Sakura - Wig, Hat & Accessories - Cardcaptor Sakura

Part 3 of Sakura (1st Opening outfit)--lets talk accessories! The details are really what make this costume. If you want to see how I made the wings, go here! If you want to see the rest of the outfit, go here!

I entered this costume in the Friday night Workmanship Competition at Anime North in 2014 and won an award for Best Accessories in my category. That was pretty cool. It was my first (and so far only) time entering in a competition without a stage presentation component.

Once again, thanks to EleventhPhotograph for the photoshoot. I really love this black and white shot.

First we'll talk about the wig. I started with EpicCosplay's Aura in cocoa brown. I think this colour works really well for Sakura, it's not too brown or too blonde. It's almost a bit reddish. I think the colour works well on both my sister and myself.

Since I was doing a costume of hers with a hat, I didn't bother to add her iconic pigtails that she normally wears, because they wouldn't be visible. This has influenced my costume choices for my subsequent Sakura costumes to only be ones where Sakura is wearing a hat. Because this means I don't have to go back and fix the wig. And also because her costumes with hats are ridiculously cute.

As you can see the wig was pretty long. I purposefully picked a longer wig because she has those two small sections of longer hair in front of her ears. It is much easier to cut a wig shorter than it is to add in longer wefts.

I started by trimming the bangs. Using clips I separated off the different sections of the hair. The longer pieces were separated from the sides and the bangs. I left the long wisps at the original length, and simply thinned them out a bit. The sides were thinned and layered and trimmed to length. Then I trimmed the back of the wig.

The last step was to style the front of the wig to give the top that volume. I pulled sections of the hair up and hair sprayed them at the base. Then I used a blow dryer to set it. I made some shorter bits stick up while the rest parted and fell to each side. This created the look of her cute bob at the front.

Next I started work on the hat. Since I had very limited pink fabric left, I made a mockup. The hat's construction was pretty simple. The pattern consisted of a circle and a rectangle. The rectangle was the length of the circle's circumference.

First I rolled over the channel where the elastic would go later and ironed that. I didn't stitch it down yet, but pre-ironing saved me a ton of headaches later.

The next step was to sew the rectangle to the top of the hat, right sides together. Then I sewed the two ends of the rectangle together and then top stitched the channel for the elastic. I left an opening in the channel so I could feed the elastic through. The elastic both gathered the hat and helped it to stay on. When I was satisfied with the fit, I sewed the elastic ends together and closed the channel opening.

Lastly the bow was attached to the hat. Credit for completing the finishing touches goes to my friend Alli who handcrafted all the bows and hand stitched them on.

Instead of constructing socks and gloves I bought them, and made ruffles to add to them to help them match the rest of the costume.

Like the hat band, the ruffles are simply rectangles with a channel on on side for an elastic, which cinches them to fit and gathers them into a ruffle. These were tacked on to the gloves and socks.

Little red bows were also added to the gloves.

The shoes were an extremely lucky find. I managed to find flats at Ardene's in the perfect shade of red. They matched my red fabric perfectly. I added the bows to the toe. This is not 100% accurate to the design, but I didn't feel like adding straps to the shoe--I was worried it would make them uncomfortable. The bows were hot glued on.

I paid attention to the details so that everything would match perfectly. I wanted to do Sakura justice, and I think I achieved that. :)

Asuna Kagurazaka (V.2) - Outfit - Negima

As my 3rd costume for Otakon I decided to make an alternate outfit of Asuna's. I already had a wig, and Asuna has many, many outfits in the manga, so I thought I would make one of my favourites.

Special thanks to my mum for doing an impromptu fall photoshoot in the backyard!

I picked this one (pictured left) particularly so I could re-purpose the sheer under skirt I had originally made for her other costume! This outfit is worn during the training arc prior to their trip to Mundus Magicus, for anyone who actually knows the series.

I really like the deep burgundy colour of the blouse (dress?), but I went more saturated with my colour choice.

(There sure are a lot of orange-haired characters in this manga...)

I drafted a basic block, with a princess seam that I extended to be longer and go outward in an a-line style at the sides.

I cut out all my pieces (2 center front panels, 2 center back panels, 2 side front panels). Then I sewed up the darts, then side, back and shoulder seams. 

When this was done I finished the inner seams.

I drafted the sleeve to have a slight pouffe at the shoulder. I cinched the ruffle with a double row of basting stitches (leaving the thread ends long so I could pull on them). 


I made the collar ruffle, which was sandwiched inside the collar pieces and turned right way out. This was then attached to the neckline. 

I made the 2 front ruffles, which I stitched down to the front opening.

Then I attached the placket and finished off the opening edge and armhole seams.

Then I made a bias tape to finish off the sleeve slit, before I attached the cuffs. The sleeve pouffed just a touch at the cuffs as well.

The last thing I did was attach the bottom ruffle and do all the button holes.

Then I made the "corset". Now I say "corset" instead of corset, because this is just designed to look like an underbust corset, but does not have any of the structuring a corst would have (like boning). For all intents and purposes it is a glorified belt. Hahaha
I figured out how long I wanted ti to be, my underbust measurement, my waist measurement and natural waist measurement (where a modern pair of pants would sit). From there I was able to pattern this. Using my widest measurement I could then divide and calculate my darts.

The result was these 10 pieces (pictured left: top row is the back panels, bottom row is the front panels). 

I made a mockup, then a good version.

Then I hammered in the grommets. I couldn't find a hammer, so I used a wrench instead (my shop professor would be crying right now). It is always recommended to have a scrap piece of wood handy when hammering grommets, otherwise you will end up with dents in your table...

The grommets and lacing are just for show though, the actual closure is a row of hook and eye tape. Because it is way more secure.  Lastly I finished up the edges with bias tape! Woo!

I bought the thigh-high socks and ribbons for the costume. All of the bows on the socks were attached with safety pins, so I can use the socks for other things (and real life). The black flats are the same ones from my Alice costume.