Finished Commission and Major Parsol Progress

There's nothing quite like finishing a large commission, and the feeling you get immediately afterwards. This Wa-Lolita outfit commission is the biggest garment I've sewn so far. Not just in terms of fabric - which, it did take a lot - but in scope as well. Upon finishing this I really realized that I'm going in the right direction with my dreams, and my life. I also really enjoy sewing/designing Wa Lolita co-ords, and I'm really excited to get started on the other Wa Lolita commission I have lined up. That'll be in a while though. Enough of my rambling now, and onto the photos! The outfit itself is broken down into four pieces (five if you count the bow, and six if you count the headband :p), so I had to take a bunch to showcase all of it.

^Remember the original sketch? The finished product is pretty much identical ^_^

^The finished piece, in all it's glory! ^___^ I really wish I had made a longer petticoat to really show off how full the black underskirt is. The hem is about 132", which is quite a lot, considering most Lolita dresses/skirts only have a 90" hem. 

^Great back view! The bow was a lot of fun to put together -__- Haha. I ended up using two pieces to get the fullness of the bow, rather than one. 

^Check out those sleeves! They're a full yard long, and quite epic. I ended up having to put some black on the edge to make up for the lack of wideness in my fabric. I also added an additional ruffle to the cuff ^_^

^The obi is not a real obi, but velcro-ed! I also used super heavy ultra awesome interfacing, that way the obi will never wrinkled or get crunched or whatever - it'll always maintain it's shape. 

^Sans obi. 

^Back view of the over skirt. Finished nicely with an invisible zipper and single button.

^Sans overskirt. I know it looks like there's no petticoat underneath, but there totally is! It's just short ;___;

^Back view of the lovely underskirt - again, finished nicely with an invisible zipper and single button.

^Finally, the kimono top itself!

^A bit of velcro to ensure everything stays in place.

^And lastly, the double-bowed headband. 

Whew. Well that was a lot of fun. I definitely learned a lot working on this, and it took me a bit longer than expected, only because.. well I've never worked on something like this and had to do a lot of troubleshooting along the way. This took me a little less than a week, but I think the next time I do something like this, it'll be more like 3-4 days. ^_^

Oh, and as I stated before, my clothing looks a lot better on a person than a stiff mannequin, so hopefully I'll be getting some of those shots from my super lovely client ^_^

In addition to this, I also did a lot of work on my parasol project! After finishing my Wa Lolita commission, I decided to turn around and work on something totally different, to sort of "cleanse my palette". I got a lot done on it, and am super happy with how it's turning out so far. Keep in mind that I was working on this really late at night, so the pictures may not be the best quality.

^Last time I had cut out a panel from the ugly umbrella in order to make my pattern piece. Well, I did just that by tracing it onto a sheet of paper, adding seam allowance, and then tracing it and cutting it out of my lovely black waterproof nylon fabric.

^And then I stitched them all together! This totally reminded me of those rainbow parachutes we used to play with in gym class in like first grade :p

^My top ruffle! Cut out, gathered, and pinned on. (I also went back and top stitched each of the seams to give it a more finished look.)

^A closer view.

^Ruffle number two! Cut out, gathered, and pinned. If you notice, I added a black satin ribbon to finish off that top ruffle.

I actually have a bit more than this finished now. I stitched on that ruffle, finished it off with a thicker black satin ribbon, and now I'm in the process of making ten bows to go on each of the seams ^_^ It's looking uber lovely so far, and I've really loved making this parasol cover! I know I'll end up doing more, because they're actually a lot simpler than you may think, and a lovely parasol is hard to come by that's not located in Japan. So, perhaps these'll be in my shop in the future ^___^

Okay. Enough updating for now - I've got to get back to sewing! I've got another outfit commission I'm working on, not to mention this parasol that needs finished, and a plethora of other things I'm working on.

<3

Miss Chubi