This costume was a dream for me. Ever since I saw Slayers, I wanted to do a cosplay from the series. My two cosplay buddies and I planned on this one since college, and finally managed to pull it off, after a lot of weekends of sewing and much fighting with uncooperative armor.
The Lina, Gourry, and Amelia costumes were definitely a group effort in the end. Even my boyfriend (well, my fiance now, but my boyfriend then) helped me with this one. He spent a day making my sword for me while I sewed.
Lina was complete at one point, but thanks to my own silliness, I managed to break my shoulder guards. Although, I did break the shoulder guards only slightly before they broke my shoulders, so they were probably going to get remade anyway. A word of advise: don't make armor out of thirty layers of paperclay on a dress form that has smaller shoulders than you. ;)
I'll be wearing this one again at Otakon '06.