My little assassin

The girl has been reading the Sarah Maas series where the lead character is basically an assassin, though she becomes a leader.  (I think…she tends to get wordy and unfocused when she explains it all).

This year she wanted to be an assassin in going to the Renaissance Festival and for Halloween.  That works fine for me, but I had limited time.  I purchased a few types of black pleather and got to work on a costume for her.  I ended up sewing most of the day on Saturday, so we could make the last day of the festival on Sunday.

First up were pleather pants.  I could have cut them up to look more like patched leather pants (since leather hides are not sold by yardage, and have to be pieced), but…I was lazy.  I widened the 5 out of 4 leggings I use for her, since pleather generally doesn’t stretch as much, and used black supplex for the waistband for comfort.

The top is a mystery knit of some kind that I purchased many years back.  I added a strip of pleather to the front and at the neckband.  Unfortunately, the neckband did not play well with the vest, so I ended up cutting it down on the fly before leaving for the festival.  Oh well, I made the top first, so I didn’t think of how the two would work together.  This is the best picture I have of it right now…it’s lost somewhere in Mt. Laundry.

Next, I drafted a vest, and made it have a hood.  I knew she would likely want a hood.  Assassins have hoods to hide their features, don’t you know?

It was a little too small when I gave it the final fitting (urggggg!), so I added a square of fabric in between the two and had it all snap up together.  Still worked and looked neat, so we’ll just call it a spontaneous design feature. 😉

The corset is a larger version of the one I made last year for her.  I just added an inch to all the pieces, on top of doing some cut outs with a mesh fabric.  I didn’t add the boning, just to make it more comfortable to wear.  I still did all the top-stitching, though.  That is the most time consuming part of them.

I also made some simple gauntlets out of vegetable tanned leather.  I had to dye it black and I just punched holes in and added lacing.  She made it about half the day, and then wanted them off since they were hard leather and not overly comfortable to wear.

The accessories were from her Ciri costume last year.  I made a cape for it last year at Halloween for a little added warmth (it was needed at the festival, since it was a rainy, dreary day).  I also had made the belt and pouches for that cosplay costume, so they became used as accessories for this one.

The kids both got some nice compliments on their outfits during the day, which is always fun. We enjoyed several shows, some artisans at work, food and drink. We just had to wait out a small storm in a beer tent, which was not really a hardship. 😉

The day before was a beautiful, sunny fall day, and apparently overflowing with people.  It was one of their highest attendance days ever.  I will take the rain and mud over that much humanity!  We barely had to stand in line for anything.  Always pick the crappy day over the nice day, I say. 😉