Winter Tree

abit2011, member

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This is me standing next to my costume! 

Front of the tree costume. It was EXTREMELY difficult not to poke those around me as the spread was nearly 5 feet!

Back view showing corset opening

Detail shot of the branches. They took forever to make, but they turned out really realistic!

This is me actually wearing the costume on Halloween!  I didn't quite finish the entire costume in time (the hem of the corset) but it still made quite a statement!!!

This is me standing next to my costume! 

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As I was walking around the House of Spandex, I spotted this woodgrain spandex fabric. At that moment I decided I was going to be a tree for Halloween.  This was the MONDAY before halloween!  The costume is composed of a pair of leggings, a dress with sleeves, and a corset.  The branches appear a different color, but indeed are the same fabric as the rest of the costume, but the color lightens when stretched out.  I made the branches first, by cutting long triangles of spandex and merrowing them close on the long side.  I then cut 14 gauge wire the length of the branch, and twisted it to add strength.  I bent the ends of the wire with pliers to prevent getting poked by sharp edges.  I then stuffed these branches with fiberfill until they were extremely stiff.  For adding the smaller branches, I cut a hole in the original brach and looped the wire from the smaller branch around the wire of the larger branch. The rest of the process remained the same except I hand stitched the fabric where the small branch meets the large branch. Wiring the branches proved significantly important as I wore this to work (I am a server) and had to bend the branches inward to prevent attacking my coworkers.  The corset itself consists of many layers. It has a cotton lining, a heavy interfacing, a layer of cotil, and a top layer of the woodgrain spandex.  I hand basted the layers together to be able to sew them all.  I created channels along the seams and inserted spiral boning to help hold the weight of the branches. I created loops and attached them at the back for lack of time to get the corset grommeted.  After the corset was finished, I added channels on the surface to slide the branches into.  In 5 days, and many sleepless nights, this tree was born!  I can't begin to tell you how many people stopped to take pictures with me and how much of a hit this costume was!  I'm not sure how I will top this one next year!

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Comments (1)

lauraflo writes: This is awesome! Fantastic! Having done one-of-a-kind costumes myself, the type you have to completely make up yourself as no patterns exist for them, I admire this very much. It speaks Theater. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Posted: 10:09 am on November 7th

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