Tauriel Bracers

Having finished the bodice, I started to work on a new pair of bracers that would match it. The old ones are too tight and rigid to be comfortable and they're made out of the same thick suede I used for the old bodice, and are spray painted the same way. Good last resort, but hardly impressive. I had to make new ones!

I used the old bracers as a pattern and cut out four copies; two in a thinner, brown suede material, and two in the same thin leather that I used for the bodice.

I could probably have wrapped it up quite quickly if I hadn't decided to decorate the bracers with gold thread embroidery. I sat down, found some reference pictures, which are pretty few and hard to come by, so I opted for an original freehand design that took on some of the style from the fragments I could find pictures of. Using baking paper, I traced the pattern and taped the paper to the suede side of the thin leather (the gold thread is quite fragile, so I only used it on the under thread, thus, to get the gold on the right side, I had to sew it with the suede side up).

After that, I simply sewed the pattern with my sewing machine, using the freehand embroidery fuction. It was rather time consuming, and it sometimes turned out a little different than the design, but on average, I'm pretty happy with the result.

Then came the tedious process of removing the baking paper! It was truly such a bother, I decided to go for some silk paper for the second one, and that definitely made it easier as I didn't have to worry about ruining the seams when I pealed it off.

With the embroidery done on both pieces, I started to peg (those wonderful pegs again) the supple, thin leather to the more rough and rigid suede leather, and stitched the two layers, also with gold under thread. And that's what I've done so far. Next, I'll be sorting out some sort of closures,  hut I'm still trying to come up with one that both looks good and is functional.

I think they turned out rather nice, though! What do you think?

Side project: Tauriel - part 2

Before I went back to the sewing, I decided to sit down and make Tauriel's pendant with Fimo clay. It was a fairly easy task and didn't take long, leaving room to make the bracers as well. Here's how they turned out:

Having finished the little bits and bobs, I finally returned to the green jacket to fix the collar and front opening. I made the collar, then cut the neckline before attaching it. Here's how it turned out:



















I fixed the front opening by sewing on little hook and eye fastenings all the way down the front, but I don't really have any good photos of it.

After all the seams were sewn, the costume was pretty much done. I'd bought some nice boots some months earlier and had decided to just wear some brown cotton leggings (mainly because it meant I could wear warm thermals underneath to shield me from the Norwegian winter cold), so I couldn't resist trying it all on, even if I didn't have the full hair and make-up!



















I took a couple of selfies, but the lighting wouldn't really show off the full costume, so I bribed my fella with a cup of tea and had him take some full figure photos where you can actually see the skirt and the boots as well. :)