Welcome to part two of my Stellagosa construction blog. I have decided to only cover the sewing bits of this costume since the other pieces didn’t quite turn out how I planned and aside from the 3D printed pieces from Hoku Props the other pieces are just not as good looking.
So let’s jump into the skirt, if you missed the blog about the bodice, necklace and sleeves you can find that here. Up until this point I was not sure if I was going to make a bodice and skirt or a full dress, I went with making a full dress because it just made sense in the long run.
I started by draping trapezoid like shapes on my dress form to be the dragon scale underskirt as well as the main skirt sections that will have all the details. I use basic cotton to drape, and typically start by just pinning stuff to my dress form, marking it with sharpie and then cutting it out.
Once I was happy with how this looked I transferred it over to my silk taffeta, silk habotai for the hip cut outs and then some cotton broadcloth for the skirt interlining. I chose to interline the skirt because I was afraid the lighter weight fabric would not hold up with the heavier details.
I then copied my front pattern piece onto pattern paper and began to sketch out the design that was on the front of the skirt. There was no back image of the costume so I just repeated the design on the back to make it so it didn’t look like I forgot or didn’t put thought into how the back of the costume looks.
From there I cut the piece out of the paper and began cutting all the applique pieces out on the cotton fabric.
All of the gray cotton in the costume are left over from my Slytherin Bustle dress.
Next I sprayed the back of the applique pieces with 505 spray then pinned the pieces to baste them to the silk taffeta.
After basting it was time for my new favorite step, satin stitching.
I used Robison Anton embroidery thread in Saturn Gray for the satin stitch on the setting pictured below on my Husqvana Viking Topaz 50 machine.
Next it was time to embellish, as many of you know this is basically me signature style. I love adding beads, sequins rhinestones you name it.
Once the applique were done I moved onto the runes. These vector files were given to me by my friend Arielle who used them in her very own World of Warcraft Paladin. They look great with the costume and I stitched them out with Robison Anton thread as well. I started off with tension issues and it took me a few tries to get it right but I am also still very new to using my embroidery machine so I’m not stressing out too much on how perfect these stitches are just yet.
I will say the texture Arielle designed for these runes are out of this world, I can’t wait for everyone to see it with their own eyes. From here I cute the strip of fabric the size I needed.
Then with the right side of the runes to the wrong side of the skirt I sewed the runes on, flipped them, pressed the front seam and then satin stitched the visible edge on.
From there I did a little bit more of embellishments by adding bugle beads to the outer side of the stitch, I lined everything up to sew the skirt pieces together. Not pictured I rhinestones and added the silk habotai cut outs at the hip.
The final step was to add the bottom rune strip in the same manor as the top, bugle bead applied and then this part was done.
More not pictured parts was draping the silk habotai “ripped” pieces, as well as the silk shantung “ruffle” and “sashes” that draped down.
However, I do have a fun close up of soldering the edges of the silk habotai to make it look singed. This was a rather fun part of the costume. There isn’t a ton of distressing involved in this costume but this part was distressed and so much fun making it look so.
For the purple shantung “apron” I just draped a trapezoid section to fit onto the cotton trapezoid base. I have zero proper draping training so I just pin, baste, take out, and repeat.
Let’s move onto the dragon scale section really quick. So I designed a basic dragon scale cut design on my cricut maker. I cut out about 60 of them on vinyl. I added the names of my patrons and ko-fi supporters on the back of them.
I individually painted each scale using Deco Art Acrylic Paints.
Then I glued them onto the cotton, I tried sewing them on but no matter where I stitched there was a potential to see the stitching so hot glue FTW.
Then I stitched the apron piece to fall low enough to cover the top row of scales.
Finally, it was time to sew all these pieces onto the bodice. I did this by lining up the hip habotai piece with the side habotai piece with the right sides together.
I added a 22 inch long zipper into the back so the entire thing could get on in one go. I’m so glad I did it this way.
The last thing I did just to make the layered effect stay in place was whip stitched the dragon scale “underskirt” panel behind the rune, this will keep it all in place when I walk and really allow for the multi skirt illusion to happen.
That’s all for the sewing of Stellagosa.
I made an official announcement over on Patreon earlier this month that I will be writing and releasing my first eBook costume build. I will be documenting the entire process of a costume (the costume is a Patreon secret that I will debut at Momocon). I will be releasing WIP, video and write up content over there and finally once the costume is done I will be releasing an eBook in the $10 tier that will later be available to purchase here on my website for $12.
The goal with the eBook is to better document costume construction as well as answer some of the major questions that are asked over and over.
Thank you all for reading, the next blog post will be on my The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Red Dress.