Tuesday, January 3, 2017

1940's Pin up Wonder Woman, but with a twist

A 1940's pin up Wonder Woman is already a twist on the classic Linda Carter out fit but add in that my 4 year old wanted to wear the design for Halloween takes it to whole other level! 
Simplicy recentlly did a line of DC Bombshell cosplay patterns.  I had a possible client who fell in love with the wonderwoman design and wanted it for Halloween, however her funds were not in place when her sewing slot came up, therefore that didn't happen.  In the mean time, my 4 year old saw the design and imediatly fell in love with wonderwoman and wanted that design.  Let the head ache's begin....

I started with the original pattern design and broke it down into what I would need to make 'kid friendly'.  The original top is a short bowling shirt style top, but the center front is an invisible zipper with the WW logo over the top.  I found a kids bowling shirt pattern and put the invisible zipper in the front so the logo lined up properly.  While the zipper on the adult might be to show cleavage, the kiddo version was for functional purposes. The next part was the shorts.  The adult version was a pair of sailor shorts with white stars one the front.   That wasn't a problem to do a kids elastic waist shorts were not a problem to find in my stash.   With the basic forms located I went on to the details. 

In order for the pieces to be to the right scale I shrunk the decorative stars, boot covers, gauntlets, and tiara with a copy machine.  This worked fine except in the boots,  I forgot the seam allowances on them also shrunk.  If I do that again, I will need to add seam allowances to the design.  It just meant that at the 11th hour I had to add Velcro to the back seam of my daughter's boots.  While a pain, it isn't uncommon when it comes to cosplay designs, ask anyone about their hail Mary's right before a con/event. 

What was really cool about this design was that it was also a joint effort with my husband.  He does amazing prop stuff, but we haven't had a chance to team up on a project together.  He did the gauntlets out of glitter craft foam, and heavy duty sticky back velcro.  The crown is simular, however I made a matching fabric headband that he attached to the crown.  I added an elastic snap 'holster' to hold the golden lasso he made for her.   All in all it turned out great.  I had a couple people trying to buy it off her back!  One of my favorite memories is seeing her sashaying down the day care hallway to music from the Linder Carter wonder woman theme song.

I am quite amazed at how well it turned out for  'not having a pattern', and that all but the craft foam and the zipper came out of my stash.  I had red satin, blue and white cotton fabric.  I had picked up years before reflective fabric bias tape out of clearance bin at Joanns.  I used that as part of the logo on her chest, and I used it as the decorative bias on the boot cuts, and bottom edge.  I ran out of time otherwise I would have put it on the cuffs of her shirt.  I made her not only an amazing outfit, but it was a safe one too.  I call it an over all win for the hubby and I both.









  The only thing is, how are we going to top it the next year?







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