This is one of those costumes that was supposed to be easy to throw together AND THEN WASN'T. hence I classified this as a "difficult" costume since it ended up being such a huge pain in the ass.

I had planned to dye a jacket that I had purchased when I first started cosplaying. After researching several methods of dyeing spandex/polyester and running into several roadblocks (dye I needed not being available, too expensive to buy online, etc) I attempted to dye it with three quarts of rubbing alcohol and an entire bottle of Speedball acrylic ink. It sort of worked - but it didn't dye evenly. When I first planned this cosplay I periodically checked to see if Old Navy had cheap hoodies in the color I wanted - since I had a gift card left over from Christmas. When I determined the dye experiment to be a failure, I checked their website one last time to see if they had anything - lo and behold, they did, and I was saved the trouble of making one. Though I probably could have made one in the time it took me to seam-rip the Old Navy logo off the front, good lord. The stripes were made with leftover white knit from Nero and Ultrahold Heat N Bond (soon some fabric glue too I'm sure).

NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT THE SKIRT. I wanted to use organza to imitate the candy-wrapper look of the skirt and head bow. I went to SAS - without references!!!! - saw two colors, one that was perfect and one that was way too dark. GUESS WHICH ONE I WENT HOME WITH!! I tried to convince myself that the darker color would be okay but no I love accuracy too much. I took my sweet time going back to SAS to pick up that perfectly colored cheap organza AND I GUESS SOMEONE HAD A WEDDING AND THEY NEEDED AN ENTIRE BOLT OF TURQUOISE ORGANZA. Fortunately Joann's had an equally acceptable color but the price was not nearly as wonderful. I used 3/4'' horsehair braid in the hem to give it extra poof and it has an elastic waistband. I'm not sure I recommend either of these things - I think 1'' horsehair would have given me a better result, and more importantly, I should have added pleats around the waistband and not used elastic to keep the ruffles more controlled. I thought I wanted a more organic look, but it ends up looking kind of awkward.

Anyway, when actually making the skirt I doubled up on the organza so that the color was more vibrant and the skirt less see-through. The brown trim was done with organza ribbon that I thankfully ended up buying way too much of because I also had to double up on it so it looked the correct color against the turquoise. The head bow and sleeve ruffles were obviously made out of the same materials. 3/4'' horsehair braid was added to the hems of the skirt and sleeve ruffles. All of these were patterned by myself.

Fortunately I saved some scratch making the leg warmers which I patterned myself. The pink poplin was leftover from a costume I've still yet to finish, and the turquoise knit was remnants from making Star Date Sheryl centuries ago. The teal "rick rack" I made myself by tracing an image of actual rick rack onto the back of - YOU GUESSED IT - Ultrahold Heat N Bond, then using my soldering iron to cut them out/seal the edges.

Bow/headband, self-explanatory.

The tights are from We Love Colors and were thankfully almost exactly the right color.

I wish I liked this costume more but it was fun cosplaying with friends!