Barbarian Costume Texas Renaissance Festival 2011

My friends and I decided to attend the Renaissance Festival during Barbarian Weekend. I knew after several searches, most of the costumes for plus sized women were. . . let's just say they were not my style. The trick to making a good costume is to make the pieces simple, but jazz them up to look like they were more complicated.

1) I knew I needed a bustier / corset, but I knew I needed an easy pattern. I had a corset from another event, so on a piece of drafting paper I traced the entire shape of the corset with 1.5 inches extra for ease. I knew the fabric I was using wasn't stretchy like the corset.

2) After tracing the corset on the paper I went this awesome website: http://www.sewcurvy.com/corsetmakingnews_61053.html and realized the basic corset was really just 4 pieces. So I traced cut lines on the corset tracing and cut it into the 4 pieces.

3)After that I sewed the basic pieces together and just altered it to fit my shape the best I could. I was not going add the headache of using boning on this corset.

4) The skirt was easy. I just used an old faux suede skirt that I never wore anymore, cut out panels from the same fabric I used to make the corset and sewed them onto the altered skirt.

5) My least favorite part was adding the studs, but hey, they were important for the outfit.

6) The scorpion breastplate I made in honor of my zodiac sign, was sculpted out of this stuff called EZ-Form. http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/e-z-form-plaster-cloth-wrap-76810/

7) I then made cuffs for my forearms and painted the zodiac symbol for Scorpio on them.

8) Finally, I made boot covers. http://greyfinch.livejournal.com/26087.html

9) I made my friend's costume, too. She's the lady in the middle with the dreadlocks.