…well, almost. It’s certainly cosplay construction time!  I’m not sure how you spent your weekend, but I spent my sewing, and not much else, because the Portland Wizard World Comic Con is coming up again! This time, it’s in January, and since I’m making more than one costume, I decided to start early.  I’m so excited that Bruce Campbell will be returning too! And I’ll be making another Dixie Cousins costume. Her entire wardrobe from The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. is amazing and I want to have it all! Originally I wanted to do her purple traveling ensemble for the con, but when I realized that Star Wars actor Billy Dee Williams was also attending, and I added a Star Wars costume to my list, I realized the multiple piece outfit was going to be too much to tackle, especially with the holidays coming up. So I’m doing another showgirl costume…

This costume is from the episode “Brisco in Jalisco ” and features an emerald taffeta bodice with what I assume are flocked black polka dots.  It was a trial to find the fabric.  I couldn’t find what I wanted at any of the fabric stores in Portland, or on-line.  And my options were turning into buying green taffeta and either felting the polka dots or cutting velveteen into small circles and applying them. Neither of which sounded too appealing not to mention both would be incredibly time consuming.  So, what did I do? I found two dresses on Ebay made of similar fabric to what I needed, and cut ’em up. I’m bound to get flack for this, I know. But my sanity was at stake! Besides, they were contemporary, Made-in-China pieces of crap.  And since I am restricted with that limited amount of fabric, I will not be making the boa, sadly.

My mum visited over the weekend and has been a tremendous help to me on this so far. She’s navigated me through many an ordeal during this costume so far, and done a bit on it for me after frustration landed me nearly in tears when working on the muslin mock-ups of it earlier.

This costume, unlike the first one, has no beading, which Patrick is quite thankful for, as we are still finding beads from the last one. However, it does feature some underbust fringe/netting business. I don’t knit or crochet or macrame, so I was concerned about how I would tackle this.  I delegated the work of this actually to Patrick, who could spare the time leading up to the final construction, as I battled out modifying a pattern, and creating muslin mock-ups.  He quickly learned old-timey fishnet making which produced the closest thing!

The costume is nearing completion, and I’ll be glad to have it out of the way with the holidays ahead.  I’ll be tackling  my Star Wars costume next and am holding out hope of finding the pieces needed for my third costume.  I’d really rather not have to make it.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!