Katniss Everdeen – Oooooh yea.

When my twinny said that she wanted to be Katniss Everdeen for Halloween, I was thinking we were just talking about a black body suit. Well, I was mistaken. This twin wanted the whole works. She wanted the white sleeves, the white piping, the round inserts, everything.

That’s right. Move over Katniss Everdeen. There’s a new badass in town.

 

The Set-Up

I used Jalie 3135, the skinsuit, to create this look. I had to slice and dice this baby up to match the Katniss jumpsuit. It was pretty easy actually. I just eyeballed the style lines and sliced up the pattern. I highlighted all the edges to remind myself to add seam allowances. This pattern isn’t a raglan sleeve so I made a faux-raglan sleeve.

I found this matching fabric at JoAnn’s. It was part of the Yaya Han Cosplay collection and it’s PERFECT for this costume.

For the “piping,” I just freehanded the lines and then zigzagged over the lines. Then, little Katniss herself ran elastic through the zigzag until it created a piping effect.

The Result

A very happy little camper. She even made herself a little bow and arrow.

She wore it all day so I think it’s pretty much a win.

Whew, now something for me!

Project Mania

So, when you have two fourth graders in your home and they both have huge projects, what do you do? You freaking make them, that’s what. Each had to make an “ancient artifact” and costume to go with it. I don’t have finished pictures of the other costume, but I will soon enough. I do have this one though. She wanted a chinese kimon-type costume with giant sleeves. This, people, is why there has not been much popping up on my blog lately. I could have probably have sewn this in a few nights, but instead, I watched and helped while she sewed most of it (bent over at the waist night after arduous night helping her feed yards of ravelling jaquard through the slloooowwwly moving machine – aaauuugggghhhhhhhh!). She sewed the whole body of the gold robe and I did the black “sleeves”. Joking aside, I was really pleased by her hardwork and follow-through. We spent a little bit of time each night working on this. One night we just spent folding miniature pieces of paper and reading the directions. I’m really proud of her. She loves it and that is what really matters.

We used Simplicity 1573, View F as our starting point. I traced the largest size (8) and made the facing wider. I also added length to the hem and sleeves because she is 9 and looong. When we sewed on the facing, we flipped it to the outside instead of inside. We also made a wider Obi-type belt instead of the thinner one pictured on the pattern. Really, we didn’t change too much about the pattern. I embroidered on the dragons (Korean, not Chinese) at night after she went to bed (109 minutes of stitches per dragon!!!) and then sewed up the black panels and attached them under the arms. Whew. I’m glad that’s done. I will try to remember to post pictures of her wearing this.

 

Isn’t the embroidery amazing? It’s from Urban Threads. They have pages of dragon embroidery! Here’s the one I used. 

 

I actually did get some other sewing done while the embroidery machine was stitching it’s heart out. Stay tuned!