Atomic Lollipop 2015

My second year attending Atomic Lollipop, which is my second con this year. I wore my casual Sakura sailorsuit outfit, because it was too bloody hot for anything more complicated. (Was not expecting Otakon weather for APop.)

I enjoyed it greatly because I got to see a good chunk of my con friends and hang out. Much more relaxing for me than Anime North, which is nice. Attending was a last minute decision, and I only went for the sunday. (Blayke came too!)

Good times hanging out in the gaming room (playing Street Fighter), checking out the dealers, and engaging in epic battles on bouncy castles. Once again I enjoyed visiting the Science Center, which I still think is a great venue for this con--which I don't think has outgrown the venue yet. There was a lack of good crafts on sunday though, which was disappointing for me, because that was what I enjoyed most of last year...

One thing I think I should mention that left a bad taste in my mouth was all of the bad stories I heard about the saturday night. I know that APop is generally known as a "rave con" but it sounded more out of hand than normal? Rowdier than normal? I heard from one of the dealers that there were about 30 incidents (unconfirmed) from the previous night, which involved attendees ending up in ambulances --several of which were due to drug overdose--but many were from people knocking each other over on the dance floor. D: This could easily have been exaggeration of rumours, mind you. That being said, it still sounds like something needs to be done about this next year?? Like, for the safety of other attendees? I dunno.

Overall, I personally had a good time. And will most likely attend again next year. :)

Floral Cream Underbust Corset

Hey all! I made another corset this past winter. This is not an obsession I swear... This one is an underbust corset that is going to act as a waist cincher/posture modifier, to be worn under my Phoenix costume (which is currently on hiatus). I also made it with another future steampunk outfit in mind... 

Showcasing here the new pistol prop I bought in Austria last month. Also worn with my Long Pleated Skirt.

I like how the shape of this one turned out much better than my black corset. Instead of using a fashion fabric on the outside, I just used the coutil. Except this time my coutil has a cool floral pattern on it! I picked up this fabric from the Farthingales booth at CostumeCon32 last year. It's super strong and super pretty.

 First I used twill tape to mark out my seam lines on my judy. Then I draped muslin over those sections to get my pattern piece shapes. I used a pen to draw the shapes on the fabric, unpinned the pieces and then cut along the lines I drew.

The pattern I ended up with looked like this. I numbered my pieces from 1-7 (center front to center back).

After making a mockup and tweaking the pattern to reflect the changes I made, I reduced the pattern so that it would have a 2" gap at the back. This means that I divided 2" into 7 parts and shaved off that amount from every seam. I shaved off just slightly more at the waist so that part could cinch even tighter. 

Then I cut my pieces out of my coutil. Remember you need 4 of every piece, a pair for each side.

For the center back panels I first sewed the pairs right sides together along the CB edge, then turned them right way out and pressed them. I flat basted all my pairs together (excluding the center front panels) and top stitched all the boning channels. The 14 panels looked like this.

I added in the busk to the center front, then flat basted it and added the last boning channels. If you want a tutorial on how to insert a busk, go here!

Then I began to sew the panels together. This is done very carefully, lining up the flat basted lines and the waist line. Accuracy is your friend.

Then I cut my spiral bones to length and inserted them.

I made my own piping trim from leftover fabric from my Steampunk Corset. If you want a tutorial on how I make piping trim, go here!

I attached the piping, then hand stitched down all the seams on the inside. Then I put the eyelets/grommets in the center back and added some cord to lace it.

Presto! Another corset! ;D