I heard you like ravens...

I got to release my inner party animal this weekend when my friend Maarten hosted an animal-themed birthday party! Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while (or knows me in real life) knows I'll take any chance to show up in a costume, but on this occasion I didn't have a lot of time so I had to work with my closet. Thankfully there are floor-length black flocked velvet dresses in there, so I only needed a mask to make me a raven. Or something. The Ravenclaw jacket I had made earlier was the perfect finishing touch for when the evening got cooler, so we headed to the field next door for a photoshoot.

I had this dark blue velvet in my stash for a while (as you do) and I wasn't really sure about what to do with it, since velvet can get really cheesy real fast (coming from someone who is dreaming of a green velvet trenchcoat...). In the end I went for a real tried and true pattern: the Rigel bomber by Papercut patterns.

This was the fourth Rigel I've made, and I still love it (one, two and three here). It's a remarkably quick pattern to sew, and it works for SO MANY fabrics. I made the size medium with no modifications and added a lining.

But the real surprise is in the back! I wanted to add a few Ravenclaw touches without being totally obvious, so I cut a raven silhouette and some moon shapes out of silver pleather and hand-stitched them on. As you do. It might be a bit much but I like it a lot!

At this point my friend Hélène decided to help me take my pictures. We both only wore our masks for a short while during the actual party, they look cool but it's hard to stuff your face with a beak of fox face. I made mine by trimming a store-bought papier maché mask until it fit my face better, adding a paper beak and feathers and then painting the entire thing.

She really liked that field.

I've made this jacket three times before, so I can't really tell you anything new about the construction. This velvet seemed to be way easier to work with than the black stuff I used for my Beekeeper's dress back in the day, it didn't slip around nearly as much... The only thing I had to baste was the zipper, and I noticed it turned out a bit asymmetrical. I might rip it out and do it again sometime (probably not).

At this point my friend Nena and the birthday boy also joined the fun, and any hope for serious pictures was lost forever. Maarten managed a few jumps on his bare (!!) feet and the rest of the pictures is mostly everyone laughing like crazy. It was a pretty good weekend!