Miku Hatsune Cantarella Dress

This post has been a long time coming, but alas. I’ve been having trouble writing it and making it sound logical. Hopefully you won’t have this problem while reading it! XD

I’ve mentioned in earlier posts that I’ve been going through growth spurts. These growth spurts have been taking place for about three years, but it wasn’t until this year that they started to slow down to the point when I think they might be ending. (At last!) Since these growth spurts have been taking place for years and I’ve been growing inches a year, costumes I made months or years before wearing it no longer fit. Its always hard for me to figure out how to make a costume and make it in a way that it can be modified to fit me after I grew taller. Usually I end up making a costume and then remaking it later so it can fit me. (The most notable costume I did this to is the Idiot’s Lantern dress) Sometimes, I can fix a costume so I can wear it again without completely remaking it.

One of the costumes I don’t have to completely remake is the Miku Hatsune Cantarella dress. I made it a year ago, back in 2012, but in spite of all my work I was never able to wear it. Recently I pulled it out of storage and began to work on it so I could wear it for 2014. (Maybe. We’ll see.) I knew there were parts of the costume that needed to be remade but much to my surprise, the “hardest” parts could easily be adjusted to fit me again.

The first thing I worked on is the bodice…

The bodice was made using Simplicity #1728 (The same pattern I used for my Snow White dress bodice) while the sleeves were made using self-drafted patterns.

Out of the whole costume, I was the most concerned about the bodice because it is made out of black and white satin and brocade…. and I didn’t want to remake the whole entire thing. I dreaded looking at the bodice because I didn’t know if I could save it, but after looking at it I realized it is very easily salvageable! All I needed to do was to take out the zipper and add laces to make it a lace up bodice. Since I created the bodice to be modified (I left raw some edges exposed inside the bodice so I don’t have to tear the lining completely out) this was an easy fix. I remember making this bodice and I could tell I’d have further growing to do in the future. So, I did my best to allow for growth.

The bodice needs a panel in the back where the laces are so my back won’t be exposed, but other than that it is completely finished.

The second thing I worked on was the apron of the dress. I made the apron using Truly Victorian 1870 Train Skirt Ensemble View A (Apron pattern only) and I made it larger that it should’ve been for my size so I could grow into it. Also, I made the waistband larger with sew-on snaps so if my torso grew rounder, I could rip the snaps off and re-sew them in a different location. Much to my surprise, I didn’t grow rounder in my torso. So, the apron was left alone.

The last part of the dress I had to work on was the “hardest”… the black underskirt. The skirt was too short for me when I made it a year ago, so I knew I’d need to remake the skirt to fit my new height…. and there was no way of saving it. (For this dress anyway) I used 8 yards of black casa satin from Joann’s and a self drafted pattern to make the original skirt, but when I made the new skirt I could only by 5 yards of black satin. This didn’t bother me because in the year that passed since I made the original skirt, I made up a new way of sewing a full skirt using rectangle pieces of fabric. That way it would save fabric and reduce the amount of scraps left over. (I made the skirts for the 3rd version of the Idiot’s Lantern dress the same way because I didn’t have enough fabric to make a huge, full, A-line skirt.)

Since I made skirts similar to it months before, the new black underskirt was finished after a day’s work. It’s not what I originally wanted it to look like, nor did the fabric move the way I wanted it to when I walked, but hey! I had a skirt that fit my height! And it was a full skirt too. So, it was perfect for the dress.

After everything was done, the whole entire dress looks like this….

Well, that’s about it! The only thing left is to wear it somewhere and/or have photos taken of me wearing it. I’m not sure when that will happen because of my busy life, but I hope it will happen some time in 2014. I also made a page for the whole entire costume. You can see it here.

That’s all for now!