Coat of Doom, Part II

Hello again! I am in the very long process of creating Alice's coat. I figured I'd start with the top piece first. This was tricky to plan out, but I managed it to be pretty decent. It's designed so the zipper is in the back, and runs up the entire length of the top part of her coat. The sleeves pattern was made separately from the front and back base of the coat which had its own pattern as well.

The kind of material I am using to sew is the same tan heavy weight fabric I mentioned in previous posts. The front of Alice's coat has a unique design to it, which I made first inside out, then pulled it right side out and pressed the seams flat. Then I attached the back piece via the shoulders and the side seams. I made a collar pattern separately, sewed inside out, pressed the seams, and sewed that to the top of the front and back pieces of fabric. Alice's collar is very similar to a mandarin styled collar. After that I added some pink bias tape around the collar and the front petal-like design, as well as adding a round button to the middle. Bias tape is very useful for edges of costumes, although some costumes require bias tape in unusual areas like Alice does, but is traditionally used in quilting for edges of quilts.

[pic of top]

Then I decided to do the sleeves next. These weren't normal sleeves because some parts poof out like her shoulders and the bottom of her sleeves. I decided to replicate that by added a series of tulle in the sections that needed more height and volume. I actually made the shoulder pieces separately from the rest, and joined them together later. The sides of her sleeves required more pink bias tape for the pink tear-shaped design, as well as a rounded button for each sleeve. I also added red vinyl belts to her sleeves in the appropriate places. There are some odd belt buckles which I made out of wonderflex which is a very handy craft material for almost anything. Here is a photo of some armor and claws in progress made out of wonderflex unpainted. Wonderflex bends to your will when you heat it up, so it is nifty for all sorts of odd shaped pieces of costumes and prop work. Anyway the wonderflex was curved around the belts so they would look natural, and adhered with super glue. They were spray painted gold to look realistic.

This is the top part of the sleeve.

And this is the bottom half.

So after both sleeves were completed, I created a sleeve cap and eased the fabric into the base of the coat...and voila! The top part of the coat is done.

The completed top half of Alice's coat.

Next I will update about the bottom half of Alice's coat.