Completed Projects - Floofy pink dress (part 2)

Once I finished the main overdress, it was time to tackle the part of the dress I was dreading - the ruffle/ruched strip combo that would make up the hem.

Completed Projects - Floofy pink dress (part 1)

As I alluded to in my previous post, revamping my Storm costume wasn't the only thing I tacked last Halloween. Until that point I had only sewn for myself, so when I had the opportunity to make my BFF's costume, I jumped at the challenge.

This idea had actually been kicking around for a while - a couple of summers ago my friend went Japan and picked up a pale blue gothic lolita bolero from the Angelic Pretty store. 

As adorable as it was, she couldn't figure out what to wear it with.  After discussing it for a while, we thought it might be cool to actually make something to wear it with.  To help give her some ideas, I sent her pictures of various elegant gothic lolita (EGL) style dresses.   She fell in love with a certain design from a shop called Mary Magdalene (which is sadly no longer available on the site), so we used that as our basis.

Completed costume - steampunk Storm

For Anime North 2011, I wore my steampunk Storm costume, which I originally made for Fan Expo 2009. A few friends and I did a group cosplay of the X-Men with a steampunk twist.

X-Men + steampunk = X-Gentlemen

From top left: Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Shadowcat, Beast, Rogue, Jean Gray

Me as Storm

Although the costume had ended up a bit more rushed than I hoped (a story for another post!), overall I was pretty happy with it. Unfortunately, the zipper pull on the corset I wore with it broke. On the upside, I had been wanting to draft a corset with better shaping, so this, coupled with the fact that I wanted to re-wear the costume for Halloween 2010, ended up being the perfect excuse to make one.

Completed costume - Dalton Academy uniforms (Glee)

Another recent project was my Halloween 2011 costume.  My friends and I are huge Gleeks, so we decided to do costumes based on the Dalton Academy and McKinley Cheerios uniforms.

Dalton Academy uniform (Source)

 Cheerios uniform (Source)

Completed costume - Tessa Gray (Clockwork Angel)

For my first few posts, I'll cover some of my most recently completed projects, so without further ado, here's my most recent costume:

On December 14, 2011, I had the opportunity to see a special screening of Sherlock Holmes 2: Game of Shadows with the Toronto Steampunk Society for free.  The only condition?  Come dressed in a Victorian/neo-Victorian outfit.  A free movie and an excuse to dress up was an offer too good to pass up, plus it was the perfect excuse to get my butt into gear and tackle one of my long-unfinished projects.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my blog!  My name's Priscilla and my sewing journey has pretty much been a string of crazy experiments, which is why I named this blog Strictly Experimental.  I've realized that taking an adventurous approach to learning the ins and outs of sewing has not only taught me a lot (even when things backfired!), but it's also been tons of fun.

I plan to use this blog to continue the sometimes-wacky adventure that has been my sewing journey by chronicling the progress of my projects and sharing any interesting and helpful tips, tutorials, resources and discoveries that I find along the way (not to mention the requisite inspiration and eye candy pics!).

If you've got any questions, ideas or suggestions, please don't hesitate to comment!