Misaka Mikoto School Uniform Commissioned by GabrielVH

This project have been a very long journey for me and really happy that GabrielVH have been so patient about it. Thank you!

As GabrielVH posted pics from MCM Expo last weekend with the first photos of this outfit I think it is about time I get my blog post on this up before it is totally old news ^^

Started out back in June by figuring out what fabrics to use and if the sweater vest was to be knitted or sewn. Went for knitted and OMG!!! It shall be a long time until I do that again >.<

Working full time with overtime and having a full social calendar it was not much knitting I actually did manage to finish at a time. Did a little bit every now and then but did not move very fast. Also, had to make the pattern from scratch as I went along so there was a lot of unravelling and starting over going on throughout the hole process.

Finished the sweater vest but thought, this looks absolutely crap but hey, I will send a picture through to double check if I am just being too anal or does it actually look like something the cat just dragged in. It did.

Undid the entire collar rib area and armhole ribs again and after a 3rd try finally got the right look to match the actual illustrations of the character.

Then got started on the school emblem embroidery.
Went shopping for embroidery thread and bought red and white as I had seen a cosplayer with an emblem in this colour. Wrong. Should have been red and yellow.

Note to self going forward: Bring a photo of the project you are working on instead of relying on memory alone!!!

After finally finishing my nemesis "The Sweater Vest with Embroidery", I started making patterns for the shirt, skirt, pants and shorts.

Shirt had four or was it five samples before I got the collar and armholes to match the reference photos online and seems I still managed to get the collar slightly wrong :/

Skirt only had one sample as the pleats were not deep enough so it was just a minor adjustment to the paper pattern. Took picures along the way for my pleated skirt tutorial which I will finish writing one of these days when I have some time and find out how to be a teacher XD

Pants was one sample as well and the same with the socks. Pretty straight forward.

Considering how long it took me to finish the sweater vest, doing the normal sewn clothes were done within three days including sampling. Says something about where I need to work on levelling up

And this is the finished outcome of this epic marathon.

I must say, I am well chuffed with the result even though I might need to redo the shirt collar at some point ^^