Miss Piggy - Kermit Dress #10

Kermit and eye paint

Mini-Kermit and Kermit eyes

EXTRA!

I had this felt wired Kermit from a McDonald's Happy Meal (I also have Animal 🤟💘) and, as this costume is a switch, I thought, why not make Mini-Kermit a Piggy costume?

pink dress WIP

But I didn't have either pink satin, nor purple satin, for the dress and gloves (that's how much I like pink or purple...). Nor a pink feather boa, or blonde wig wefts... and Maxi Biju closed... so I had to buy all of these. I couldn't find any the last time I went fabric shopping, Downtown, so I ended up buying the (very cheap) satin, the pink feathers (a cheap feathered fan), and the cheap blonde wig from a Chinese shop nearby. I started with the dress, a simple rectangular top, gathered in the middle, with pink ribbon straps.

Pearl necklace

Then I picked some tiny white pearlsand a clasp, from my Blythe stash, and threaded a pearl necklace.

wig weft

For the wig, I unpicked a 20cm weft from the cheap wig, rolled and sewed it on itself, and added a pin to secure it to Mini-Kermit's head. With the wig on, I trimmed it, and with the steamer, I tried to style it.

wig

From the cheap fan, I unpicked a few feathers, choosing the fluffiest of them, and glued them, with UHU glue, to a pink cord (also from my dolly materials stash). I started at the ends, with the nicer feathers, and kept on glueing snipped and fluffy feather ends, until the middle. I reinforced the ends on both sides, and pinned it, with a small safety pin,  to Mini-Kermit.

Mini-Kermit dressed as Miss Piggy 

Finally, with small scraps of pink fake suede, I made a snout, with an elastic, and tiny pig ears, which I glued to the wig. With the lilac satin, I made the gloves, which close with dolly velcro.

Asheria, Moi and LadyXZeus (as Bianca) at Fórum Fantástico 2023

After finishing everything, I wore the costume for the first time at Fórum Fantástico 2023, for my Tertúlia de Cosplay, a series of talks about cosplay I've been organising every month.

I put my make-up on at home, including the drag queen fake lashes, and wore the dress to the event, with some leggings on top of my skin coloured shorts, and silver strappy sandals. At the event, I took the leggings off, and put my wig, hood, gloves and emerald ring on. Although the ears were skewed most of the day, the result of putting the hood on without a mirror, the hood stayed put, without twisting at the collar, the whole day.

Unfortunately it was really very hot that day, and even though the costume is really very comfortable, anything would be too hot for those 30+°C temperatures... the gloves and dress were very sweaty, great that they're easy to wash. The hood remained clean, not even make-up transfer (thank you make-up setting spray!), but the snout had some lipstick transfer. Mental note, no need to wear lipstick on the top lip with this costume. One of the collar pearls fell off, but I can easily replace it.

All in all, this is a very comfortable and fun costume to wear, I'm glad I made it.

+ Maybe a Mini-Kermit was unnecessary, but it definitely completed the costume. Most people thought I was dressed as Kermit, I needed to either explain or put the snout on.

- The snout is very uncomfortable, especially in that day's hot temperatures. Putting it back on with velvet gloves, isn't also the quickest thing. But it's a minor fault I can't skip. I made it the softest I could, even lining it in t-shirt cotton knit.

THE CUNNING PLAN

Hem the gloves, trim the wig, wash the dress, replace the pearl on the collar. Wear it again. Maybe for Lisboa Games Week?

Miss Piggy - Kermit Dress #9

trying out the hood

After basting the middle seam on both the outer and inner hood layers, I machine sewed them together. I trimmed the seam allowance to about 1 cm, and hand basted both sides together, leaving a 20 cm opening at the back of the neck. Then I machine sewed it, trimmed the allowances to 1cm and scored the curves, and turned it. Then I pinned the back opening together, and top stitched it, about 5 mm from the edge.

I marked where the hood and collar would join, and tacked them together by hand, leaving an opening in the back, where I top stitched the hood. This opening is for the wig to fall through it. It's canon, just like Miss Piggy's hood.

reinforcing the inside of the eyes

The eye spheres are a bit fragile and tend to crack, to reinforce them, I added a layer of painter's tape to the inside. Then I made some loops with wire, 3 for each eye, and taped them to the inside of the eyes with foam tape, mostly because it's strong.

adding wire loops and filling to the eyes

Then I cut a styrofoam ball I had laying around in half, and also glued it to the (double sided) tape. I'll probably replace it later with a bigger ball, so everything fits snuggly. The initial plan was to glue the eyes to the hood, but then I thought if I ever have to wash it for some reason, the eyes could get ruined in the wash. So I made those wire loops to be able to sew them to the hood.

the finished hood with the Kermit eyes and Piggy ears

So I did. I had to adjust them first, but then I sewed them to the hood, picking up both fabric layers. Then I sewed the ears to the hood, with a slip stitch in matching peach pink thread. To help it stay put, on top of the wig, I sewed a small comb to the inside of the hood, on top of the head. Et voilá! The hood is DONE!

+ I'm pretty happy with the final result, even if I'm not 100% happy with the ears. It was an easy make all in all, and it looks cute!

- As I said, I'm not 100% happy with the ears, and I'd like to add a better filling and fastening to the eyes, and some felt to the bottom, but I'll leave it like this for now...

THE CUNNING PLAN

Hem the gloves. Trim the wig.

Miss Piggy - Kermit Dress #8

the cursed bobbin event

After hand basting the dress pocket halves to the dress (two in the front, two in the back), the princess seams and the shoulder seams, and the hood halves, I took the sewing machine out and proceeded to fill the bobbin. I usually have 3 or 4 working bobbins, one with white thread, another with black thread, and two with cool coloured and warm coloured thread each. As Murphy Law dictates, right when it was about to be completely full, the bobbin broke in half... In these many years I've been sewing, something like this never happened to me, but I don't use plastic bobbins that often. Fortunately my sewing machine repair shop is nearby, and they sell metal bobbins. I guess I need to drop by and buy one or two more.

After the cursed bobbin event, I patiently hand rewound the thread around the spool. Thread is expensive, especially the Gütermann polyester thread, I wouldn't allow it to go to waste. It took me about one hour...

sewed princess and shoulder seams.
it looks wonky because the side seams aren't sewn yet.

So, I filled another bobbin, a metal one this time,  and proceeded to sew the basted seams. I usually do this in order, so I started with one pocket half, did the princess seams next, then the two other pocket halves, the remaining princess seams, and the final pocket half. Lastly, I sewed the shoulder seams. After sewing, I trimmed the seam allowances to about 1,5-2 cm. I didn't overcast any of the raw edges, as this fabric doesn't fray, just mabe shed a tiny bit of fur around the edges while manipulating it.

Then I basted the side seams and machine sewed them. I usually don't hand baste seams, but velvet shifts a lot under the machine foot, so I usually always hand baste velvet.

How I do my invisible pockets. I usually sew each half to each side of the dress, two at the front, and two at the back, at the same height, naturally. Then, before sewing the side seam, I sew the pocket halves together. Then, I sew the side seam from the top to the bottom, stopping a few centimeters after the pocket seam. Then I start again about 3 to 5 centimeters before the pocket bottom seam, and down towards the hem. Sometimes I need to adjust, or add some top stitching on the back side of the pocket opening, but I didn't do it this time around.

final trimmed collar, arm holes and hem

Then I tried the dress on with the collar, to trim the collar opening. I made it slightly oval in the front, as it's more flattering. I also trimmed the arm holes and the hem, leaving the hem about 4 fingers longer in the back, to accomodate my big butt.

finished dress

I gave a good thought on how I would finish the dress, even thought of simply top stitching it all, but ended up making a facing for the collar opening, and hand hemming the rest. I added a stay stitch to the inside of the facing, because this is soft velvet, and I didn't want the facing to roll up, then slip stitched the facing to the dress, slip stitched the arm hole hems, and catch stitched the hem, about 3 cm wide.

One can't press velvet, it will leave marks, so, even though there were only a few hours left until I wore the costume, I hung it so it would eventually look less wonky and gain its final shape overninght.

+ It's a very quick and simple dress to sew, but I had to complicate things by adding a facing and hand sewing all the openings. Still something I could do in one or two days, If I really were up to it.

- the cursed bobbin was a bummer, but it was an easy fix, and didn't delay the sewing job by much. Unfortunately, hand hemming takes a long time, and I ended up not having enough time to hem the gloves (the only thing left to do in this costume).

THE CUNNING PLAN 

Make the hood, hem the gloves. Add the hood details.