There is a meme out there that says that sometimes a project has to go into the time-out bin until I'm no longer angry at it. That's been the case with my Yasha cosplay.
When last we left this cosplay, I'd spent time during a raging hurricane to pattern out the fabric that would go behind the crazy web of straps making up the undershirt. Well, soon after getting the patterning done and getting the power back on, I had cut the fabric pieces, and gotten them pinned into place beneath the straps on the dress form.
Then I sat there stumped trying to figure out how the hell I was supposed to attached the fabric to the straps without removing it all from the dress form. The logical course of action here was to sit the dress form in a corner for time out while I give my time to less troublesome projects.
Well time out is finally up, and Yasha was allowed out of the corner.
The problem that had vexed me was how to attach the straps to the fabric while it was still on the dress form. I had used fusible bonding tape to connect the straps together initially. This worked well for holding them in place, but wasn't reliable enough for a final fastening. If I tried to remove the garment from the dress form at this point, it would have fallen apart in my hands. I wanted to sew it, but even hand stitching this would be a tedious nightmare.
After a lot of contemplation, I concluded that the only choice would be to use a stronger adhesive to glue the straps to the fabric beneath it. That way it would have enough structure to survive being removed from the form, so I could stitched it all together on the sewing machine (you should always use a mechanical fastener if at all possible. Adhesive is not to be trusted on its own).
I'm using Beacon Fabric-tac for this stage because it provides a really strong fabric-to-fabric bond. The bottle has a built-in applicator nozzle, but I don't trust it in this case. I need very precise application to get this stuff between the straps and the fabric. To accomplish that, I used cotton swabs to take small globs of the glue and spread it like jelly on the back of the straps. I started on the straps framing the outer edges of the fabric segments, then moving to the straps crisscrossing the interior. There have been incidents where the fabric puckered after being glued to a pleather strap. Luckily, I was able to catch it before the glue had fully cured and I could pull the strap loose, hoping it wouldn't stretch the fabric in the process. Then try it again.
This has been incredibly tedious, and slow going. I've gotten the two fronts segments mostly attached now, and will be moving on to the two in back. Hopefully by my next post, this garment will be finished and I can get started with the next piece of the cosplay.
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