Or, in my case, to sarcasm at you some more.

And here I was thinking that the half jacket was going to be the hardest part of the costume.  Ha.  Ha ha.  Ha.  If only.

To begin, I started looking around for the right kind of fabric, and I ended up with a type of black pleather that I found on sale at Jo-Ann Fabrics.  I tried to avoid very stretchy fabrics that would probably wreak havoc on any sewing machine (more on that later, I'm afraid).  After digging around in the pattern section, I came up with a cropped jacket that was close to what I was looking for and was relatively simple to make, an important feature for someone as sewing-machine challenged as I seem to be.

 It looks so pink and happy, doesn't it?  Won't look that way for long, I'm afraid.

Minor alterations were made to the collar and front, but most of the changes were made to the length of the sleeves in order to make them come past my knuckles.  Also, sewing on sleeves makes me want to throw things.

Look ma, no sleeves!  

 I was surprised at how (relatively) well the fabric got along with the sewing machine, but alas - it was not meant to be.  At the end of the project (i.e. the ends of the sleeves), the machine decided that enough pleather was enough, a decision heralded by a sound that (I can only imagine) was akin to that of a cat being thrown backwards into a wood chipper.  (...What is wrong with my brain, that that is the first mental image I come up with.) So, the rest was done by hand.  

The white stripes on the upper sleeves and collar were painted, and the stars were made as stickers from a pattern I drew.  As I discovered, drawing perfect stars is not as easy as it sounds.  Not that that sounds particularly easy to begin with.  The collar was held together at my throat by two hook and eye fasteners.

Stars and stripes!  How patriotic.

A word to the wise, though: Experience dictates that, in temperatures upwards of 90° F, pleather and any pleather-like materials tend to...melt.  Spending prolonged amounts of time outside in the summer in the name of awesome photoshoots may lead to said melting.  And pleather is not the most comfortable (or breathable) of materials to begin with.  But it must be said, the jacket (unlike some other parts of my costume cough belt buckle cough) survived the entire convention, and that is all I asked of it.  Overall success!  

More on horns, contacts, and photoshoot pics to come!

~Kathryn