Of warlocks and pirates

A couple of weekends ago I attended London May MCM EXPO, it wasn't the best con I've ever been to but I won't get into that, what I will get into is who I went as!

You are all familiar with my Tessa Gray cospaly, if not then you can find more about it here.
I went as Tessa on the Saturday with my sister cosplaying Cecily Herondale from the same series of books. Her costume was originally going to be made by her with a little help from me but she only managed to get the petticoat done and the skirt pieces cut out before procrastination set in and exam season started, so I finished it off. I did most of the sewing in the space of three days, around university, so it's not my best work but I'm certainly very proud of it.
Ruby also took some lovely photos of my Tessa cosplay with me actually in it. Victorian
sisters-in-law kicking demon butt together!

This photo was taken by my friend Emilia

Ruby's dress is made from faux shot silk taffeta and some left over black cotton velvet. The bodice is flatlined with black polycotton and the buttons are all metal self cover buttons that Ruby covered on her own. I draped the bodice pattern myself, it's loosely based on a couple of bodices in Janet Arnold's 'Patterns of Fashion 2'. The skirt was inspired by some simpler skirts found during google images and pinterest searches. It was meant to be cartridge pleated at the centre back but I didn't know how to do it properly when I made the skirt so it didn't work. Underneath she is wearing a (ebay) corset, bustle pad and ruffled bustle petticoat.

Onwards to Sunday!
I managed to finish my Elizabeth Swann cosplay in quite a leisurely amount of time but I am just not destined to have a relaxing build up to EXPO because I spent the last week before the con madly rushing around trying to finish Ruby's costume and my wigs. Everything worked out in the end though!

The Thames looks nothing like the Caribbean but lets pretend it does, shall we?
I wore my American Duchess Kensingtons all day and they were super comfortable, even with bare feet! Not exactly accurate since they're nothing like Lizzy's shoes but closer than anything else I own so I wore them. The entire costume was really comfortable. I basically got to wear pajamas all day but they were really, really elegant pajamas. I can't wait to cosplay her again.

The nightgown is made entirely from a pair of muslin Ikea curtains so it was actually incredibly cheap (only £15) to make. It took me forever to finish it because I kept putting off doing the smocking across the front but after doing the smocking on the sleeves of my Loras shirt I wasn't so frightened of it anymore and decided to give it a go instead of chickening out and gathering it. I'm glad I did smock it because it looks so pretty.
Underneath the nightgown I'm wearing a slip made from two cream coloured primark vest tops, you can just about see its hem in the last photo.
The bedgown is made from 18th century reproduction printed cotton from Colonial Williamsburg, a nightmare to get hold of since I'm based outside of the US. I've got 5 yards of it in red too because originally I was going to use that but didn't order enough so had to buy more in blue from Renaissance Fabrics. I think I ended up using about 7/7.5 yards. It's those damn watteau pleats on the back, they just eat fabric. It's lined with lightweight calico, also from ikea. Along the front edges are sewn tea stained satin ribbon roses with green embroidery cotton vines linking them together, the sleeves are cinched up by braided loops of embroidery cotton hooked over normal (shankless) plastic buttons that I covered with the printed cotton fabric. It's a surprisingly heavy costume.

Next up, the bonnet I made for university!