Rosethorn - Let's Wrap This Thing Up

Okay, yeah, I couldn't resist.  I mean, this whole thing is ridiculous.  But let's not talk about politics.  That's depressing anyway.

Aside from one or two adjustments, I am declaring Rosethorn complete!  I'll discuss those adjustments later on, but for now let's finish off my last couple of progress shots.

If you remember from my first Rosethorn post back in December, I talked about how I was making Rosethorn's garments out of an old cosplay kimono that I made back in 2010.

Why did I make this for a person much larger than I?  IT DOESN'T FIT!

Elastic on a Japanese-style garment?!  What the hell was I thinking?!

 These garments represent about three or four yards of greyish-green linen fabric that was just sitting on my shelf because the cosplay they belonged to looked terrible.  So I reused them.

What this really meant, however, is that I was limited in the amount of fabric I could use for Rosethorn's habit.  Joann's doesn't sell this colour anymore.   And by the time I came to the skirt, I was down to my last two pieces of fabric.

This is the skirt base.  It is a wraparound, overlapping skirt...though as you'll see later on in this post there wasn't quite enough for a complete wraparound near the hem.  In order to make the skirt a little more interesting, I went ahead and embroidered the entire hem with silver-green and black thread (to indicate Rosethorn's Initiate status), AND put some stitching lines in to give the fabric texture.

Over this piece of the skirt I put a sort of pannier...mostly just because there WAS a gap where the skirt overlapped and because I had the leftover fabric which wasn't large enough to add to the piece pictured above for a complete wraparound.

It's so greasy that I could feel pimples breaking out on my forehead.

Final order of business was the wig.  There isn't a lot of source material as to Rosethorn's actual hairstyle, so I used Kira Nerys' season seven hairstyle as a reference (since Tamora Pierce said that Rosethorn was based on Kira Nerys!).  As I said in an earlier post, Arda wigs was out of the wig style I wanted in Dark Copper Red, which was a little unfortunate because the wig I got in Spanish Brown doesn't seem quite red enough.  With nothing else to do, I went ahead and styled it anyway.  The wig holds its shape due to a shit ton of pomade that I worked into it.  My opinion is that turned out well despite the colour.  My wig stand lacks ears, but the longer tufts of hair on either side of the head are to be tucked behind my ears.  Maybe later I'll order the Dark Copper Red wig.  I just don't know.

At long last, here are my completion photos!  I should say beforehand that I could not lace up the doublet because dressmakers' mannequins represent idealized humans.  Not real ones.  They have huge busts, tiny waists, and middling hips.  I am not shaped like that.  Therefore the garments did not fit quite right and that's something to keep in mind as you look through these photos.

This was the only mannequin with legs.  Legs are necessary in order to wear pants.

The cloak ties under the arms and behind the back.  It also took some creative tacking so the hood would drape the way it was supposed to.

Overall I'm really pleased with how everything drapes.  I wish it was easier to keep the fabric hanging properly on a moving human, but that sort of thing only happen in anime.

Close-ups of the costume with the cloak:

Mannequin =/= real life person

Holy crap that was a lot of embroidery 0_o

Now without the cloak:

I love the skirt, no matter how much of a pain in the ass it was to make.

I *think* the hood still needs to be sewn on and somewhere I need to fix a bit of embroidery.  I may also need a new wig.  Other than that, let's call this a wrap!