A is for Aqua Apparel

When I started out to do the January Pinstrosity Challenge -- brought to you by the letter A -- I figured I'd be done with Cloe's outfit by the middle of the month. Easy. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeazy.

Cloe demonstrates the America's Next Top Model "hailing a taxi" pose.

I put the last stitch in her outfit at exactly 6:30 on January 30. The original goal was to start with these pants (Pin, original), which I'd made once before, but turn them into bell bottom jeans by adding a gusset inspired by reading about medieval and Renaissance tailoring (Pin, original), though how I wandered into that topic escapes me. Damn Google.

Hallelujah! It took a month, but I finally have clothes.

The color scheme is dictated not only by Cloe's hair but by her shoes, as she's a Bratz, so to change shoes, she has to change feet. I don't know why MGA doesn't just sell extra 24-packs of feet.

Here is the gore in the process of being installed. The jeans are edged with bias tape -- fastened with fabric glue, which is still drying at this stage -- because I really hated my hemming job and several tries at redoing it did not make it better.

Just. Keep. Improvising.

The bias tape plus turned-under denim creates stiffness and bulk that makes it harder to turn the pants right-side-out after sewing the final seams, though obviously I managed. It's also necessary to glue the cuff seam, as the sewing machine ain't goin' through twelve layers of stiffened fabric (six per side of the seam! eep!).

Behold! The gore.

The stripe is because Cloe's super-power as one of the Bratz Action Heroez is speed. The polka dots are because that was somehow becoming her theme. And the flower at the top is because I needed a pink bead to conceal some infelicities in how the point was seamed, and that was what I had.

The elastic has a tendency to be awkwardly bulky. I'd considered trying non-elasticized jeans (Pin), but wasn't feeling very confident with building a sloper or adapting to the "taller Bratz" body type.

Do you think I should get my navel pierced?

The top ended up being a variant on my same-old fall-back tube top because other plans Weren't Going Well.

The plan for the jacket was to look sort of like a team windbreaker, only without involving sewing on anything slippery. This required contrasting sleeves and... using a pattern. An actual pattern. From a pattern envelope.

But, to stay within my comfort zone of Never Following the Instructions, the pattern was missing a key piece that I had to figure out how to cut by extrapolating from the non-missing pieces. Then it turned out to all be too way wide across the back, so I ran a seam up the back and figured it'd just have to flare. We got gores... we got darts... the only thing we're missing is gussets.

Heading for 80 mph.

Since Cloe's super-power as one of the Bratz Action Heroez is speed, the pattern on her coat is a speedometer. I'm probably going to have to hit the crystals with fabric glue the next time I have it out.

Ynez and Shira are envious that Cloe now has real clothes and can go places other than comic stores without being stared at.

It's just a jacket, Ynez. I'm sure you'll eventually get one, too.

Uh oh! Frankie has a message! Cloe's super-hero skills are needed!

I'm so relieved we're not wearing the same dress! Also...

Hayden's car needs fixing! Cloe's more used to working on race cars, but she can try a few things to get the Chery running.

Oh, Chery! Our gears... roll on... roll on...

With the car in working order and a job well done, Cloe relaxes with her Action Heroez friends in front of the big game.

Whose responsibility was it to order pizza?