🌺

I’m sure many of you own and/or use Teflon feet for sewing “sticky” fabrics like pleathers and PVCs — they’re great! But have you ever seen Teflon stickers? They’re Teflon-coated stickers that you can put on the bottom of any foot you want so that it glides over the fabric the same way as the Teflon foot.

Here I’ve put a sticker on a spare adjustable arm zipper foot in order to sew some piping for Camilla. This pleather can’t slow me down now!

7 days until we leave for Otakon!

I LOVE FREEZER PAPER NOW! omg!

This stuff is amazing!!!! lafjdsljf!!! I had such an intricate design yet nothing ripped and everything ironed on well! NO EDGES LEAKED! This was glorious ;w;

If anyone wants a tutorial on how I did the design on the back of a Desmond Miles jacket here it is according to the pictures:

Materials needed: copy of what you’re gonna trace, freezer paper, exacto knife, tape, self-healing cutting mat/newsprint/cardboard (whatever you want as a cutting surface and material so your paint doesn’t go through the other side ), iron, paint brush, fabric paint.

note: my paint says its recommended that you wash (with no fabric softener) and to iron your fabric before so you have good sizing (aka your design won’t shrink) and a clean smooth surface.

1. Print out your stencil. Tape your pattern onto your cutting surface. Tape your freezer paper over it SHINY SIDE down. You’ll be drawing on the matte side. (it’s very obvious when you feel and look at it which is the shiny side. You should also be able to see through the freezer paper, it’s thin enough. If not tape to a window/light source to trace and move it back to your cutting board to cut). Make sure to leave LOTS of room around the sides of your whole pattern so you have room to paint over.

2. Time for the pain staking task of cutting out your stencil. I was sooo fortunatepfttt to have such a crazy design :( But even then it only took about 30-45 minutes to cut out. All you need is a steady hand and patience. For curves rotate your pattern, I find that easier than moving your hand/wrist (aka that hurts)

3. Iron on your stencil. Don’t worry about pieces going on in not the right places. It happened to me cause I had lots of thin pieces. Just put the iron on low and tap it down to get things flat and then unpeel carefully if things aren’t in the right place and iron back down. When everything is in the right place, center, aligned, etc. reallyyyy iron that stencil down. You don’t want any bumps or edges not fully ironed on or you’ll regret it later. (also this stuff sticks pretty well and over and over again. I was being really picky and wanted it to be really straight and centered so I unpeeled my pattern like 5 times til I was satisfied :x)

4. Put cardboard/foamboard/wax paper under your fabric just incase the paint goes through, you don’t want it going onto something else! Start painting!! I used a paint brush and my fabric paint of choice was Tulip Soft Fabric Paint in Metallics Platinum. I put a bunch of random fabrics around the sides just in case paint dripped or flung or some other bad mishap :P

5.  For myself I waited 2 hours to unpeel my stencil. (I also had the fan going in my room pointed at it, so maybe that helped) I just pulled it off slowly, but you can rip your stencil off if you want now since you don’t need it anymore. My paint says to wait 4 hours, so now I’m going to leave it to dry for 2 more hours and after 72 hours it says I can wash it. I assume this paint doesn’t need to be heat/iron set since it doesn’t say so anywhere, so I won’t do that.

Corsets are very finicky, very fitted, very individualized garments, so even more so than other pieces you might encounter in costume-making.  As such you should always make a mock-up before cutting into your fancy fabric with a pattern that may not fit.

That said, corsets are a pain in the ass to put together so doing a full and proper mock-up is also a pain in the ass.  A proper corset has at least two layers, with boning channels, with (preferably) steel boning cut to size for each channel.  Aka lots of work just for a test fit. Not everyone has the time to do this 2-3 times, so we take a few shortcuts.

Some corset mock-up hacks to save time and tears:

Instead of cutting your steel, capping it, and possibly finding out you’ve cut it the wrong size (and wasting it!), use plastic heavy duty zipties.  Durability doesn’t matter if all you’re doing is testing the fit.  Your local hardware store and Amazon sells them.

Instead of making a multi-layer mock up with real boning channels to stick my zip ties in, I get super macguyver and tape them to the inside of the corset, along the seamlines where they would normally go.  Masking tape is good for this because it will usually stick to muslin but can be peeled off a bit when I’m making adjustments.  Just make sure you tape it carefully, along the full pressed out length of the seam.

ATTENTION COSPLAYERS:

I would like to make the paint brand “Angelus” known. It is a special paint that is for leather, faux leather, rubber, and similar surfaces.

This is literally the best paint you can buy if you love a pair of shoes, but they aren’t in the right color for your character.

This stuff coats VERY well AND the coats of paint bend with your shoes. This means no cracking!!

In the photos above I took black rain boots and painted them with Angelus Turquoise. As you can see, they don’t look black any more! It’s so good!

I managed to paint two boots with a little one ounce bottle of the paint, and I still have a third of the bottle left over!

The paint dries very fast, so you can put layer on top of layer on top of layer without it streaking.

You can get the paint on Amazon and it comes in every color!

More-gana wip 👉👉

By your friendly neighborhood Lowen bc she does it all the time and is taking a break 

What you’ll need:

Your fabric 

Embroidery thread

Wonder-Under

Stabilizer

If you’re using metallic thread (in place of embroidery thread):

Metallic needle

Bobbin thread (forgot to add it in the pic)

Map out your design

This tutorial was an after thought, but place tracing paper over the area where you want the applique to be and map it out!

Retrace design onto Wonder-Under

Follow Wonder-Under Instructions and using your tracing paper map, place applique in the right place

When the design is on, follow stabilizer instructions and place it to the back of the fabric

I usually use 2-3 layers

Start sewing!

I’m using metallic thread for Kongwai and my settings are:

Tension - 3

Width - 5

Length - 0

Zig-zag stitch!!!

For Length 0 I like to do two layers of embroidery thread. Heres a comparison of 1 and 2 layers

1 Layer:

2 Layers:

Types of Sleeves Infographic from Enerie 

*3 images because Tumblr still cannot seem to host clear and sharp images of vertically long images.

Writers continue to reblog these infographics for their useful terminology. If you’ve missed any infographics, here they are:

Know Your Shoes Part 1 Lobster Claws anyone?

Know Your Shoes Part 2

Know You Heels

Fashion Pattern Vocabulary Part 1

Fashion Pattern Vocabulary Part 2

Know Your Check Fabrics

Know Your Animal Prints

Know Your Hosiery

Know Your Gloves

History of Hairstyles Part 1

History of Hairstyles Part 2

Know Your Braids

Know Your Scarves

Know Your Belts Part 1

Know Your Belts Part 2

Know Your Sleeve Lengths

Know Your jacket length

Know Your Skirt Lengths

Know Your Pant Lengths

Know Your Front and Back Yokes

Know Your Yokes and Hems

Know Your Pleats

Know Your Darts

Know Your Denim Pockets Part 1

Know Your Patch Pockets Part 2

Know Your Pockets Part 3

Know Your Sleeves

Know Your Bras

Know Your Collars

Know Your Hair Buns

Know Your Sunglasses Infographic

Know Your Necklines

Sleeves and Necklines

Know Your Hats

Know Your Collars and Cuffs

Know Your Necklines

Know Your Skirts

Know Your Nail Shapes and What’s Popular on Instagram

Know Your Eye Liners

Know Your Wedding Dresses

History of Swimwear

Know Your Vintage Sleeves here

Know Your Vintage Collars and Necklines

Do you happen to know how their prints look when stretched? I’ve been unimpressed with some printing in the past when the colour looks accurate, but the print turns excessively “white” upon being stretched.

The color on all of them turned out fairly true to my original design, but I did also make a point of using Spoonflower’s color codes when I designed it. The photographs look a little like each swatch is a bit off, but that’s down more to the amount of shine the different fabrics had. In person, they all match nearly perfectly~

I’m planning on making a sweatshirt for Annie from Splatoon, so I went with fabrics that I felt might be nice for that. 

1. Organic Cotton Knit Ultra - This fabric is very soft and matte in appearance with a bit of 2-way stretch. It’s initially what I thought I’d most like to use as it feels the most like a sweatshirt~ However, the fabric and print are very unforgiving when sewn and you basically can’t make any mistakes without leaving awful white holes in the fabric.

2. Performance Piqué - This fabric has a bit of a shine to it and a lovely 2-way stretch. It feels a lot like a football (soccer) jersey and might be nice for any sports cosplay. The fabric was a lot more forgiving of mistakes, but if you snag it you will get a hole.

3. Performance Knit - This was the sample that had the most shine to it, but it was otherwise very similar to the performance piqué. It’s got a similar feel and 2-way stretch to it, but the big difference is that you’re missing that textured look that a lot of sports jerseys have. It’s also a lot more prone to snagging than the performance piqué.

4. Modern Jersey - This fabric is soft, matte, and has a 2-way stretch. It’s your typical t-shirt jersey fabric.It was the most forgiving of mistakes and didn’t leave any marks when I ripped out some stitching. This is what I ended up going with for my sweatshirt in the end, despite it being more of a t-shirt material~

5. Cotton Spandex Jersey - This fabric is very similar to the modern jersey, but is a 4-way stretch instead of the 2-way the rest of my samples were. Like the modern jersey it was also very forgiving of mistakes, but it was also the sample that showed the most white when stretched. This fabric would be great for some soft leggings, in lighter colors~

Here are all of my samples side-by-side. As I said before, despite them not looking it, they’re all nearly identical color-wise.

We have an order coming soon and we’ll weigh in on ours when we get it :)

SO what do you do when your long wig becomes ridiculously tangled and shitty? YOU FIX IT.

After the the last con I went to my Yuno wig got pretty messed up and needed some serious TLC. So I gave it exactly that. Let me help you with your messed up wig too.  So I actually didn’t take any pictures of what I did before I started detangling, so here’s the run down of how I prepped it: I washed that bitch in lukewarm water with some special extension/wig shampoo and ran my fingers, then a wide toothed comb through it until it was somewhat alright. I then spritzed some leave in conditioner in it, rubbed it in, and hung it up to dry for a bit. NOW ON TO THE REAL WORK. DO YOU SEE THIS TANGLED MONSTROSITY???  IT’S NOT GOOD. LETS FIX THAT.

The stuff I used to help me tame this beast was: -Satin Strands extension/wig shampoo -Got2B dry oil hair taming mist -Got2B glued freeze spray -A sobe for drink breaks -OGX Argan oil spray -Various sized brushes (large paddle brush, small wig brush, and a soft bristle brush) -and of course my hair straightener (I kept mine at a low-medium temperature but different straighteners can vary; on mine I set it at 4) so the process I used went like this:

1. Separate it into parts as best you can; working with smaller chunks of hair is a hell of a lot easier.

2. pull apart the tangles and run your fingers through the part of hair you grabbed first.

3. BRUSH BRUSH BRUSH!!! (I started off with my large paddle brush, and moved to my little wig brush and just alternated like that until I got all the snarls and tangles out)

4. Now at this post no mater how much you brush it, your wig will still be frizzy and not super nice looking… SO what do we do? we straighten it. 

5. once it’s nice and straight and you’ve taken out as much frizz as humanely possible, spray that bitch with some dry oil/argan oil/some kind of oil to tame the frizz and flyaways and keep it silky smooth.

6. Give it one last brush through to work in that oil and it should look a hell of a lot better now~ My wig looks a tad messy still at the end only because of its uneven cuts and due to the fact that I didn’t spend a lot of time combing it out a whole lot; I plan to restyle it and cut it a bit more (for yuno it’ll be in low pigtails so I’m not worried about it being super straight) but rest assured it is as silky smooth and tangle free as the day I bought it~ Feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt as I’m in no way a professional, just a fellow cosplayer trying to help out/make someone’s life a little easier if I can! I’m sure there are many more tutorials/guides on how to detangle and fix wigs out there, this is just my experience with the shitty process that it is. 

Airbrushes for cosplay are awesome!! 

Stovepot dyeing is still best for tinting an entire piece of fabric, but for any kind of gradient:

Weathering:

Or small color change, an airbrush is a really easy, quick way to do that.  For dye brands we like to use this stuff:

Jacquard Dye-Na-Flow Specialty Paint

Acrylic paint will not move through your airbrush well (or at all) unless you seriously dilute it, at which point you may as well just use dye!  These guys are $2-$4, and a great investment is buying the big set of lots of colors for even cheaper.  We like to mix a ratio of about 1:2 parts dye/water, or more dye if you need something more opaque or darker.

For really opaque projects you can also use inks like FW Ink, either diluted or straight from the bottle.  I would not use this on fabric without diluting or washing it out later, as you’ll probably end up with some stiffening.  You can expect these kinds of colors with FW Ink airbrushing:

Technique-wise, light, even coats are generally the way to go.  Similar to using spray paint, make sure you’re far enough away from your project to get an even spray. 

Bonus tips:

Don’t try to get every single last drop out of the bottle, just don’t you will regret it.  Your airbrush may start to splatter once air begins to get up the pipe, and your careful, even shading will be ruined.

“THE BIG ONES”

The following are our most popular tutorials, so they get a place of honour up top so that they are easier found :)

Custom thigh highs

Spandex boots

Basic capes

Cupcake “Madoka” skirts 

GENERAL SEWING:

What is broadcloth for, anyway?

How do I avoid burning polyester with my iron?

Where do I go to learn to line things?

What is bias tape?

Where do I go to learn to sew?

Why should I use shoulder pads?

Notes on sewing vinyl/pleather

What do you do with retired costumes?

Learning at an advanced level

Why line a petticoat?

Why should I do mock-ups?

What is a knit?

What is horsehair braid?

Painting denim/heavyweights

How do I make my costumes look clean and professional?

Tips for sewing gloves

Washing your costumes

Finishing seams

WHAT FABRIC FOR… 

What fabric should I line with?

What fabric for mock-ups?

What fabric for a character who lives in the desert?

What fabric for sailor shirts?

What fabric do I use for a flowy tunic?

What fabric for a schoolgirl jacket?

What fabric for an Assassin novice/period character?

PATTERNING:

How important are pattern blocks?

How do measurements on your tutorials work?

How do different patterns effect the shape of a hood?

What do we draft patterns on?

Keeping patterns clean and organized

Tools for marking patterns/fabric

SEWING MACHINES: 

What To Look For 

What To Look For 2 

What machines do we have? 

Stop-And-Start Buttons 

Sergers 

Vintage Machines 

Embroidery Machines

Recommendations

FOOTWEAR:

Painting Boots 

Custom Printed Tights 

Making Custom Thigh Highs  

Stenciled Designs on Tights

High Heel Tips 

First Time in High Heels? 

Painting Rubber Boots 

Making Shoes From Scratch

Paint Colours for Vanellope Tights

NOTES ON PARTICULAR COSTUMES:

Poison Ivy 

Captain America 

Fire Emblem: Awakening: Lissa’s hoopskirts, Henry/Say’ri’s loincloths, Chrom’s trim, Panne overview

Satsuki and Nonon’s pleated dresses without waist seams

Serah Farron’s belt (Final Fantasy 13)

Ledo’s catsuit (Suisui no Gargantia)

Josephine’s shirt (Dragon Age)

Ruby’s petticoat (RWBY)

STRETCH FABRICS:

Attaching Applique to Spandex 

Embroidery and Satin-Stitching on Spandex 

Ironing Spandex 

Recommendations for Attaching Logos 

Fabrics For Catsuits 

Crisp Necklines With Knit 

Can I alter a one-piece catsuit to be two pieces? 

Shortcuts to make bodysuits

CAPES:

Basic Single-Layer Capes 

Tips for Safe Capes 

Collared Capes 

Channeling for Articulated Capes 

Cape Closures 

Fabric Options

Preventing lined capes from “drifting”

BATGIRLS:

StephBatgirl Cowl 

Batgirl Bracers 

Easy Belt Pouches 

More Notes on Pouches 

“Black Bat” Cape 

Steph’s “Robin” Leggings 

Zentai Suit Sellers 

Non-Wholesale Bodysuit Sellers

SUPERGIRLS:

General Tag 

Spandex Boots 

General Tips 

Making the Emblem 

Turner Skirt 

Turner Cape Pattern 

PUELLA MAGI MADOKA MAGICA:

Tomoe Mami | Boots | Shirt Pattern | Mami’s Rifle Tag  | Rifle Pattern | Installing Horsehair | Links

Akemi Homura | Tights

Kyoko Sakura | Hoodie Source | Prep List | Order of Assembly

Miki Sayaka | Sword Pattern

Madoka Kaname | Petticoat Tutorial | Two-Part Skirts | Cupcake Skirt

 Other: Simple Bows | Soul Gem Commission Interest | Attaching Soul Gems

FIRE EMBLEM: AWAKENING:

This section would honestly be massive on its own, so it can be found over on its own masterlist. Even if you’re not cosplaying from FEA, it has some interesting stuff.

SAILOR SCOUTS:

Lining

Material choices

AESTHETICS:

Make-Up Products

Body Wizardry

Faking Large Breasts + Binding Resources

Tips for Defined Waistlines 

Hiding Leg Cellulite

Slimming Pants

Tall Cosplayers

Face/Body Paint Brands

Two-Coloured Lips

Breast support for costumes with open fronts

Keeping cool in costume

ARMOR:

What They Don’t Tell You About Worbla

PROPS AND ACCESSORIES:

Wearing Helmets 

Wing-Making Resources 

How do I prime a plastic?

What are our moulds made of?

WIGS:

Anchoring Ponytail Wigs 

Maintaining Long Wigs 

Wig Sources with Fast Shipping 

Where to Get Inexpensive but Good Wigs

Tips for Curly Wigs

PHOTOGRAPHY:

Flight Illusions

SHOPPING:

Where did you get your pale dance tights?

On Milanoo and wholesale

More on Milanoo and wholesale

COMMUNITY:

Talking To Your Parents

Cosplay Group Etiquette 

Financial Tips 

Being Body Positive 

On Criticizing Concept Artists

Staying Motivated

How to Get Started

Why Don’t We Do Commissions?

Our Approach to Group Cosplay

Do We Work Out?

RECIPES:

🏁🏁TUTORIAL: PLAID/GINGHAM!🏁🏁

Ever since I posted my latest Riddler commission I recently finished, everyone asked how I made the purple plaid fabric for the accent parts. I couldn’t find the proper fabric, so I made it, and now you can, too! I made this tutorial as simple sounding as possible.

You will need: Your base fabric (the lightest color in the pattern), low tack masking tape (in the width of the stripes you want), and your paint for your airbrush–in this tutorial I only used magenta on pink, just as I used one color of purple for the Riddler fabric.

🏁1)  Iron your UNCUT fabric, and place your tape in a diagonal direction on the fabric, equally apart, in the widths you want your stripes

🏁2) Lightly airbrush your first color layer on. DON’T GO FOR FULL COVERAGE. Just a haze of color! Let dry.

🏁3) Gently pull up your tape, and lay it in the opposite diagonal direction, now. I reuse all of my tape pieces to save tape!

🏁4)  Now put on your second layer of paint, again, just a light layer! Don’t put it on heavy, this is what gives the multiple shades effect! Let dry.

🏁5) Pull up that tape, and now you’re ready to cut your pattern pieces! Lovely plaid!

🏁Of course you can use different colors, stripe widths, and even more directions for more depth and patterns!

AKA how to make bias tape go around corers without overlapping multiple pieces. I’ve seen other methods, but this is how I’ve always done it.

Tutorials for both inner and outer corners under the cut!