Hello lovelies,

sorry for the long wait. I was really busy this summer. Between London, having a friend over from Germany for a week and work, I managed to almost finish my Ariel costume. I say almost because only a few details are missing but all in all, it is already wearable.

I am talking about this:

Last year in March was the first time I talked about doing this cosplay. And now, more than a year later, I finally finished it. It was not always easy and some of the details really screwed me up but I do have to say that I am quite content with the outcome. I didn't have that feeling for a long time.

The pattern is a normal dress pattern which widens at the bottom. The overdress is made of chiffon and the under dress is a pale yellow stretch material.
I bought a few meters white chiffon material and cut out the basic pattern.

I hand stitched everything together with the goal of pulling out the thread after colouring it. Why? Because I was colouring the polyester chiffon with a polyester dye and thought, the thread was made out of cotton and wouldn't take on the colour. As it turned out, it did because it was made of polyester too. Great. The dye I used was polyde in green and yellow. It dyed my fabric exceptionally well and I was really amazed about the colour.

Here you see the after dying result. It does not have the correct green colour but I was too unsure to experiment with colours so I have to live with that green now.

Afterwards I sewed everything. The yellow bits were sewed with yellow thread and the green parts with green thread. As for the sewing; at first I made a straight seam and afterwards, with a wide but short zig-zag stitch I fastened everything. In the end all what was left was cutting right next to the seam so it will not fray.

I added the under fabric to the top and tried it. Everything really fit well.
My crappy hair styling was due to a long work and sewing day.
I tried to strike a pose I saw on some Edwardian pictures.

Next on the list were the sleeves. They were a bit tricky to make and are still super uneven, which is a big minus.

With a zig-zag stitch I made kind of "huge buttonholes" and then cut it. The yellow fabric is georgette. It is a bit thicker and has more colour than chiffon. The yellow fabric is a bit longer than the green one.
A picture of my try out stage. Before sewing I like to know how it looks like.

I am very sorry for the crappy pictures. But that's what you get for working all day and sewing all night. Meh.
But wait, why are the sleeves so puffy?
I got the idea when I looked at Victorian underwear. They made small cushions for their sleeves to make them stay puffy all day.
I took this (crappy) picture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but this is quite similar to how my under-sleeve looks like too. It's just a tad smaller.

Before even doing the dress out of the chiffon material, I cut the pattern out of a thin cotton fabric and tested the sleeve (and general, the fit). As you can see, the first picture is without the under-sleeve pad and the second one is with. I think this makes a huge difference.

The only thing missing now are the pearls. I hand stitched them onto the fabric directly. The pearls are about ~8mm.

Both of the finished sleeves were attached to the dress with a few stitches.

Next on the list was the piping. Ariel has a yellow pearl band covering the sleeves and top of the dress. I decided to do a piping with the yellow georgette I had left over and cord. It's a fairly easy task and didn't take long.
The trick is to really sew next to the cord without actually stitching on the cord. I accomplished this task with the zip foot.
And this is the fabric plus the piping. Before sewing I hand stitched the piping to the fabric to keep it in place.
I forgot to take pictures but once the piping was in place, I added a zip.

I made fun of the following part stating on twitter that I had nothing better to do with my life. But in that moment, I didn't.
I took 6mm pearls and hand stitched them onto the piping, in a 6mm interval. To be honest, I would love to say I did not sit at my sewing table with a tape measure and mark out 6mm but I did. I can't deny it.


Of course, there was another fitting after that. How can it not be. I might have gained weight and not fit into the dress anymore.


 I love how the dress turned out. I still have the pattern and I think I'll do a nice gothic dress out of black chiffon with it but without sleeves because they were a pain in the butt.

The shell bra is made out of a cotton/elastic blend. I didn't have the time to go and buy a new fabric and I found this nice shade of purple in my fabric box, so why not use it. 
No idea why blogspot turned the picture, it sometimes just does.
I lined the fabric with a pinker purple lining fabric but it's not really visible anyway.

Almost done!
Here are some of the materials I used. I sprayed them a bit with gold colour first and managed to spray also my blue table cloth. At least it looks a bit like stars on a blue sky now. 
I used the sea star for the headdress which will come in a different post because I fear this entry is already too long.

The rhinestones are all from aliexpress, I ordered about 1000 but didn't use all of them. to be honest I still think the dress looks plain but I will buy a can of spray glitter.

So, how did everything end with the rhinestones? Here are the results.


 Now I just hope the weather in Kassel is okay because I can't wear that dress with 19°C and rain :(.

All the best,

Aurîs Lothol