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I was petrified but I bit the bullet, went to Home Depot, bought polytubing and built mah hoop skirt. It only needed two hoops to poof out as much as I wanted it to. I wanted to soften the harshness of the hoop edges, and Snorth recommended ruffly tulle, so ruffly tulle has been added in shades of yellow and green. Because tulle doesn’t fray the way fabric does, I’m going to build the skirt over it and then trim the tulle so you only see a wee bit underneath (I’m coy!)

Here’s where the sadness comes in. I keep forgetting I am shaped like a refrigerator, so in my mind’s eye when I put on this outfit I will look awesome and ethereal, like the goddess of the ocean. At least I will resemble Ursula, or maybe one of those dudes from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, with all the ocean stuff stuck to them. I tried on the jacket, the hoop skirt and the corset all at the same time and looked in the mirror, and it turns out I look like an even split between Brunhilde from the Ring of the Nibelungen operas and the hippos in tutus from Disney’s Fantasia. This is not the look I was going for.

But when life gives you lemons, you quietly cry for a little while, then pull yourself together and convince yourself you wanted to look like a chorus girl from the musical number “Springtime for Hitler”.

So I embraced my inevitable dorkiness and continued working. I made seaweed strips for the sleeves out of chunky white lace.

I dyed it yellow, painted splotches of green, covered the back with a plastic glue that prevents fraying, trimmed it to make it look more “seaweed-y”, then sewed green rocaille beads to add pizzazz. I think I may have to trim the sleeves on the jacket because with the seaweed the arm-parts come down to my waist area, which is too long. That’s the good part about designing your own costume slowly – you can adjust as you go because, hey, who’s gonna complain? More costume to come.

As promised, here is the tutorial. I hope it helps you out. My camera is not the greatest, just trust me that these things look really cool in person.

Before I start, I wanted to show you my inspiration. I was trying to make a combination of the jacket Emma Watson was wearing for the Vogue shoot, as well as the famous 1949 Dior dress with scales on it. Miley Cyrus wore a copy of it to the 2009 Oscars.

I made the images in the tutorial full-size so you can just scroll down.

Things you will need:

– A template of your scale mounted on foamcore
– Pins
– Clear packing tape
– A small paintbrush
– Big sequins, medium sequins and small sequins
– Scissors
– Transparent tape
– Clear sequins, preferably square but round is fine too
– An ink pen

1. Make a template and attach it to a piece of foamcore.

2. Cut some of the large sequins in half.

2. Cut off a piece of clear packing tape and pin it down to the template sticky-side up, aligning the top of the tape with the flat part of the scale. Pin it in place.

4. Dampen the paintbrush with a little bit of spit or water and pick up the sequin halfsies, placing them with the flat edge against the round part of the scale. Don’t soak the brush, you just want it tacky enough that the sequins will stick until they hit the packing tape. I wanted them to have a scattered look so I made them uneven, but you can make them even if you want, no problem.

5. Fill in some of the gaps with full-size large sequins. Again, I’m doing a random pattern.

6. Now fill in further with the medium and small sequins, creating a rough crescent shape (thicker in the middle, thinner at the edges).

7. Using only the small sequins, place a few in the interior area, giving a bit of a “fade” effect.

8. When I bought the sequins, they came in a bag with a lot of the center punched-out bits still included. You know when they punch out a sequin, the little hole in the middle? Those pieces was in the bag as well. I inserted them here and there between the sequins to fill in and then to smooth the transition of the fade effect. Waste not want not, my Grammy said, so that’s what I’m doing.

9. Snip off another piece of packing tape and, starting at the center of the scale, gently mash it down on top of all this, smoothing outward as you go, effectively encapsulating the sequins in a plastic cage for eternity. It’s okay if there are bubbles, but if they are very large and bother you, take a pin and pop them gently on one side, then use your fingernail to coax the air out.

10. Use the ink pen to trace the outer edge of the scale.

11. Remove the pins and you should be left with this.

Trim it with the scissors and voila! You have a scale. I, however, was concerned with the scales ripping when I sewed through them, so I did an additional reinforcing measure. I recommend it. If you’re spending all this time on making these freakin’ things you don’t want them coming off and causing you sadness.

12. Rip off a piece of transparent tape. Not Magic Tape, transparent tape. Lay it down sticky-side up at the top of the scale template. Stick two pins in it so it doesn’t shift.

13. Here’s where the clear sequins and those two black marks come in. Since the sequins are clear and therefore hard to see, I took a photo of one on the back of my remote control which was conveniently sitting next to me (as it always is, I love TV).

Using the damp-paintbrush technique, put two sequins at the toppy-top-top of the tape, aligning the center holes with the black lines.

14. Press the scale down on top of the transparent tape, remove the pins and trim the excess. Now repeat over and over and over (in my case, 140 times). Here’s one side of my corset with the scales sewed on.

I think this was a good idea. They’re lightweight and very flexible. Hopefully it will all look good together.

OMG OMG OMG. I got tickets to Burning Man. I’m either going to go with Neenernator or Cricket, but I’m going for sure. That’s not why I’m so excited, though. Look at this comment I got:

The Snail-Maker said hi! In case anyone forgot, the photo that made me want to go to Burning Man is this one:

Seriously, look at that thing. It’s phenomenal. You pull the reins and fire shoots out its eyes. And now I’ve been to the Snail-Maker’s site (oilpunk.com), I saw the making of my beloved Snailmobile as well as it in different places. I love it so much.

I don’t have any new costume updates, I wanted to share the fact that I got tickets and the Snail-Maker contacted me (eeeeee!). However, since many people have expressed interest on how I made the packing-tape scales, I will be making a wee tutorial on that shortly. Soon you all can make scales of your very own!

Because of the Burning Man ticket poopstorm (you can read about it here and here if you haven’t been made aware of it) I may not get to go this year, which is a bit of a bummer. However, I chose the theme of my costume with the intent of wearing it to a bunch of different events. For example, it’s an ocean theme, so I could march in the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island next June. And the Halloween Parade in New York in October. And maybe I can go to Burning Man next year if I don’t make it in this year. It’s all good. This costume’s gonna get worn.

In the meantime, I’ve been making more components. I took one of my father’s old crappity herringbone jackets and cut it all up to hell, then painted it. It now looks like this.

I painted it various shades of brown, then did some sponging of gold on the shoulders to give it some texture. I’m attempting to mimic the crusty complicated ocean floor. Why gold you ask? Well, I’m using gold throughout this costume because I read somewhere that there are nine pounds of dissolved gold in the ocean for every man, woman and child on Earth, which I thought was a neat scientific fact. I then added the magenta dots to increase the visual…stuff. I bet you think I splattered the magenta paint, but no, I painted each and every dot because I am a control freak and splatter-painting is too chaotic for me. I went and bought nearly identical herringbone material to make the skirt so it will look like a set. Here’s a shoulder for more detail.

I need to put weights on the two points in the front because with the rest of the jacket cut away the points stick straight out ahead. Also, I’m perfectly aware that I am the worst seamstress in the entire world, but remember two things – one, I sewed this whole thing by hand so shush; and two, trim will be going on most of the raw edges and that will cover up the shreddy bits. There’s going to be dangly bits of seaweed on the sleeves and barnacles and seastars all over, no one’s going to be looking at my awful sewing technique.

In addition to the jacket, I bought polytubing, and with assistance from Snorth (God bless you Snorth, with your bodkins and whatnot) we constructed a hoop skirt base. I need a hoop skirt because if I have lights all over this thing there needs to be a place for the battery packs to go, and I am going to hide them under the skirt. See? See what I’m doing? Very smart.

So for the hat I have made a sea anemone (or, as I call it, a sea menemenem). It’s basic structure are two cheap Indian gold bracelets, a manipulated coat hanger and a ivory-colored knee-high stocking. I used a stocking because, once again, if I can light it up it needs to be translucent. Then there are the ribbons and the wire and the plastic beads and layers and layers and layers of Mod Podge.

And finally, the scales that go on the corset. They are made out clear packing tape and sequins. That’s it. I’ve made about 120 of them, and it takes ten minutes to make one, but it’s worth it because I sewed one half of the corset and it looks super-rad. Seriously. I’m very proud of myself.

Next is sewing the skirt and painting it, and after that is making a crab, two more seastars (bigger! pinker! sparklier!), some coral, some worms, maybe a nudibranch or two, a face mask with tentacles (or maybe it will look like a wee manta ray, I haven’t decided), seaweed for my sleeves, and an umbrella/jelly.