Manga/anime expo

Yes, this is me with an alien!

I don't know about you, but my family members have a habit of dropping things on me from a great height at short notice. But when Pete and Will said they'd be going to London for the manga/anime/comic expo, I thought, great, a day at spinning guild for me and a nice bit of time for more spinning when I get home - perfect!

What I hadn't bargained on was that Will wanted to go in cosplay and needed a costume. Time was short and the best costumes have to be imported from Japan so we contacted a few specialist companies to see what they could do. It was a bit touch and go for time and I had visions of the costume arriving just after the show, so the guys decided that I could "just" make one!

My trusty Bernina hasn't seen the light of day since we moved out for the extension (2years ago), so you can imagine what my sewings skills are like. Still, I dug it out, hoovered off the dust and got on the internet for inspiration.

Armed with a collage of pic's of the character Will wanted to go as, I trawled site after site for info on making Kimono and costumes. Then I trawled my old sewing books and found a couple of proper 70's style pieces in some old "Stitch by Stitch" magazines (what a blast from the past that was - big hair, shoulder pads and a jumpsuit anyone?). When I'd stopped laughing, it was time to get to work.

"Translating" the Japanese sewing patterns was tricky but gave me some good ideas, and the 70's kimono bathrobes filled in the gaps.

Three days later (I told you I wasn't a fast sewer didn't I?), and I had a set of adapted medical scrubs and a kimono, all made-to-measure.

Here's the finished product and the character I was copying (Urahura Kisuke from Bleach for all you manga fans). Oh, and I've added a few pics from the expo we went to in March too, as we had some real fun posing with movie characters and admiring the other cosplay outfits.














Here we have the Naruto clan....


And you don't see this kind of thing in Starbucks.....do you want fries with that?


And for you Heroes afficionados, Parkman and Daphne (aka Hiro's Nemesis), sign autographs for eager fans.....