sewingoflove

Back again! Here’s how you’ll construct your cowl using the pattern you made with the last tutorial

 Cut out each piece of your main pattern in black and red, as well as the forehead pieces. Take close note of your reference pictures–the BLACK goes on HARLEY’S LEFT side. The RED is on HARLEY’S RIGHT. The reference picture here is the Harley from Gotham Public Works. Keep this in mind as you’re making the piece!! It’s really embarrassing for me to spot Harl cosplayers who’ve switched up the colors at one place or another >.<;; Make sure your red is cut opposite from your black basically

The forehead piece is the easiest—just sew the pieces together to create a half-circle that will fit across your forehead. Pin the left and right head pieces together along the back of the head, the back of the neck, and the front of the neck. Sew these. Go ahead and take the pins out and try the cowl on inside out. Have a friend pin the back of the cowl closer to your head so you don’t have folds or too much fabric back there. I noted on my cowl here with chalk so you can clearly see where I sewed and cut. Sew along these pins. Make SURE that you sew forward and reverse securely over where your first seams meet the ones you’re sewing now to prevent unraveling. Cut off the excess fabric. Try it on again and make sure it fits. Trim triangles out of your curve on the head to smooth the seam.

 Next is time to make the ear bits. I really need to find something new to call these! Make sure you cut two black, two red. As with the rest of the costume, be sure your red is cut opposite from your back. Pin the two black pieces together and sew along the curved edges. Do NOT sew the half-circle that fits into the cowl. Take this piece (inside out) and the cowl (right-side out) and pin them together like a shirtsleeve. Make sure that when you flip the ear right side out that the curve is in the right direction and the seams are on the inside. I generally put the seams facing up and down, so I know for sure the curve is what I saw when I drew it out. Sew the opening like a shirtsleeve, and then flip it over and do the same for the red. It’ll look kind of depressed, but yes, it’s right!

Now you can pin the forehead piece in to where it belongs. It can be kind of difficult, but just stretch the fabrics and be patient until you can fit it. Here’s where it can get difficult—make SURE your forehead piece will NOT slide down or connect to the cowl on the sides so far that it will interfere with the mask. What I ended up doing was folding up the bottom of this piece by about half an inch and sewing it to the cowl this way. You’ll have to fuss with the sides if you pin the half circle before fitting the straight edge.  You can see here that I made mine much longer than it needed to be, so I just turned the end up and sewed a small seam Sew these pieces right onto the rest of the cowl.

 Now you can try this on properly. Turn the cowl right side out and use a chopstick to get the points of the earbits all pointy and such. Make sure the general fit is right. If it’s a little loose around the face, don’t worry-we’ll fix that in the next tutorial.  Stretch material does that! Turn in the hems all around the face and sew these into place. I didn’t do more than a centimeter here. When you get to the right angles, cut a small indent in towards the neck so you’ll end up with a right-angled shape OUT of the hem on the inside. You can see it the picture here. Do a couple of straight or hand stitches across this gap to secure it and prevent unraveling.

 That’s it! Next post is how to tailor your Harley cowl As always, any questions, leave a comment!

 Happy stitching!

(OM NOM NOM!)

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