More Leia progress

I got a bunch done on my Leia outfit over the weekend. I spent Friday on the blouse. I didn't feel like a mock-up so went with the TV sizing, and it was too narrow across the front, even though instructions said the smallest size front should have been too big! I decided to add a strip down the front for buttonholes, and I think it looks pretty good. The lace I got for the front is perfect. I do wish I'd put some netting in the sleeve puffs but it's okay. I love the Stormtrooper helmet in the background!

It still needs buttons (I HATE buttonholes), which I ordered on eBay. I also need to do some gold trim and ruffles where the sleeve puff meets the sleeve. 

I also added some picot elastic onto my bloomers to tighten them up and they look much better. I don't have any photos of me wearing them yet.

I tried ironing/pinning pleats in the overskirt, which look awful, so I still need to mess around with that. I decided to make some little side poofs on a separate waistband. I cut some semi-circle shapes, put netting in the top, and pleated it them onto a waistband. I also tacked them up to 'bustle' them up a bit. This isn't a great picture but they look pretty good - I do think they need to be poofier though.

I also worked on the corset yesterday. I did a test run of fusing the leather to the coutil and it was perfect. I bought a piece of leather hide on eBay, and the listing said "4 square feet" so I figured it would be about a yard of fabric - WRONG. It's oddly shaped and I couldn't fit all my corset pieces on it, so I decided to do the front in leather and the back in the same fabric as the skirt. This also has the advantage of not putting grommets in through leather, which was a bitch when I did my Padme costume. I bought some gold pleather to do the boning channels. I was hoping to use that for binding but it's really heavy weight (didn't pay attention when I ordered it), and I had enough left of the white leather to make binding from that. I ordered a brown zipper for the center front. I think since it's leather and doesn't ravel that I am just going to cut the edges where I want the zipper to go and put it in. I read a great tip to use quilter's tape to secure the zipper before sewing it. I SUCK at zippers so am scared - and can't baste on leather. I may hand sew it. I was nervous with the boning channels too but they came out better than I expected.