Sometime during the summer of 2005 (memory fails me as to when exactly) I was apporached by ChibiK3r0 and Amy_the_Yu to be the Sakura in a Tsubasa group they were hoping to do for Anime North 2006. Thrilled at being asked to be part of something for the first time, I said yes, not knowing how insane these costumes would make us by the masquerade. ^_^
I managed to sneak a few elements of my costume into my course work at school over the year, including my crown, back fan thing (actually called a 'wisk'), and my corset.
The Corset - 10 panels, fully boned and piped with steal and spiral boning and hand made piping. I draped the pattern myself and built it from scratch for my corsetry class at school. The white material is peau de soie (it’s so soft! if it wasn't all white I would play with it more! ^_^) and is backed with two layers of white denim. Currently it is unlined, but I have a few things to finish up on it before I can get to that.
Skirt - I knew what I wanted, but every time I looked at it, for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to accomplish it. I felt like such a brain dead idiot working on it. The shiny stuff you can see on the underside of the skirt (which, btw, is fully lined in lilac and in between both layers is crinoline to make the gathering on the top layer more pronounced and give it shape) is sating ribbon, which I used to gather up to 15 different sections of the skirt (you should see it when it's ungathered! The stupid thing is huge!). I'm actually not happy with the skirt at all, but at the time I was so brain dead that I couldn't come up with a method to make the skirt the way I wanted it to look and had to come up with a substitute. In a perfect world I would be taking apart the skirt right now to finally get it the way I wanted it in the first place, but I still feel like I'm lacking the mental capacity and the time to do so. Perhaps for Youmacon. ^_^
The collar is a frame of millinary wire with a slightly stretchy fabric pulled over and then made into a kind of slip cover. It looked fine on its own while I was making it, but when wearing it it seems to want to fall backwards instead of standing up straight like I designed it to. I'm not very happy with it in general, so I'm looking into other methods to remake it.
So far I haven't had much opportunity to wear the costume around the con for either pictures or to see how each piece works in general, as ChibiK3r0, myself, and Infini (Amy stepped away from the group in early May because of time constraints, but she DID loan me her Sakura wig for the masquerade! ^_^) were sewing like crazy two weeks before the con, day, then hours, and then hours before the masquerade in the hotel room. I actually missed out on most of the convention because I was sewing in the hotel room ... I keep telling myself never again ... but I fail ...
But overall I'm very proud of this costume. I think the corset is the best thing I've made so far, so I really want to find time in the future to get the rest of the costume up to snuff and then finally be able to wear it again with my friends and get some pictures. ^_^
Canada