In each December, Conkers is transformed into a winter wonderland where you can meet Santa and all of his elves at his wonderland grotto. This year conkers is hosting a Christmas winter wonderland, and they have enlisted our help to make their elves look even more fun and festive. We have been given some pre made fancy dress elf costumes that require more imaginative festivity and creativity. These pre made elf costumes come in five pieces: tunic, trousers, hat, boots and a belt, which we would then decorate and sew in pairs to create a fabulous festive elf costume.
Decorating the trousers and the boots
To begin decorating my elf costume, I paired up with Emily, which we then decided who should decorate what parts of the elf costume. We both decided that I will decorate the trousers and the boots of the elf costume, and Emily would decorate the Tunic and the hat of the elf costume. To begin starting to create a decorated imaginative elf costume, I first made an initial hand drawn design to create an idea of what my decorated elf costume would look like. I wanted to design my trousers and boots to be similar to the tunic and hat that Emily would be making. I creatively came up with an idea of stitching lines down the trouser legs to create a striped candy cane look. I also designed this on the tunic so that the trousers and the tunic matched together nicely. I then added additional decorative features to my drawn design to create a festive complete Christmas elf costume look. Some of these features were decorative stars. Once I had drawn out a rough initial design of my elf costume, I then started to decorate my two pieces of the elf costume (trousers and boots) based on my initial design ideas.
Sewing in the white candy cane stripes on the trousers
To begin decorating, I first decided to stitch in the candy cane stripes on the elf costume trousers using white embroidery thread. To begin this process, I first got masking tape and marked out where I will sew the lines in. I did this process so that the sewn in lines can be equally marked out and symmetrical. I also did this process because the masking tape helped me sew in consistent straight lines.
While stitching in the candy cane lines on my elf costume trouser legs, I wanted to make sure that I created stitches at the same size so that I could create the elf costume trosures as neat as possible. I tried to create each stitch around one cetemeters so that each candy cane line looked professionally neat and accurate. While stitching in the candy cane lines, I used a normal running stitch technique as I felt this would best fit the elf costume design I had drawn. I also thought that this stitching technique looked aesthetically pleasing, and made a creative festive addition to my elf costume trousers. Overall, I was extremely pleased with my the quality control of the stitched in candy cane stripes. The individual stitches were accurately done at similar sizes, and the lines were placed symmetrically and were straight.
Cutting and sewing on the decorative stars
After I had finished creating the candy cane stripes on the trouser legs, I then moved onto cutting out and sewing on decorative Strats. I decided to select a star template to cut out from decorative material, so that I can then sew and secure it onto the trousers. I cut out the Start templates from white festive felt material and red festive felt material. I then pinned the stars onto the trousers, placing them out appropriately. I wanted to pin them from the candy cane sewn in stripes, so the stars looked like dangled down ball balls. after I had pinned down the stars in an appropriate way which looked aesthetically pleasing, I then moved onto stitching the stars in place using the blanket stitch sewing technique. After I had securely sewn in the decorate stars, I then cut out more stars from green material and appropriately placed them down on the elf costume trouser legs, pinning and securing them in place. I wanted to make sure that the felt green stars were equally distributed, and fit nicely with the other coloured stars. After I had securely pinned the green felt stars in place, I moved onto sewing them down using the blanket stitch technique. I also added decorative stars on the elf costume boots. I decided to cut out red stars and sew them onto the green side of the boots. Then I cut out white stars and sew them onto the red side of the boots.
When cutting out the star templates from the festive felt materials, and the green felt material, I wanted to make sure I accurately cut them out to get neat professional cut out stars. I also wanted to pin down my felt star cut outs onto the trousers appropriately, so that the starts were equally distributed on each leg, and looked professional. When sewing the stars in place, I wanted to make sure that I stitched them down so that they were straight and neatly secured in a sensible position. I also wanted to make sure the use of blanket stitching was neatly and consistently done. when sewing on the white decorative stars, I decided to use red thread, so that it looked aesthetically pleasing. When sewing on the red stars, I decided to use green thread so that it boldly stood out and outlined the red decorative stars on the red elf trousers. For the green stars I used light green thread because I thought this fit nicely on top of the dark green stars. By sewing in the decorative stars in all different colours, it gave a bright bold unique style of elf costume, which would make a great addition at the Conkers winter wonderland. Overall, I was extremely pleased with the quality control of the cut out and sewn in stars. I managed to cut out the stars precisely and neatly, and sew and secure them down professionally using the blanckeyt stitch technique. I was really pleased with how my blanket stitching turned out as it looked aesthetically pleasing and professionally accurate.
Sewing in decorative snow flakes
To add more decorative detail onto the trousers and the boots, I decided to sew on snowflakes to add more Christmas festivity onto the elf costume. To begin this process, I first drew big snowflakes onto the trouser legs. I then went over the drawn out snowflake with white thread; creating a gorgeous detailed snowflake. To add additional feature onto my trousers and boots, I sewed in small snowflakes which varied in sizes, and jotted them around all over the elf costume trouser legs and the boots.
When doing this process I wanted to make sure that I neatly sewed in the snowflakes so that they could eaqually be accurately sewn in and look professional. When swing in the big snow flakes, I wanted to try and make them as similar and accurate as possible. To do this I took my time when sewing them in, and tried to make the stitching look as accurate and similar as possible. The stitching technique I used to sew in the big snow flakes was the back stitch technique. The stitching technique I used to sew in the small varied sized snow flakes was normal running stitch technique. However, I brought the needle up in different angles to create a beautiful snowflake, instead of stitching in a consistent line. This performed a fabulous addition to the elf costume trousers and boots. The affect of the hand sewn in snow flakes, gave off warming festivity. Overall, I was very pleased with the quality control when stitching in the snowflakes. Each of the sewn in snowflakes looked professionally done, and made a marvellous addition to the elf costume.
Sewing in the decorative pom poms
After sewing in the hand sewn snowflakes, I then moved onto sewing in pom poms. I decided to select white and red pom poms, which matched the red and white decorative stars I sewed onto the trouser legs and boots. When sewing in the pom poms, I first lay them out appropriately making sure I placed them in the right places. When placing the pom poms onto the trouser legs, I placed the red coloured pom poms by the red coloured stars, and the white coloured pom poms by the white coloured stars. I then repeated this process on the boots placing the red pom poms by the red stars, and the white pom poms by the white stars. After the pom poms had been placed appropriately, I then moved onto sewing and securing them in place.
The technique I used to sew the pom poms in place was by sewing it from the middle and down by the edges. When sewing the pom poms in place, I used the appropriate coloured thread to match the colour of the pom pom, so that the thread could be less easily seen on the pom poms.
This created a beautifully decorative addition to the elf costume, making it stand out more with uniqueness. I was extremely pleased with the final result of the sewn in pom poms, because my quality control was extremely precise and neat.
sewing in the bells on the boots
To add a more festive decorative design to the boots of the plain elf costume, I decided to sew in big green bells at the tips of the boots. When doing this process, I sewed the bell onto of the pom poms of the boots. This created a lovely festive elf look, and also made a gorgeous Christmas bell ring when the boots were to be worn.
I was overall extremely pleased with the quality control when stitching the big green bells onto the boots. The threading I used to sew the bells in place was green, so that it wouldn't be seen easily in the green pom poms. To securely stitch the green bells in place I had to sew and secure them onto the pom poms on the tips of the elf costume boots. When doing this process I wanted to make sure I continuously stitched over the bells so that they would be sewn and fixed in place on the boots. I also wanted to make sure they were tightly and securely sewn in place, because the bells were quite heavy, and I did not want them to come loose.
Decorating the elf costume boots
To add more of a decorative style to the elf costume boots, I decided to sew around the folded top of the boot to add additional decorative festive features. To do this process, I decided to use back stitch to create a neat stitching around the fold over edge of the boots. I decided to sew this in using white thread, because I felt it best fit the red and the green on the boots.
I was overall pleased with my quality control when doing this process. The back stitch technique was professionally done, and looked aesthetically pleasing and mad a marvellous addition to the elf costume.
Decorating the Tunic and the hat
My Partner Emily Decorated the Tunic and the hat of the elf costume. When doing this process, I wanted to make sure that me and Emily both decorated our parts of the elf costume similarly. Therefore, Emily used the same technique and decorative ideas as me by stitching in candy cane stripes on the tunic and the hat of the elf costume. To do this process, Emily used masking tape, which I used, to mark out her lines using this to then eventually sew in candy cane stripes. Emily also used the same sewing technique which is a running stitch so that the elf costume looked equally decorated and matched together perfectly. Emily also cut out decorative stars of red, white and green and stitched them in place on the tunic, hanging from the stitched in candy cane lines like ball balls. However, instead of stitching in the decorative stars using the blanket stitch technique, like how I stitched on the decorative stars, Emily used a normal running stitch technique. Although, this different technique of stitching was not obvious to a viewers eye, and the tunic and hat, and trousers and boots still matched together perfectly. She also added red and white pom poms onto the tunic around the red and white decorative stars, to match the trousers marvellously. Emily also included stitched in snow flakes on the tunic and the hat so that the tunic and the hat could match together nicely with the trousers and the boots of the elf costume. Emily finally added a stitch in back stitch around the bottom of the hat and the neckline of the tunic, to match the decorative backstitch I sewed onto the elf costume boots.
After I had finished sewing and decorating the trousers and the boots, and Emily had finished sewing and decorating the tunic and the hat, we then eventually placed the elf costume together and assessed the final outcome and how it looked. I was overall extremely pleased with the outcome of the elf costume. Me and Emily both equally decorated our parts of the elf costume beautifully, making sure that it matched together completely, which resulted in a completed iconic unique style of a designed and decorated elf costume. Our stitching throughout the elf costume was consistently neat, and looked professionally done to a viewers eye. The overall quality control throughout the elf costume was precise and profession on both the trousers and the boots, and the tunic and the hat.
Evaluation
Overall I was extremely pleased with how mine and Emily's Elf costume turned out. I throughly enjoyed sewing and decorating the trousers and the boots of the elf costume, and found it a marvellous experience. When doing this Elf costume Conkers winter wonderland work experience project, it was a massive experience and achievement to complete. This specific work experience project enabled me to work more independently within this fashion Course, by focussing on designing and decorating my very own elf costume in my own style. It enabled me to create and express my own styles and ideas, and preform it through this elf costume piece. I was extremely proud because I constantly worked on this elf costume to get in my work experience hours. By doing this project it has taught me to work consistently hard and independent, by completing it without being pushed or told. I extremely liked the experience I gained from this work experience project, because it has helped me complete hours on something I am passionate about (fashion and textile), and the final results has lead me to completing a marvellous festive elf costume for conkers winter wonderland.
This project also helped my stitching abilities to grow stronger in quality, gaining a more professional outcome. I also really enjoyed this work experience project, because it was my first professional piece which would eventually be shown and worn. Therefore, I wanted to make sure I worked extremely hard on this work experience project so that the elf costume I created could be as professionally done as possible. I was extremely lucky to be given a ticket to Conkers winter Wonderland, because I was going with all my family and younger relatives. Therefore, this enabled me to be able to witness my very own created and designed elf costume on somebody at Conkers winter wonderland, and also witness other elf costumes designed, created and made from my college.
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