Fleece Cloak With a Cowl

IMPORTANT NOTICE: I have moved my blog to here. Please start going there! Sorry about the confusion.

The Night Before Christmas: Star Trek Edition

You know how there's that one person who is really hard to get gifts for?

For me that person is my dad. 

And so, I was going through the dilemma of what to get him for Christmas when an idea suddenly came to me: A Star Trek poem! He always loves it when I show my 'creativity'. And thus this story was born. Warning: it is very silly and my drawings are childish at best.

The Night Before Christmas: Star Trek Edition

T'was the night before Christmas when all through the Enterprise,

Not a creature was dying, not even the red shirted guys.

The shields were up and the commander in his chair, 

In hopes the Borg would stay away from there.

The crew was siting, waiting in positions,

Suddenly nervous for their upcoming five-year mission.

Spock with his ears and Kirk with his hair,

Had just given the word to warp away from there.

When out in space there arose a distress call,

As they went to investigate they found there wasn't one at all.

 

It was Klingons who uncloaked with a flash,

But they sucked at fighting so they died in a crash.

The rest of the Enterprise's mission should have been easy,

But if you observe it turned out to be quite cheesy.

While their time away was still buy a little,

Came Mudd on a shuttle with eight tiny tribbles.

The trouble with tribbles is that if there's one there will soon be more,

Until there are more tribbles than there is floor.

They only way to stop them is to starve them 'till they die,

Everyone was glad they were gone except Uhura who started to cry.

And so their adventure continued, so dangerous and fun,

Spock even learned how to calculate time travel 'round the sun.

All the while Kirk commanding, "Warp two, warp three, warp four,

Common Scotty, give 'er more!"

And when there were green girls they thought Kirk a hottie,

But then bad things would happen and he'd run screaming, "Beam me up Scotty!"

When something had to be done that was a shocker, 

Bones would shout "Dangit Jim, I'm a doctor!"

 The further from earth, the weirder things got,

And of the Prime Directive no one gave a thought.

If by chance anything went wrong,

Kirk would face the sky and shout, "Khaaaaaaaaaaaaan!"

But despite the danger the crew was always ready to cheer,

"Space, the final frontier!"

When it came to adventure they always wanted more,

To boldly go where no man has gone before.

The End

I realize that not everything was strictly factual when it comes to the actual Star Trek show (i.e. Mudd did not bring the tribbles, but I wanted to include him), but I still had a really fun time working on it and I will be sure to update when I see my dad's reaction!

Note: In case it wasn't obvious, I do not own Star Trek or the Night Before Christmas poem. I did however compose this poem and I do not mind if any of you use it as long as you give credit where credit it is due!

And now for some final words from Spock:

Christmas is an illogical holiday, nevertheless, live long and prosper.

Versatile Earflap Hats

IMPORTANT NOTICE: I have moved my blog to here. Please start going there! Sorry about the confusion.

Lady Loki Cosplay: Part 3

Sorry it's been such a long time since I updated my Lady Loki cosplay, I haven't had much time to work on it because of school. In case you're wondering school has been great academically (my lowest grade right now it a 96%), my biggest struggle is being patient with my peers. I swear that they can be so rude sometimes! 

ANYWAYYYY....

Back to the cosplay.

And just in case you missed them, here are my other Lady Loki posts:

Lady Loki Cosplay: Part 1

Lady Loki Cosplay: Part 2

Back in, what was it? September? Yikes that was a long time ago! I eagerly went to Joann's to get my materials for my fabulous project. Unfortunately I just sort of got fabric that suited my needs and I really didn't pay too much attention to exactly what kind it was. I got a black pleather/vinyl, a simple, somewhat shiny black fabric, and the closest shade of green I could find at the store. I know, not specific at all, I mostly just made sure that they felt right and would work with my design. 

I also got some black and gold ribbon, a 22 inch zipper, and a box of hooks and eyes.

Using my patterns from the muslin I made I cut out all of the pieces from my nice fabric and did all of the same steps as before. 

The really stupid thing about pleather is that it likes to stick to the bottom of your presser foot and that you can't pin it without making permanent holes! So as you can see, I had to place tissue paper on everything and keep it all in place with paper clips. It's time consuming, but much better than having a super uneven tangled wad of stuff. 

There's a part on the bodice where there's supposed to be little gold rectangles of armour but because I am #1 kind of lazy and #2 did not have specially made gold squares, I used my gold ribbon. 

I of course had to pin it on, which isn't bad because no one will be able to see the piercings anyways. 

And this is how it looks with my two rows that I could fit on.

This is the center bodice after I sewed all of the little strips of fabric on. I was super proud of how it turned out!

For the side bodice I used the same pattern as before, but I decided to change how I made the collar thing. The shape I used before was a little too abstract for the character so I decided to simplify. I made the top green and the bottom black with an edge of the gold ribbon.

Completed front bodice:

After I made the whole back bodice, I decided to make a corset-type look in the back so I took my black thread and sewed it on to make loops to thread the ribbon in after I'm done.

I decided to wing it with exactly how far the spaces should be apart, making them as close as I could without marking each and every one. 

Here's the whole thing. Once again I must apologize for the green carpet of ugliness. My mom just got new flooring and I hope that my room will be next to be remodeled. 

For a lot of the rest of the dress I didn't get as many pictures as I should of, but let it suffice to say that I mostly went through the same process as I did with my muslin.

Here's a really crappy pic of the sleeve after I added it. 

(Almost) Finished bodice

After adding the collar I just had to take some selfies. Here I am (trying) to look as scary as possible with absolutely no makeup and dust flying everywhere. 

Apparently I did not take any pictures of the skirt making process, but I basically did the same thing as I did on my muslin.  

After the struggle of sewing the bodice to the skirt comes my least favorite part: the zipper. I do not have an invisible zipper foot so I just did my best with a regular zipper foot. 

I actually had to sew it on twice because I had too much fabric around my shoulders and I looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame. Then there was also the fact that this dress requires an insanely long zipper and stores here don't have any longer than a 22 inch zipper. Removing the excess fabric helped, a little. I still really have to shrink up to fit.

And here you can see exactly how messy everything is after I added the clasp. Thank goodness this is all on the inside where no one will see!

I forgot to mention before, I finished all of my edges (except for the pleather ones) with zig-zag stitch. For the bottom of my skirt hem, after I chopped off about five inches, I then just rolled it under once and sewed. From the inside it looks messy, but from the outside it looks the same as any double folded hem.  

In order to add a little more bling, I sewed on the last of my gold ribbon near the edge of the skirt. I really feel like this helped tie the bodice and the skirt together. 

Time to cue Handel's Hallelujah chorus 'cause the dress is finally finished!!!!!  

Time for some really crappy pictures of me being a complete goofball. 

After I finish the rest of the cosplay I promise there will be better pictures.

Both of my pets wanted to see what the fuss was about.

I couldn't get any good shots of the back, but the ribbon laced through the loops I sewed on turned out to be really cool. 

Sneak Peek: A possible project for the future would be a Thor cosplay for my younger sister. She really wants me to make her something and we agreed that it would be cool if we did Thor and Loki because of the whole sibling thing. Despite being 12, my sister is taller than me and she's blonde so I think she could be a good Thor.

Here is my sketch of how it could look. 

My Little Mistake Hat

Slouchy hats are just adorable but for the longest time I couldn't get one to turn out right. Either they would turn out too much like a beret or were too big or were just weird. I was determined to finally make a hat that's but cute and functional. 

My favorite pattern I found was this Cabled Slouchy Beanie. 

Beautiful, isn't it?

After finding the pattern I got some yarn, Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable. The colour I used was called Polo. It kind of reminded me of a mixture of fall leaves, rainbows, and sunsets. I know, silly. 

 I had started with the band and then the double crochets, but since I was working while at school, I didn't take a very good look at the pattern. Thus the result was something much different than what I had set out to make, but it still turned out really cute!

For the hat I made for myself I used a size F hook, but for this tutorial I am using worsted yarn and an I hook because they were the first things I could find.

I started out by making the band. You basically just begin by chaining 10...

...and then making rows and rows of single crochet, all in the back loops.

Crocheting in the back loops gives the band a fancy ribbed look. For the sake of time and the fact I don't plan on using the hat I'm making here, I'm making the band really short. Unless you have a really tiny head, make the band as long as you need to fit around your head.

Fold the band in half and slip stitch the sides together. 

TADA! Can you see where this is going?

And here's a pic of my cat Artemis taking a nap on my bed. She was watching me crochet but then I guess it got too boring for her. 

Anyway, back to the hat!Turn the band inside out and double crochet around the top, make you that you end with a multiple of 6. 

Now for the fun part!

Slip stitch to the top of the first double crochet then chain two. Back post double crochet in the same stitch and then back post double crochet in the next stitch. 

Skip the next two stitches and then make two front post treble crochets. 

Go back and make two front post treble crochets in the stitches you skipped. 

   

Continue with the same pattern of the 2 back post double crochets,skip two, 2 front post treble crochets, then go back and two front post treble crochets.  

When you finish the row, slip stitch on the first double crochet. This is where I messed up on my hat, I just kept going with the same pattern for the rest of the hat.

They begin to make little ridges after several rows!  

 This is how it looks on my hat, I really like the effect the self-striping yarn has on this design. 

 When the hat is as long as you want, weave a tapestry needle with yarn through the top and cinch it together until it looks like this:

 Tie a knot and now you've got a fabulous hat.

It's not only cute but also super duper warm. I wore mine to a football game. My high school's team went to state and since I'm in the Pep band I got to go and play. It was absolutely freezing and we lost by a lot (it was 19:56). So yeah, the game itself kind of sucked, but playing the piccolo in band was awesome.  

The bus ride was over four hours but it went by pretty quick since I had my flute friends with me. My bus buddy, Britney was charged with caffeine so it was a pretty interesting trip. She also had a super cute hat!

I love how weird my fellow flutes are!