Well I decided for A-kon 21 I would be cosplaying Belarus from Axis Powers Hetalia as seen below.
I started off by doing the second hardest part of the entire costume, the apron its self. I am not working from a pattern I pretty much drafted and came up with this idea out of my head, although there are a few things I regret but Iwill talk about that later. Pretty much I started with a 39 inch blue waistband, and a skirt about the diameter of 27 at the widest point, and a 9 inch diameter at the smallest length. Laying out the 39 inch blue waist band I stuffed the center with the bottom of the apron it’s self, folded the blue fabric pinning together either side of the blue waist band, and the top of the apron making sure it was as close as possible to the center. Carefully sewing the tube I made sure to watch that I didn’t have any fabric fold or get caught under the needle. Luckily I didn’t screw up on that. I then prepared the extra long ties, making it hard for myself I sewed them awkwardly to the blue waistband, after sewing oneside almost shut, I pulled that side of the tube to the otherside along with some of the white apron, sewing the other side with the other side open I gently pulled the apron and other tie through the hole. After doing so I ironed out the wrinkles and heat and bonded the ends of the ties shut in a folded like way, sealing them shut I finished for the day by hanging it up.
Belarus Apron WIP by *Mina-Tia on deviantART
The fun part was estimating that I might need 3 yards of folded white fabric, I was wrong, I ended up having to add at least two more yards. I then proceeded to pin on the fabric, folding it every once in awhile to give it that somewhat ruffled look.
Belarus Apron WIP 2 by *Mina-Tia on deviantART
After pinning the sucker down I used a zigzag stitch to attach it to the skirt, backstitching over every gather. Once finished I began digging in my closet to find that I did indeed have the style of shoe that she wears.
Belarus Apron WIP 3 by *Mina-Tia on deviantART
Because life happens every second, I did have to stop doing it and thus is why its taken me at least 3 days to finish the apron. I just have to put the stripes onto the waistband, I have yet to decide that I want painted on or heat n bonded the stripes.