Becoming Bellatrix (Stage 5)

Okay, with the premier only a couple of days away, I had to put the finishing touches on my costume and that meant finishing the corset. Let me tell you, I thought the arm gauntlets were a pain in the butt. I had no idea.

The trouble with a corset is that the final piece must be precise when it comes to fitting. And, as a self-taught seamstress, precision is not one of my strong suits. In the end, I'm happy with how the corset turned out, I just didn't expect what I thought would be a "night" project to bleed into a "couple of days" project.

Anyway, here's what I did:

First, using my handy-dandy 50% off coupon, I purchased some awesome looking black "pleather" at JoAnn's fabrics.

 

Then, I laid the fabric on the floor and cut random pieces out of it.

 

Next, I sewed the pieces back together. I know this seems strange, but if you look at the original picture of Bellatrix, you can see that her corset looks like it was pieces together by chunks of leather. This was how I went about getting the same look. 

 

When I had my scrappy piece of fabric, I used a corset pattern I had lying around from an old witch costume and used it as my pattern to cut from.

After I had my shapes cut out, I used a zigzag stitch over the piecing seams to give it that extra rough look. (Sorry for the picture blurriness.)

Next, I sewed the pieces together and added the leftover grommet stripping and silk thread from my arm gauntlets.

 Before Grommet Stripping

After Grommet Stripping

Now it was time to piece together the back lining and sew it to the front.

 

Leaving a small hole, I flipped the corset inside out and stitched around it, sewing the hole shut. 

And finally, I hand sewed three hook and eyes to the back.

Viola!

So tell me, now that we're down to the final days, are you doing anything special for the premier of the final Harry Potter?

Stay tuned for my post on putting the entire costume together!