Let’s talk about Nya! (2019 costume overview post HERE)
When we were starting to plan these costumes, I started looking at commercial patterns that I could use to construct them. As I looked, I wasn’t really finding exactly what I wanted, and I also knew that I had a great PJ pants pattern that I can make in about an hour that I’d use for the bottoms. Husband and I were sitting together discussing the top, and our daughter walked into the room wearing her bathrobe. Husband instantly made the connection, and we realized that the Citronille Emile bathrobe pattern would be just the right basic shape!
We ended up making the size 4 pattern that I’d made for her way back in 2015: we simply lengthened the sleeves and shortened the hem length to make it into a top. I added black cuffs, added a black band at the hem, and used black fabric as the facing (in the original pattern, you’d use the same as the main garment). In the unaltered pattern, the facing is only supposed to show around the neck, but I tacked it open at the hem as well, to show the black border all the way down the front. I added two hooks-and-eyes to help hold it closed under the belt.
The aqua belt, head tie, and leg ties were all made from some scrap aqua knit I had on hand. I was so excited when I discovered that it was exactly the right color– and my daughter already had an aqua shirt that was almost a perfect match to wear underneath. I was really excited to find inexpensive dark red knit for the hood that was a nearly perfect match the the woven we’d bought for the main costume pieces.
Probably the most time-intensive parts of these costumes were the gold vinyl dragon designs. I spent some time looking online for images or stencils that I could adapt for my purposes, but in the end, I decided that it would be easier–and more accurate– to draw them myself.
I first sketched them in pencil:
and then I colored each one in with black marker…
…so that I could scan them as .jpgs and trace them in the Silhouette Studio software. I spent a lot of time editing points, smoothing edges, and fine-tuning the shape, since we connected the dragon pieces from front to back. Since I could only cut 12″x12″ areas of vinyl at a time, I disguised the joins by making them look like scales.
We cut the dragons on my Cameo 3 from Cricut vinyl that I got on a very good sale; we deliberately did not use the iron-on (HTV), which was about 3 times the price (after all, these are just costumes…)… but it would have worked much better. I knew I wasn’t using the appropriate kind of vinyl, but I was dismayed at how poorly this vinyl stuck to fabric. At the end of a day of wearing these costumes to school, it was definitely and obviously peeling off.
If we ever have the kids wear these costumes again, it would not be hard to re-cut these designs (now that I have them!) from high-quality HTV and replace the peeling vinyl.
On Nya’s back, we decided to use her symbol, rather than the unidentified character that appears on the 2019 Legacy minifig (see Lloyd’s post for a reference photo!). I cut it from the same gold vinyl and applied it to a circle cut from a scrap of matching aqua woven. I used fusible web to attach the circle to the top’s back. I didn’t have any energy left to satin-stitch the edge!
Now, how about some action shots?!
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