Wearable Projects & Costumes

Clothes and Jewelry

I love to express myself through my personal style. I am an avid seamstress and enjoy altering and painting thrifted clothing to make it uniquely mine. I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting techniques to incorporate into my wearable projects, including dyeing, stenciling, self-drafting patterns, and more. These are some samples of wearable projects I've made.

I also like to make elaborate costumes, as seen at the bottom of the page!

For my three-dimensional sewing projects, see my Personal Projects page.

Table of Contents:

Clothes and Jewelry

Costuming

Sailor Collar Shirt

I thrifted a blouse with a standard turn-down collar, which I removed and replaced with a self-drafted sailor collar. It was a very challenging project, as I had to figure out (from scratch!) how to interface the inside to allow the collar to lay flat while worn.

Reversible Apron

One of my first ever self-drafted patterns, featuring over 12 feet of hand-gathered ruffles and symmetrically placed pockets on both sides. It's now my go-to apron for all cooking adventures.

Bee's Knees Jeans

I used my Cricut Explore to cut out a bee stencil I prepared in Inkscape, then painted with acrylics for a bee-utiful pair of pants!

Vegetable Shorts

I transferred vegetable shapes found online into SVG files, then cut them as stencils on my Cricut Explore machine out of freezer paper and painted them with acrylics! They turned out exactly how I wanted!

Acorn and Leaf Button Covers

I made these out of wax, then formed a plaster mold off of the wax originals. I then cast the shapes in the mold with lead-free solder and attached them to button cover blanks. A little heavy, but a fun proof-of-concept!

Wool Coat Alteration

Altering this wool coat was an amazing (and challenging) lesson in garment construction. Prior to this, I had never attempted to alter a fully-lined garment, but the success of this project has inspired me to try more in the future!

Wool Shorts Alteration

I applied the skills I learned during the wool coat alteration to shorten and shape these fully-lined vintage wool shorts to fit my preferences. The result is a far more wearable and unique design with craftsmanship that will hold up over time.

Miffy Earrings

I made these cute earrings in honor of Miffy's 63rd birthday. Her dress is made of a pretty sheet of origami paper! Her body contains air-dry clay, to ensure the earrings weren't too heavy.

Double Circle Skirts

These skirts each contain two full circles of fabric attached to a single waistband for extra volume. Making these skirts was an interesting exercise in formula-generated patterns, as their sizing is based on my unique measurements

Don't Be Afraid to Take Whisks Apron

This self-drafted apron was made to my friend Collin's measurements, and features an encouraging embroidered message!

Dyeing a Vintage Jacket

I thrifted a lovely vintage jacket, but wanted it to be a more saturated yellow. So, I dyed the whole thing with polyester dye! I think the coolest part of the process was that the plastic buttons even took up the dye and became a darker color.

Tea Towel Apron

A simple utility apron sewn from a tea towel with bias tape straps and a patch pocket. I like to use this as a project when teaching others how to sew!

Costuming

I love making costumes. Costuming combines the creative fun of making wearable projects with the challenge of reproducing a particular character, or elevating an idea into a tangible form, as with my Amazon Prime and Bee costumes. Here are some examples of costumes I've made over the years.

Amazon Prime

For Halloween 2019, I dressed as a rainforest covered in numbers divisible only by 1 and themselves to become...Amazon Prime!

I thrifted the underlying dress, and sewed on various Amazon Rainforest flora and fauna, including trailing liana vines and a Rafflesia flower. My favorite detail is probably the sloth hanging on the front, which I found at a dollar store and modified to fit the theme.

This costume was a fun experiment in working only with what I had on hand--with the exception of the dress ($5), the sloth ($1), and the bird on my head ($1), I used or repurposed materials that I already had or found at home, including the silk flowers and the "vines" (which were made of the cut-off edge of a brown fitted sheet I used to make a couch cover a month prior).

Similarly, though the dress fit me, it couldn't zip well in the back. I worked around this issue by sewing in elastic paneling, which I incorporated into the design of the costume. Rather than hiding a repair, I featured it!

Queen Bee and King Bee

This costume was my first foray into dyeing clothes! I dyed the underlying dress yellow, and added felt details to mimic gathers in the dress and provide the "bee stripes".

I also made the King Bee costume for my friend, which includes bee-themed "medals" and epaulettes!

I really enjoyed making this set of costumes, as it was the first time I had the opportunity to design two coordinating costumes from scratch, then make them a reality. I made sure to incorporate coordinating elements wherever possible--for example, matching yellows, reusing the same materials at various locations, and repeating the honey-colored rhinestones (on his buttons and cuffs, and on my necklace and crown!).

I'm extremely proud of these costumes, as I feel that their overall look is cohesive, coordinated, and true to my original vision.

Bee and Puppycat Cosplay

This was my first ever cosplay, as Bee from the animated web series Bee and Puppycat! After attempting unsuccessfully (it stuck straight up, oops!) to attach a Peter Pan collar to the shirt via a self-drafted pattern, I ended up cutting a different shirt into a small false collar, which I wore underneath the yellow shirt. Not everything goes perfectly the first time!

I also made a casual Puppycat costume for my friend Lee, and we wore the cosplays together to IkasuCon 2015 in Fort Wayne, IN.

Fionna and BMO Cosplay

Making these costumes of Fionna and BMO from the show Adventure Time was a blast! I particularly liked painting the BMO box, which turned out extremely well. Luckily Patrick was able to get into and out of it easily!

I'm also pretty proud of the cartoony "crystal sword" I made (out of cardboard, printer paper, and packing tape!)

It can't be seen in these pictures, unfortunately, but I actually made the hat reversible--one side has the "bunny ears" for Fionna's hat, and the other side has the "bear ears" for the character of Finn in the show!

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