Rainbow Dash Cosplay Photoshoot with Splinters of Light Photography

Late last month I went to a cosplay photoshoot with my freshly repaired Rainbow Dash cosplay at a nearby park in Connecticut.  Despite feeling totally socially awkward when walking by myself, I had a really nice time.  I want to give a special shoutout to the photographer that orchestrated the event and somehow works magic behind that lens and comes up with interesting poses (and brings the magic of friendship with her wherever she goes!)

While she is finishing up editing photos from the multitude of shoots over the past couple months, here is a fantastic unedited photo from the session.  You should check our her Facebook page: Splinters of Light Photography and give it a like (and maybe book a shoot)!

I have also decided to start my own Facebook page to chronicle my cosplay, craft, and cooking experiences.  I find it to be a more interactive format than a blog.  Somehow blogging feels very one-sided, almost like having an open diary.  I invite you to share in my creative journey!  Please show your support by liking Eclectic Elathera on Facebook.  I would be happy to answer any questions you have on my page!

20% cooler photo because it was taken by Splinters of Light Photography

Rainbow Dash cosplay repairs

My very first cosplay needs some love before it can be dusted off again.  My friends Ayla of Antipode Geek Belly Dance and Glitterforge wanted to do a group cosplay for ConnectiCon 2012.  We decided to go as characters from My Little Pony.  Glitterforge went as Shining Armor, Ayla as Twilight Sparkle, and I went as Rainbow Dash.  Merika, Ayla's sister (and a domo), made us these fantastic cloaks with our cutie marks!  So totally awesome!

Cutie Mark cloaks made by Merika!

Having not worn the cosplay since then, all the stuff was thrown on a shelf after last year's convention.  Literally.  Was not even thrown in the wash (I know, right? Eww).

Does washing count as costume repair?  Probably not.  Hygienic, yes.  I didn't plan too terribly well on making this easy to wash.  The wings were sewn directly onto the hoodie.  I had to cut all the stitches to stick into the wash. 

Rainbow Dash wings - with cute visible stitching around the edges

As for the skirt, my concern here was that the cutie mark colors would bleed.  The cutie mark was made from felt, and the bottom (blue) layer hand-sewn onto the skirt. The yellow and red lightning bolts as well as the white cloud were tacked on with Elmer's adhesive spray.  I got lazy and only removed the bolts and clouds before washing and seemed to have no issues (phew!).

I also picked up a pair of butt shorts months ago for this cosplay (and am still working up the courage to wear them publicly).  I made even tinier felt cutie marks for the shorts --- and let me tell you, it is darn hard to cut things that small when your scissors are dull!

Cutie mark skirt and shorts after washing and repairs

I left the wig repairs until last.  After 2 days of con wear, the poor thing has lost some of its shape, especially toward the "roots".  Wigs are definitely a struggle point for me... I ran into similar issues on my Rydia costume.  Totally open to suggestions if anyone out there has some good advice! 

Rainbow Dash cosplay wig - before and after styling

Stuffed Chicken with Gorgonzola Cheese, Bacon, and Garlic Chives

As a new homeowner last year, I was super excited for Spring to come around.  I had these grand plans to have a fabulous vegetable garden and to grow all kinds of flowers and herbs.  Well, reality did set in---my intentions were way to ambitious.  

I did make an honest attempt toward growing some vegetables and herbs on the deck in planter boxes.  The vegetables were a disaster, though.  In my greed for fresh noms, I overcrowded what was planted and overwatered (be careful when growing plants in boxes to allow for adequate soil drainage).

Thankfully, the herbs came out all right!  We made heavy use of cilantro for fresh salsa, dill for potato salad, and mint for mojitos.  What stumped me was how to use the fresh garlic chives --- yes, read that correctly: garlic chives --- to make a super tasty meal.  I stumbled upon a recipe for stuffed pork chops with chives, bacon, and blue cheese and thought it sounded amazing.  I gave it a try with chicken and gorgonzola instead.  It is absolutely delicious (and goes well with chardonnay, to boot!).

This was my first experience stuffing meat... making stuffed meat... ahh cannot unthink how dirty that sounds.  Anyway, I am very lazy when it comes to cooking.  The last time I made the recipe, I used thin sliced chicken breasts instead, which meant not having to slice open a pocket in the meat.
 

Ingredients for stuffing

Stuffed Chicken with Gorgonzola Cheese, Bacon, and Garlic Chives
Modified from Blue Cheese, Bacon, and Chive Stuffed Pork Chops

Makes 2.5 servings

Ingredients

• 1 lb thinly sliced chicken breast
• 4 oz Gorgonzola cheese
• 3 slices precooked bacon
• 1.5 tbsp. chopped fresh garlic chives
• olive oil
• salt to taste (I used garlic salt)
• pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine cheese, bacon, and chives in a bowl. Divide into small balls, one for each set of chicken slices.  Place each ball in between two slices of chicken.  Use toothpicks to seal, if necessary.
3. Lightly oil outside of chicken slices.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Keep in mind that the cheese will be salty.
4. Bake ~30 minutes, until the stuffing is hot and chicken is cooked.  Remove toothpicks and serve.

I recommend using a broiler pan with aluminum foil to catch any drips, which will prevent the chicken from sitting in its own juices. 

Stuffed Chicken with fresh garlic chives and bacon garnish

Pysanky (Ukrainian Eggs) with Electric Kistka

So, like other art forms, I discarded pysanky for a few years before coming back to it again.  After doing some research online, I discovered the electric stylus and made an impulse purchase.  The electric stylus has a much more even flow because the beeswax is melted at the optimal, even temperature.  Plus, it came with interchangeable tips that had extremely fine points.  You can see the difference in the amount of detail (this is totally a change in stylus and nothing to do with skill...I am still very much a beginner at making pysanky).  It takes about 10-12 hours to make one of these on a normal chicken egg.

Geometric pysanky made with an electric kistka

While it is intricate and detailed, I'm not too terribly happy with how the egg above came out.  The design is lackluster and the choice of color is not terribly inspiring.  But, you can clearly see how geometric designs can be constructed on an egg.

The egg below is far better in my opinion.  It has a nice color combination and intriguing design.  To help keep the hollow egg upright (yes, it has not broken yet!!), I used a funnel to put a little bit of sand inside and glued the bottom hole shut.  The sand gives it some weight.

Floral pysanky made with an electric kistka

Rydia cosplay photoshoot

A big shout out to Kiratsukai of Splinters of Light Photography for the awesome photos and editing work!  I would have been a hopeless, lost mess without you putting me into various poses.  Be sure to check her out if you cosplay in the New York, Connecticut, and/or Massachusetts areas.

This one is my favorite!

 

A close second...

Side view of sleeves...can you believe there's a purse inside one of them?!

Easy Chicken & Black Bean Enchilada Casserole

We love the heck out of tortilla chips in this house...tortilla chips with salsa, chips with sour cream, chips with bean dip, chips and cheese... you name it!  And thanks to Moe's restaurant chain, I fell in love with their green tomatillo salsa.  We have tried several different store brands to capture the same taste.  None can quite compare, but the closest we have found is Herdez brand Green Salsa.  For a party this past weekend, I decided to change up my favorite chicken enchilada recipe by adding this amazing salsa into the mix.  This variation has a phenomenal flavor and quickly became my new favorite---and was so simple to make!

Chicken & Black Bean Enchilada Casserole

Casserole ingredients except the sour cream

Easy Chicken and Black Bean Enchilada Casserole with Green Tomatillo Salsa
Modified from Chicken Enchilada Casserole II

Makes 12 servings

Ingredients

• 16 oz container sour cream
• 16 oz jar Herdez green salsa
• 16 oz (2 cans) black beans, drained
• 30 oz canned chicken, drained
• 5 (12 inch) flour tortillas or burrito shells
• 4 cups cheddar cheese 
• (optional) Onion powder to taste
• (optional) Garlic powder to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine salsa, sour cream, and spices together in a bowl. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, shred the chicken with a fork.  Stir in black beans.
4. Tear tortilla shells into strips.
5. Layer the bottom of a 13x9 baking pan with 1/3 tortilla strips.  Top with 1/3 chicken and bean mixture, 1/3 sour cream mixture, and 1/3 cheese.  Repeat layering with remaining ingredients. 
6. Bake 20 to 30 minutes, or until golden and bubbly.
7. Let stand 10 minutes and then serve.

Leftovers make for a tasty dip with tortilla chips!  That is, I mean, if you happen to have leftovers...which would never happen because this is so amazingly delicious.  Why do I feel so full? 

Pysanky (Ukrainian Eggs) with Regular Kistka

I go through phases with arts and crafts.  A medium will be super shiny to me for a couple months and then I won't pick it up again for several years.  Pysanky is a good example.  It is a fascinating and beautiful art form.  Part of its beauty lies in the delicate nature of the medium itself: a hollowed out eggshell.  That's right, an egg!

Pysanky, also known as Ukrainian eggs, have religious meaning and Christian symbols woven into the design.  I am not a religious person myself and can still appreciate the delicate art.

My family bought me the necessary equipment as a Christmas present (that's right, not for Easter!) while in college: dyes, beeswax, and a stylus.  How does it all work?  The dyes are straightforward...mixed with water and vinegar, just like you would do for dyeing Easter eggs.  In order to make different colors and designs, beeswax is applied to the egg using your stylus (kistka).  Each stylus may have a different size tip.  The larger the tip, the bigger the flow of wax.  This is what a stylus looks like:

You place a little bit of beeswax into the receptacle and melt carefully over a candle.  It needs to be hot enough to melt the wax, but not so close to the flame that you burn the wax.  Every area that is coated in beeswax will retain the underlying color.  You dip the egg in dyes from dark to light (yellow, orange, red, green, etc) and apply wax after each dipping.  Then all the wax is melted off and you are left with a beautiful, fragile design.  Personally, I found the results with these styluses to be frustrating.  It was hard to apply lines evenly to the egg, and the tube would often get clogged.  This was about as detailed as I could get...

Pysanky made with a regular (non-electric) kistka

I tried a few "for fun" designs for friends, including Penn State eggs for graduation.  They made it all the way to State College safely, and then I tragically dropped the carton of them upon arriving at campus (doh!).  Also attempted to make chocobo from Chocobo's Magic Picture Book.  For some reason, the orange dye just did not want to take...disappointment.

Penn State Pysanky

Chocobo...wark!

The LearnPysanky website was a helpful resource to understand the basics.

Time for Yum! Mini chocolate pudding cakes

So, we have this dessert competition every year at work.  Every year I have entered,  and every year walk away empty handed.  Well, now all of that is about to change!  Maybe...

This year I put the dessert to vote and asked which folks would like best:

• Lemon cake with cardamom icing and pistachio garnish
• Banana cream tarts with sweet cream, fresh banana, and ground walnuts
• Chocolate pudding cake with whip cream, topped with raspberry and chocolate shavings

The chocolate pudding cake was voted the winner by a large margin.  The polled audience was a good indicator for the competition, as I walked away with 2nd place out of 9 total desserts---hooray!  Because there are a number of dessert entries that folks consume, we do a "taste" format where everything is bite size.  I tried to find a recipe online for mini chocolate pudding cakes and did not have luck.  Instead, I ended up using a molten chocolate cake recipe (one that specifically called for chocolate bars instead of cocoa powder) and modified the bake time for mini muffin-sized portions.  And here they are...

Assembled Mini Chocolate Pudding Cakes

Mini Chocolate Pudding Cakes

Mini Chocolate Pudding Cakes with Whipped Cream and Raspberry
Adapted from Molten Chocolate Cake recipe from Tasty Kitchen

Makes 24 delicious teeny tiny cakes

Ingredients

Cake

• 4 pieces (squares) Semi-sweet Baking Chocolate
• ½ cups Butter
• 1 cup Powdered Sugar
• 2 whole Eggs
• 2 whole Egg Yolks
• 6 Tablespoons Flour

Toppings

• 1 cup Real Whipping Cream
• 1 Tablespoon Sugar
• Fresh raspberries
• Chocolate shavings to taste (grate some of the chocolate bar)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray mini muffin cups generously with non-stick spray.
2. Microwave chocolate and butter in large bowl on high for about 1 minute, until butter is melted. Whisk until chocolate is also melted.
3. Stir in sugar until well blended. Whisk in eggs and egg yolks. Stir in flour.
4. Divide between cups.  Bake 5 minutes until sides are firm and center is soft.
5. Combine sugar and heavy cream and whip until stiff. Top with whipped cream and raspberry.  Garnish with chocolate shavings.  

Rydia Dress

And finally...Rydia's dress!  Even though this cosplay adventure started 6 months ago, it was not until one month before ConnectiCon that I started working on the dress.  I purposely waited as long as possible so it would fit my [new] frame (goal of 6-7% weight loss, plus building muscle tone).


This was my first experience making actual clothing and feel really, really good about how it turned out!  I made one alteration from Rydia's actual dress in order to hide the bra.  I wanted the bra to provide lift and support to give the illusion of more, and in order to do that I needed to maintain the integrity of the built in bra (i.e. keep the fabric/hook between the cups).  That's why it is not fully open at the breast area.  I used clear bra straps, which are hidden by the beaded straps that Rydia's cloak clasps onto.  You can see one of the straps in the photo below:

Like all the other pieces of this costume, the dress was also custom design.  I created my own pattern from scratch by taking numerous measurements.  The fabric is a thin, stretchy knit, which allows room for movement and expansion.  There's also a hidden zipper built into the side---another new sewing adventure for me!

My crown achievement is the embroidery and beadwork, which took about 50 hours to complete.  The smaller design is made of an embroidered plus sign (+) with a diamond-shaped exterior and a single bead in the center.  The larger design is a combination of beadwork (both "jimmies" and round beads) to emphasize the highlights and embroidery to bring life to the shape as a whole.

  
What went well:

1. Overall dress shape
2. Built in bra
3. Extensive beadwork and embroidery
4. Decorative leather straps & gold eyelets
5. Designed to take on/off without any assistance (woot!)

What could be improved:

1. Less modesty!  I was a bit nervous over how revealing the dress is on the legs and hips.  I could probably take the bottom up another couple inches without feeling too terribly self conscious.  As for the sides, those should probably come up another couple inches as well.  However, I may run into issues as the top of the tights and my underwear line are *just* covered up at the current length.
2. More boobs!  After sewing in the bra, I read some good tips online to create larger, fuller breasts.  If I had started a cup size or two higher than actual and used more padding, it would have looked like there was more.
3. Stronger material for beaded straps.  I had a couple wardrobe malfunctions at CTCon when seated---the stress put on the straps when moving my shoulders caused the bead string to snap.  Originally, the straps had 4 strands of gold thread to hold it together.  Then, when I used extra strength Gutterman brand thread (2 strands), it still ended up snapping.  I'm open to suggestions on how to make this work.  A friend suggested I try fishing line, so I may give that a shot.  The holes in the beads are rather narrow, which may limit the types of materials I can try.

Rydia Circlet

The circlet was one of my most and least favorite pieces.

I am really proud of the paint job, which was done using an airbrush.  A base coat of black airbrush paint was applied first.  Then, I watered down Martha Stewart's pearl acrylic craft paints to bring the piece to life.  By using the black base coat, this enabled me to get a shadow effect in the crevices.  And, it made for richer colors from the acrylics; the gunmetal color would have otherwise come out as a lighter silvery color.

The rest of this piece was largely unsatisfying.  I would have preferred to use some sort of gem or bead in the center rather than painting this section in.  However, I did not find one that was 100% satisfactory.

After having success using Instamorph moldable plastic on part of the belt, I decided to use it on the circlet as well.  Because the headpiece is very thin, however, I found it difficult to get an even length on the band.  It was also frustrating to attach and/or mold some of the details, which sticks out quite obviously in the photo above.  This would have been alleviated somewhat had I sanded it.

Lessons learned:

1. Moldable plastic is good for large pieces; it is hard to shape nicely for thin pieces.
2. Don't be lazy! Applying a base coat color can really enhance your paint job.

Rydia Wig

I've saved the details on the best cosplay pieces for last: Rydia's dress, circlet, and her hairdo.  Ok, I didn't really save them on purpose... they were the last pieces to be constructed.  But!---you do have to admit, the wig and main clothing are essential to a successful cosplay.

Let's start with the wig first.  I spent several hours trying to search for the right wig.  Most of the options were just simply waaaaay too green.  Super green.  Neon green.  Totally-not-right-for-this-version-of-Rydia-green.  Must...have...gorgeous... sea form green.  A-ha! There we go!

I found this "mint green" curly cosplay wig on Amazon for $30.  It looked pretty good when it arrived---but I am by no means any sort of wig expert.  The curls are more gorgeous in reality than the photo above, which just doesn't do them justice.  I was loathe to trim them off ;_; but...sacrifices must be made for the sake of accurate cosplay!  Ganbatte, Elathera!

Here you can see what it looked like after styling.  I did keep a slight bit of the original curl at the bottom.  I also attempted to use layers in the back.  The Styrofoam head is sitting on top of an empty wine bottle to keep the lengths nice for storage.

I used got2Bglued hair spray to hold everything in place.  It held up ok the first day of ConnectiCon in the air conditioning.  However, after wandering around in 90 degree weather, it did not hold up as well the next day.  I think one of the problems is that I do not use enough hairspray on the roots---the tips keep their general shape, but the lock of hair itself falls out of place.  If anyone has advice for me, I am all ears!  I never use hairspray on my own hair (or pins, or curlers, etc etc), so this totally foreign territory.

Rydia cosplay complete!

Had a terrific time at CTCon last weekend!  It was nice to come across so many folks that appreciated a Rydia cosplay.  My costume earned a Judges' award in the novice division at the masquerade---one of the judges was impressed by all the beadwork and embroidery done by hand.  Next year I will have to shoot for first place!

Rydia costume for ConnectiCon 2013
Time to make: 300 hours
Time to put on: 3 hours (mostly to pincurl hair and put on makeup)
Cost: $400
Weight lost: 3%
Result: Candice's Photographer Award

Here are a couple photos of my trial costume run taken by Glitterforge Phoenix.  My apologies on the quality...I'm not good with photo editing.  Will post professionally done photos once they are available. Stay tuned!
 

Rydia of Mist - Final Fantasy IV cosplay trial run by Elathera

Rydia of Mist - Final Fantasy IV cosplay trial run by Elathera

Rydia Belt Accessories

I really like the accessories to Rydia's belt. There are a number of fun, visually pleasing details that add a touch of flair to her ensemble:

1. A pink and yellow bead chain that runs from front to back, with a large round "bead" in the very front
2. A yellow sash that hangs around Rydia's waist and drapes off to the right side.  The draped part has pink trim and is weighted by a small bead string at the bottom
3. Lastly, a sheer green draped number with embroidered interior and yellow trim.

The bead chain is fairly straightforward.  A.C. Moore had a huge supply of beads in various pearlescent colors and different sizes, as seen below.

For the larger "bead" I used InstaMorph moldable plastic.  This was my first experience working with moldable plastic, and it will definitely not be the last.  It's a very handy material in that you can shape it virtually however you want.  I bought a small can of it for $20 and still have a lot left over.

In order to get the correct shape, I made a pattern in clay and then froze the clay (so the headed plastic would not melt the mold and cause it to warp).  I then inserted the ink tube from a pen inside the mold so that there would be a clear path to string this "bead" on the rest of the chain (any type of straw or small tube would suffice).
Lastly, I airbrushed the design details.  This step is very important for moldable plastic.  If you try to paint by hand, you are going to get brush strokes and it won't look nice.  In order to only spray the targeted area on the "bead" I covered up the other sections with a paper towel.

I designed the sash as two separate components: the waist wrap and the drape.  Because my choice of fabric is a satin-like material, it is very slippery, and I was afraid that the sash would unwind itself throughout the day and malfunction.  The waist wrap goes around my waist twice and ties in the back (cloak conveniently hides the ties).  The drape attaches (clips) on to the belt.

The drape was extraordinarily frustrating to make, and it was 100% my choice of satiny fabric.  I ended up throwing out my first attempt because none of the lines were straight.  And, despite my attempts to iron and smooth out any creases, there were a number of creased lines that I could just not get out.

Satiny fabric is very difficult to sew straight.  It is slippery and uncooperative material.  I made sure to use the proper sewing needle for the sewing machine and even looked up some helpful techniques, such as placing a layer of tissue paper in between the layers of fabric to prevent slipping.  While these helped, they did not solve the problem entirely.  I am not fully satisfied with how the drape turned out, but I decided it was not worth dwelling on further to have any chance of finishing this Rydia cosplay before ConnectiCon.

For the beads at the end, I used Martha Stewart's Pearl acrylics and hand-painted them.  I did this piece before learning how to use the airbrush, so there are some paint lines on the beads if one looks close enough.
 

The green draped piece in the center was more fun.  I used sheer green fabric from Joann in two different shades of green.  I used two layers of light green for the entire drape and one layer of dark green for the middle section.  The sheer material is very delicate and frays easily.  A thin yellow gold rope was used to separate the three sections and sewed on by hand.  The yellow trim around the edges is made from the same satin fabric as the belt.

For the two gold studs, I found something close at JoAnn's in the button section.  The rest of the detail in the interior is hand-embroidered.  I used metallic silver thread for the very bottom.  The remainder was done with normal embroidery floss.  To make the flowers stand out just a bit more, I added a couple red and orange beads.

You may be wondering what that small dark green thing is in the corner.  I made two drawstring bags to hold personal effects (ID, credit cards, etc), which are tied around my arm and hidden inside the sleeves.  It helps avoid those situations where someone asks for a photo and you either A) have purses or other non-cosplay items in the picture or B) make them wait while you pass all of these items to a nearby friend.

Lessons learned:

1. Moldable plastic is awesome.
2. Airbrushing is superior to hand painting.
3. Avoid working with slippery fabrics.  It is extremely hard to sew them to one another in a straight line.   Or even to cut in a straight line.  It's impossible.
4. Hand embroidery really adds something.  Look for opportunities to include this level of detail in small amounts (enough to get that "oh-ah" effect but not enough to drive you insane).

Rydia Leggings

The leggings were a very difficult problem to solve, and I am pretty sure I went about it very ineffectively.  Rydia's leggings have giant openings toward the top with golden trim on the edges and lots of fancy gold designs.
 

 I was able to purchase leggings in a very similar color that were super opaque (partly because they were a one-size-fits-all and actually men's leggings).  That's the only piece that ended up going according to plan.


Lessons learned:

1. Do not cut stretchy material while wearing it, as it may result in overstretching and/or warping.  I thought it would be a great idea to cut the leggings into just the right shape while I had them on.  The material ended up stretching out significantly in the thigh and had to be hemmed.
2. Match the stretchiness of the fabrics being sewn together.  I really wanted to match the trim on the leggings to the yellow fabric I picked out for the rest of the outfit.  But, the yellow fabric is not stretchy as all, and in fact is downright slippery to work with!  I was able to overcome the issue with fastidious execution.  I basically measured out one-inch increments of the stretchy fabric while wearing it, and then pinned those stretched out increments to one-inch sections on the trim.  Heck of a lot of pinning work.

The slippery yellow fabric also frays very easily.  In order to make the trim, I folded and ironed the strips of trim into quarters, with the raw edges tucked into the center.  This technique seemed to work well.

I could not solve how to make the pretty swirly designs in the yellow fabric, and ended up using some of the leftover material from covering the interior of the boots.  The discontinuity in colors is a bit bothersome, but it was certainly better than not including the details at all.  I used Elmer's spray adhesive to get the designs to stick to the leggings and then did some hand-stitching to ensure they would not fall off.

Rydia Boots

 
Oh boy.  Rydia's boots are pretty crazy.  Crazy and gorgeous.  This portion of her outfit took a bit of research to try and pull off.  I spent several hours browsing the internet for all manner of possible boots that could possibly be:

• in that color
• with a thick, low heel
• reaching just above mid-calf
• that didn't have a zipper in the front (difficult to cut)
• and were less than $100

Needless to say, nothing was an absolute perfect match.  Fortunately I was able to find something fairly close on Amazon for about $70: Diba Women's pro gress riding boot.

The boot is suede, so it was fairly easy to cut.  For the intricate pattern around the edges of Rydia's boots, I decided to do beadwork.  All of it by hand.  All of it.  I probably poured close to 60 hours into plopping beads onto the boots.  When showing them to a friend, they asked why I hadn't simply used a bejeweler.  A bejeweler?  Never heard of one before!  I have heard of a Time-turner though, and could have used one to turn back the clocks before starting on this arduous beading endeavor.

Lesson learned: before tackling a difficult and/or time consuming task, do your research first!  It may end up saving you a lot of time and frustration.

It may look like the body of the boot is staying up nicely.  Lies and slander!  It was horribly flimsy even before cutting out the front.  Removing the front simply made it a lot worse.  In order to get the boots to stay up, I decided to attach them directly to the leggings.  Original plan was to use little velcro patches, however, they did not work very well. I ended up hot gluing the boots to the leggings.  Not the classiest approach, but it was at least functional.

Also, with all the beadwork I had a lot of knotted string on the interior.  In order to not have any of that nasty business show or irritate my legs from constant friction, I lined the insides with a suede-like cloth.  It ended up working nicely.

You can see that the bottom does not fit snugly to my leg, as the boot is wider around.   And, when walking (as above), the boot material bulges out toward the bottom.  If I had to do Rydia's costume over again, I would have tried to make boot covers instead of modifying the real deal.

Rydia Arm Socks

To be honest, I had no idea what an arm sock was until very recently.  Rydia wears arm socks underneath her flowing sleeves.  They are attached to her middle finger at one end and to a gold band on her upper arm at the other end.

I could not find a helpful tutorial online for making arm socks that attached at the finger, so I developed my own pattern.  This may look a little oddly shaped, but it miraculously worked out!

The basic idea behind this odd-looking design is to have more material at the upper arm where the arm is thick which then tapers down at the wrist.  Then, the top of the wrist to the middle finger tapers again.  Lastly, the end is for a simple cloth ring "fingerloop".

A stretchy material seemed appropriate to use...the sock needed to be able to bend at the elbow and flexible at the wrist.  Since the last sewing tutorial for slippery fabric helped me tremendously, I took a look at FashionSewingBlogTV's other videos.  Lo and behold, she had another fabulous tutorial for sewing stretchy fabric.

Lessons learned:

1. The type of sewing machine needle actually matters.  I picked up a ballpoint needle from Walmart.
2. Use a lower tension setting and a stitch width of 2.
3. Stretchy fabric may only be stretchy in one direction!  It is super important that you keep this in mind when cutting out your pattern.  Luckily I caught myself just in time.

For the arm bands, I ended up purchasing men's arm cuffs from Amazon.  They don't stretch per se, but do expand just a little bit.  I would not recommend using these unless you have very slim upper arms.  They are a gentle snug fit on me, yet do not look all that flattering for the exposed upper arm.