Butterfly

Ah, Ruby Moon. My first big cosplay project. Everything was sewn from original patterns my grandmother and I designed, and the only things premade, store-bought were the gloves.

The top was a basic tank-top design expanded to have the single, centered triangle in the front and two left and right-aligned triangles in the back. Attached to this were the pink panels. Made from pink taffata, I believe. The pale pink is the base, the red was cut to the design and glued and double-stitched on. The black swirls are tight stitches. The butterfly at the bottom is made from fabric, pulled through like an empty plushie, as was the pink "jewel" attached to it. The panels are identical on the front and back. The red ribbons were also attached to the shirt. The skirt was a simple, straight skirt design, the only hitch being a very limited step. I could only take steps of about one foot. The collar was drafted several times over several times before it fell the right way, and had a small butterfly attached to the front. I had butterfly earrings as well, made from small butterfly iron-ons, but I lost those.

And those wings. Dear god, those wings. Those ones are retired, sitting crumpled up in a corner in my room. Granted, if I wanted to, I could bent them back into shape, but they take up less room this way. The initial design was drafted on sketch paper, then blown up on newspaper. I sacrificed a lot of newspaper to get it right. The wings were made from 6 or 8 gauge wire, I can't remember for the life of me anymore. The wire was stripped (it had plastic coating), then bent to shape. I then pinned black fabric to it, measure out half an inch and drew the wings on the fabric. That was cut, then sewn onto the wing base. The sewing took a damn long time - I couldn't even guess anymore. When bent correctly, they rise a little above my head and come down close to the ground. The red pieces were made from thick red ribbon, the kind you sew onto baby blankets, cut and irons and stitch on in the corners. Black straps were sewn on and attached under the shirt.

Unfortunately, the wings were not constructed properly. The above working was, in theory, good enough, but failed. The wings, due to their heavy weight, always flopped over. And while I resized them perfectly height wise, I forgot to take girth into account, so when I'm standing, most of the lower wings cannot be seen, because I am not stick thin. *sniffles* We tried a few ways to keep the wings up, like fishing wire, but none really worked, so I'd either have someone behind me holding the wings up or holding the wings up myself. They became officially retired when they died horribly. I was chasing my friend, dressed as a massive Pocky Box, when he forgot to duck for a door and fell back, knocking me back. The wings manages to wrap around my arms and warp horridly. They can be bent back, but sag much more easily now. I'm working on a new wing design.

I also had a moving Spinel prop, but I forget where he ran off to.