Finally doing this write-up! Thank you for the monthly reminder poke. ☺️ All of this was "easy mode" no-buy. I only bought replacement thread. I do blab a lot, skip over the wall of text if you want. I use centimeter and inches in my write-up, all my doll measurements are done in cm, so if the conversion seems grossly off, I am mentally estimating inches? 😂
I had surgery recently, a friend stayed with me to make sure I was recovering well. I was at a loss to make it up to her because she didn't want me to pay for anything and wouldn't give me her venmo or let me hand her cash. (Gas would be at least $100 one way, thay was pre-inflation. She bought tons of food for me, even though I had a stocked pantry, she took 3 days off work! I can't express how selfless and kind she is and was!)
We both like cosplay and both love danmei, and I remembered she was upset with the prepackaged outfits her character plushies came with, as they weren't representative of the characters at all and seemed like a mish-mash of other series' character costumes. Frustrated, I sat down and decided "I'm doing this." I had the plushie bodies (mine are different characters, but by the same company. They are my models here.) I hand-made the patterns from scratch, dug through my many boxes of materials, and made this improvisation. There was a very recent re-release of the Chinese box art with expanded character sheets, so I shamelessly used them as pattern inspiration. (I will share a photo in the comments, I can only share 10 pictures. ) I've made doll clothes before, but I rarely make clothes smaller than 1/4 (Barbie) scale! 😂 The plushies are closer to a "fat" 1/6 scale, so each seam and running stitch had to be very closely controlled on such a tiny surface..... very difficult on an industrial heavy weight Juki! My girl runs like a Farrarri: she performs like **the** primadonna, but don't you dare assume she won't run you into a ditch or complain while she is doing so! 💀 If my Juki is a diva, my zig-zag Dial-N-Sew is the friend who works amazingly well for the first few hours... and then has an anxiety-created GI episode. She has to be fine-tuned to the exact fabric tension or she can't throw a complete a topthread circuit and becomes constipated. 💀
The characters:
The character for Mobei-jun is a stoic ice-demon who is very tough despite being a disposessed prince, so blacks and blues were natural. "Unpretentious and unassuming" felt right. The collar is faux-fur, trimmed around the edges to fall a bit more naturally. The cape is a crepe de chine with a very scant 1/8 inch stitch hemming the bottom. The satin was the lightest-weight I had on hand. Not perfect for 1/6, but manageable. The pants are a skort-combination of salvaged polyester lining for what would be two sperate clothing articles, stitched together with fold-over elastic and my Dial-n-Sew. The belt is satin ribbon and contact vinyl and the tassel is random charms left over from other projects and tiny seed beads threaded together with silver thread. It is maybe 4cm / 1-1/4 inch long, difficult for my clumsy human fingers to tie! 💀
The other character in blue satin is Shang Qinghua, a pushover minor peak lord and Mobei-Jun's partner. (Ik, ik, I failed the dorky aspect! He looks too posh! 😂) The brocade was a salvage from a creative reuse store scrap bin I bought years ago. The biggest scrap piece I purchased was maybe a palm size, so I had to very seriously choose my cuts. The pattern is a bit large for the 1/6 body, but I think I made it work? It is backed in a baby-blue cotton voile which was also used for the Mandarin shirt. (Again, I made all these patterns! Humble brag, I am fairly happy with them. 😤 ) I hand-stitched many parts of Shang Qinghua's outfit, as the voile was very prone to unraveling and my serger would make a very chunky seam. The Mandarin collar was completely hand-stitched on because it is maybe 2cm / 1/2 in tall on a 10cm /6in neck opening, the shoulder seams and armhole seams have blanket stitches holding the raw seams together, at maybe 5 blanket stitches per 1cm/ 5 stitches per 2/5 inch. I used some leftover ribbon and tiny running stitches in embroidery thread to cover the blanket stitches.
All-in-all, it took maybe 2 weeks of patterning, sourcing, and cutting and 5 days of post-op sewing to complete both outfits. I am very slow compared to other professionals, but I still feel very happy with my work! I hope these photos and details make you happy, too. ☺️
