New Years Eve, 2001 (or is it 2002? No, the Eve, would be 2001...yea...2001 ^_^)
| 1. Sometime in...November? 2001 | I totaly fall in love with Kenshin (OAV and TV series) and a friend and I decide we want to make costumes, either OAV or TV version...but, we decided, better do TV, cause I'm too happy to really play Tomoe well at a con ^_^;; |
| 2. Late November 2001 | I've made a few kimonos before we started this, so the basics of these really weren't too hard...made Kenshin's inner kimono out of white satin, soft side in ^_^ and his outer one (I forgot what they're called ^_^;;) out of red cotton...it actually turned out really nicely! I didn't make hakama, cause he was buying those....way to be authentic, ne? |
| 3. Late November/Early December 2001 | Get yellow, and 2 shades of orange fabric, and purple satin: made the yellow kimono just fine, but her orange splashes! those gave me some trouble! Using the "action figure" of Kaoru as a model (like the pic above), I made patterns of her splashes, transfered those to Wonder-Under, ironed that to the orange fabric, cut those out, and ironed those to the yellow kimono. Follow? ^_^ |
| 4. Early December 2001 | Made an under-kimono of purple satin, satiny side in! Then, got some teal and purple cotton, cut those into 4 and 2 1/2 in strips, respectively, sewed all those together and then applique-stitched down the teal to make her lines for the obi...and then made the obi ^_^ That actually turned out rather well, too! I decided not to mess with her crazy-huge bow...cause yea, thats just crazy huge.... |
| 5. Ok, talk about last-minute...New Years Eve, 1/2 an hour before the party!! | Had to go out to eat with family at a fancy shmancy Italian restaurant, where they take forever and bla bla bla...when I finally get home I'm supposed to be AT the party actually, and I haven't even sewed up my kimono! So, this is the part where I start sewing crappily ^_^; sew the sleeves, sew the sides, sew velcro on my obi, cut off as many dangly threads as I can and rush out the door! My underkimono wasnt even hemmed...-_- |
| 1. About a month before Acen | You know, I guess I really didn't do a lot to this costume for Acen, really...I hemmed the bottom of the outer kimono, and also hemmed the underkimono, cutting it in half to make a top part and a sort of wrap-around under skirt...that kinda looked a little weird, and we had to safety-pin it up the back, but hey, it worked! I also bought a purple hair-ribbon...which really didn't match any purple on her costume, but then again....it worked ^_^; Aaaand...bought some cool wooden Japanese shoes that match like perfectly to her char! Yatta!! |
The Late-Night Acen Kenshin group! I'm behind Misao (silly weasel girl...^_^)
Yep, gotta say, this con was one of the best!!! I wore "new, improved" Kaoru Saturday till the masq, and Sunday till I left...too short a time! *sniff* but anyways, my improvements!
| 1. Sometime in September | Time to repair the crappiness! I ripped the seams out of the sleeves, and sewed the edges of the orange splashes on those so they don't come off, then re-sewed the sleeves back up...non-crappily ^_^ Then I went through the rest of her orange splashes and sewed along each of their edges, too. |
| 2. Later in September! | Did you catch whats been missing? Hehe, probably not, so I'll tell you ^_^ Her flowers! Adding those was my main improvement on Kaoru, and I wanted to be as accurate as possible! Sooo, I made a pattern out of a shoebox lid, got light lavender fabric (her flowers' color changes like every ep, so I chose lavender, to keep with the purple scheme..and hey! They're actually purple here, too so I'm still accurate!) and traced the petal pattern on the fabric, 32 times, cut them all out...well, then I realized the way I was doing it wasn't going to work, so I had to trash all of those, and trace 32 more times, iron to the wonder-under, cut all the petals and centers out... then I had my 13 year old sister model the kimono for me, while I consulted the figure I had and marked where the flowers all go. Theeennn, I ironed the petals and centers on the kimono. |
| 3. Early August | Buuuut! Just wonder-undering doesn't mean it will stay, does it? So, I start machine-sewing around the edges of each petal...only, that didn't work too well, the petals were too small and machine-sewing just didn't work right. So I break out the hand-sewing! Hooray for control! And therefore, I hand-sewed every flower petal and center on...took me a few days, and as a rough estimate, I did 1,500 hand-stitches. Oyyy. *lol* But it had to look right! |
| 4. Whenever I had the time...the last few days before I left for college! | So finally, done with that, I got a skirt pattern (with a godet!) and re-made her underskirt, which also turned out nicely, and with the remaining lavender fabric, made her hairbow. Twice. The first time I was being a fruit and made it all weird...but the 2nd time was a charm ^_^ |
Phew! Lotsa work on this one! But, thats it! and I have Kaoru ^_____^
~Pics!~
Kenshin and Kaoru:
and
Thank you for looking!
