#non egl | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

20dollarlolita · 6 months ago

Text

Things to do when making a lolita garment from a non-egl pattern.

I have this blouse pattern:

[x]

And I have four cotton voile curtains and a pink bedsheet.

I know that I want to use this pattern and this fabric to make a lolita blouse. I want it to be a blouse that I can wear with JSKs and skirts. So, where do we go from there?

Let's find out:

Step 1 is to check our materials, and make sure that existing lolita fashion pieces exist that are like this pattern, and in this material.

Thankfully, lolibrary makes that really easy.

It's so very nice to have a dedicated team of nerds dedicated to documenting and tagging every single piece of our fashion's history.

And then we grab any picture that feels like it's the same construction as the blouse pattern we have.

Links: https://lolibrary.org/items/af-kawaii-vintage-chiffon-blouse https://lolibrary.org/items/lg-tulle-yoke-blouse https://lolibrary.org/items/aatp-michael-blouse-2024 https://lolibrary.org/items/ap-holy-doll-blouse https://lolibrary.org/items/ap-star-dancer-blouse

That's 5 examples, but I already had a pretty good idea what I was doing, so I didn't keep researching. Don't forget that, if you don't really have a ton of hands-on lolita experience, it's hard to over-research. Also, if you do a TON of research, and you cannot find an example of the thing you want to make in a fabric similar to the ones you want to make it from, that might be a sign.

Now, I went into my own closet, and grabbed the 4 blouses that I most often wear with skirts. I know that I want to wear this pattern with skirts, because I don't always feel comfortable in JSKs on blouses that have bibs/front yokes like this. I've made a bib front blouse before, and I had trouble coording it with JSKs.

Blouses: https://lolibrary.org/items/bodyline-honey-parish-blouse-l364 https://lolibrary.org/items/bodyline-l059-blouse-with-jabot https://lolibrary.org/items/btssb-princess-rose-lace-full-of-frills-blouse https://www.amazon.com/TanQiang-Womens-Lolita-Sleeve-Embroidered/dp/B07BFSLFYC/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2BE37ENMLLTXG&sprefix=lolita+fashio%2Caps%2C217

George and Ginger have a LOT of pictures of people who have made their blouse. I don't want to post any of them specifically here, but this is an example:

This is a HUGE resource for anyone who wants to make this blouse, because in addition to seeing how it looks in the technical illustration and in the sample, we can see how it actually looks when someone makes it. We can also look at the things that we don't like (for EGL fashion) and what we do like.

For example, in my examples, the front yoke is a place to put as many details as you possibly can. We have multiple layers of lace on the edge, and then detailing such as pintucks on the yoke itself. On these, the yoke is the design feature, so by comparison, it's relatively plain.

I also can see the different ways that people use lining, sheer, and sheer over a lining. I don't see a combination of lining/sheer that I like as much as the Axes Femme blouse in the top-right of my inspo collage. I'm going to make mine like that Axes Femme blouse, instead of how the instructions might recommend.

But the main thing that I'm noticing is that this blouse is LONG. That's just the style it is, but it would mean that I can tuck it into skirts but can't wear it over them. Since one of my favorite things to do is to make skirts with elastic tops for low-energy fun EGL, I don't want a blouse that I have to tuck into the waist. So, I look at this, and I know what I want to do:

Things that I can do without modifying the pattern:

Choose what parts of the garment will be lined/flat lined, and what will stay sheer

Add more detailing to the yoke with applied trim

Swap all of the ruffles for lace, to add more detail

Add a ruffle to the bottom.

And things that I will modify the pattern for:

Making the pattern shorter to match my existing blouses

Re-patterning the yoke to add tucks

In addition, I might add a ruffle or some ruffled trim along the button placket. The reason I say might is that I haven't checked if the shirt has a separate placket to apply to the garment, or if it's a self-made placket. If it's separate, it's a very easy adjustment, and if it's made of self, it's a very difficult adjustment. I sew to have fun, and that doesn't sound like fun to me.

Because I wasted a lot of my life trying to get a degree in something useless am a confident sewer, I can look at those pattern modifications and know that they won't be too difficult for me. If this was my first fitted garment made from a commercial pattern, I might elect to skip the patterning adjustments.

So, how do we make the blouse shorter? If you have a blouse you like it's pretty easy:

Step 1) print your pattern, and cut it out if you have to. Step 2) take your favorite blouse.

We're using this Amazon one because it's the longest:

The first piece that I grabbed said "center back", so we line it up with the center back and make a mark where the bottom ends.

For the side front and side back pieces, we measure the side seam with the armpit of the blouse.

For the front, we have to stack the bib onto the front piece, overlapping by the seam allowance, and measure along the center front.

To save fabric, I'm just chopping the bottom of the pattern off a few inches below the marks. This won't make an even bottom hem, but I can straighten the hem after we're done.

If your fabric is absolutely precious and you cannot waste any, there is a more proper way to do this, but if your fabric is absolutely precious and you can't waste any, you should really be making a mockup first anyway, so you can do what we do here, make the mockup, and then transfer your mockup adjustments back onto the pattern.

This is long so to add tucks you google a tutorial for how to add tucks and then do what that says. I took pictures of how I did it and it's so unholy that I can't dare to post it.

Anyway, stick around for me to actually finish this project for once and give my end results about the lolita-ability of this pattern.

#egl fashion #handmade lolita #diy fashion #20dollarlolita #long post #lolita blouse #george and ginger #*googles spelling*#boudoir blouse

102 notes · View notes

bloodchapell · 4 months ago

Text

tiffany's lolita coord - armin a.

brief summary: finally asking armin to let you style him, you expect him to ask to look like yoshiki or atsushi but he requests something unexpected. dressing him in your clothes, styling his hair and even putting makeup on him sparkles a new light in both of you.

what to expect: alt and very nerdy reader, equally nerdy armin, mutual pinning, physical touch, lots of tension, cross dressing, #who is tiffany!?

your sword’s note: this was lowkey how i got the idea for the whole series, id just love to dress armin in egl. all past and future parts of this au series available in my mistresslist

“Mana-sama?” You repeat after him.

Armin had been listening to Malice Mizer non-stop, and was fascinated by Mana-sama. He also had seen you already in the beautiful black dresses traditional of gothic lolita and he was sure you couldn’t look more beautiful. He secretly wished he could completely change at least for one day and look as cute, and though he kept it precisely as a secret, when you two started talking about your shared wish for him to get styled by you, he saw the opportunity and ran with it.

“I want to look like Mana-sama.” He demands as soon as he agrees to your question.

“This is for the books .” You mumble fascinated to yourself, getting off your bed and looking for the ancient looking box under your bed that had the clothes you couldn’t fit in the closet. Before you start looking for one you decide to take his measurements and see which dresses would fit him instead of trying all of them. You ask him to stand up too and after grabbing the measuring tape and tell him to take his knitted sweater off so the measuring is more accurate.

His eyes trace the movements of your hands carefully, still kinda nervous of having you so close. You extend the tape and ask him to lift his arms, then wrap the tape around his chest and tell him the measurement so he can write it down in the little notepad you gave him. You measure the length of this arms, torso, waist and the distance from his waist to his knees; you do not measure anything else, you’ll figure it out without the measurement of his hips.

Now with his measurements you kneel back down and look in the treasure chest for a dress that fits him. Armin is a little taller than you by a few inches, but the difference from his built to yours is still notorious. There is only two dresses that you determine fitting. He chooses the black one and you nod, looking around for the undershirt, stockings, petticoat and other accessories. You explained in what order and how to wear every garment and he nodded hesitantly.

“Here, I will leave the room and you can change, let me know when I can walk back in.” You give him the things and now that the whole thing seems actually serious he gets hesitant.

“This is going to sound very ignorant but is it wrong to wear this?” He asks holding the clothes, adverting his gaze from meeting yours.

“What do you mean?” You asked without completely understanding what was he implying as being possibly wrong. “It’s really just clothes. I don’t think it’s wrong for anyone to wear any clothing unless it is meant to offend someone in any way or if it’s something inappropriate in front of kids or stuff like that.”

“I just don’t want you to think wrong of me… I was too quick to jump and say Mana-sama.” Armin fidgets with the fabric. He doesn’t want to say it and you know what he is trying to say and why.

“I won’t think wrong of you Armin.” You take the clothes off his hands and put them in the bed so you can hold his hands. “I dress like a guy sometimes and that doesn’t mean I am mocking men or I am any less feminine… it doesn’t mean I become gay for it, though I do like girls too but that is not the point…”

He blushes at your words. He had seen you dressing oddly masculine sometimes but had brushed it off as just ambiguous… and he didn’t know the rest.

“You like girls…?” It was almost possible to physically hear his heart stopping and shattering. His mind was already racing to make him overthink.

“I like people, why should I care about what they are if they’re cool.” You summarized and he felt his soul crawling back to his body very embarrassed. It made sense.

“I shouldn’t really be complaining, an essential part of vkei is androgyny and I know it…” His blue eyes are just focused on your hands, his teeth playing nervously with the piercing on his lip. “I’m just insecure… I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay…” You lift your hand from his and place him by his cheek, moving a strand of hair behind his ear, trying to make him look at you and at the same time comfort him by caressing his cheek. “I used to also worry if it made me less of a girl to dress like a guy, but that was just me doubting it. Still if you don’t want to do it there is nothing wrong with it.”

“No, I still want to do it.”

You gave him a smile and let go of his other hand to pull him in for a hug; your arms wrapped around his neck closing the distance. He didn’t know how to react at first, differently to the hugs you’d give him when saying bye, this felt more intimate because you were hugging him tightly. He took a second to reciprocate but eventually he gave in and wrapped his arms around your waist and rested his forehead on your shoulder. Your heart was beating so fast that he could feel you exhaling trying to calm down, but he didn’t notice because he was worried you could feel his unsteady breath on your shoulder from how nervous he was. The hug lasted for a while because you both didn’t want to let go plus you were also afraid of facing each other after such a moment.

“Get dressed and let me know when you’re done.” You pulled away from the hug leaving the dorm and closing the door as fast as humanly possible so he wouldn’t notice the heavy blush on your face.

It took him longer than expected.

“I think I need your help…” He peeked outside the door. You nodded and walked back in the room. He looked so cute that you could’ve had a heart attack.

The problem was that he couldn’t tie the ribbon on the back on the dress that gave form to the shape of the waist.

“I’ll get that for you.” You reassured and stood behind him. Your hands straightened the fabric in the front and moved slowly to the back to rectify that it stayed straight and close to his body, once in the back, you put the lace through the holes crossing it from side to side and once finished you pulled the ribbon to tighten the dress around his body and tied it in a bow. You then moved around to stand facing him and take a look at him. The dress suited him perfectly and though it was intended to be a little longer than other dresses, it seemed normal on him.

“You look so cute!” You praised making him turn around for you to take a closer look. He smiled when hearing you complimenting him. “Now let me continue.”

You made him sit down in the desk and wait while you brought your makeup.

“Isn’t my hair too short?” He wondered and you looked at him.

“Well yeah but we can’t magically make it grow.” You answered but then a sinister idea came to your mind. You looked back on the treasure chest and pulled out a black wig with curls and bangs. “So Mana-sama esque!”

You put the wig cap on his head and opened the makeup bag. You laughed looking at his bangs being out of his forehead for the first time, he looked so handsome…

Proceeding with his makeup you started by applying moisturizer to your hands and gently massaging his face. His face was blushed completely. After some sunscreen, you applied some primer, then concealer to correct some uneven tones in his skin, applied a little blush on his cheekbones upwardly to shorten his face and make him look cuter, then applied your lightest foundation on his face and blended it out.

“Wasn’t the blush after this?” He asked opening his eyes to look at you.

“It’s a cream blush so it’s kind of strong, I put it before the foundation to give it a more natural look. I also don’t like that it’s a warm coral, so after I put some setting spray and translucent powder I will put a little powder blush that has a cool tone to cancel it out. It’s more accurate to your skin tone and it looks very similar to the actual pale pink in which your cheeks blush.”

“Stop!!!” He demanded laughing ashamed and covering his face without actually touching to not ruin the base of the makeup. You laughed softly at how cute he was.

Continuing the makeup you applied some white concealer in his eyelids for the eyeshadow to show more vibrantly and started to do his eyeliner in a way it made his eyes look bigger and rounder, then mascara in his eyelashes and you drew bottom eyelashes to make his eyes look even bigger. Since he asked to look like Mana-sama, the eyeshadow was inspired by one of his looks, you applied a good amount of mascara on his eyelashes. For the lips you put a black lipgloss on his lips and asked him to even it out. To add the last touch you applied again setting spray.

“I feel odd..." He said looking in the mirror while you put the black wig over his head. "It feels wrong in a good way I guess..."

With the black wig on, Armin look like a completely different person. His soft features that were even more softened with the makeup and the curly wig made him look like a girl. And the frilly and poofy dress adorned his body delicately. His blue eyes kept looking over every detail of his new and unfamiliar aspect in the mirror as in trying to digest the whole thing.

From the treasure chest you pulled out all the headpieces that matched the dress and he chose a black headdress, so you secured it to the wig and tied it under his chin.

"Well you are now done, sadly our shoe size is very different and my shoes won't fit you." Finishing twirling around the synthetic curls to define them more and combing with your fingers the bangs over his forehead you said only to move in front of him and take a good look at him. Armin looked stunning, he looked so beautiful that you were even a little envious of how cute he could look.

"I have some black boots." He looked so different that he himself didn't recognize his image and could mistakenly fall in love with the cute girl in the mirror.

"Do you want me to go get them?" You asked and he stood up.

"I think I want to go out like this." He said looking at himself in the mirror for a long time, turning around to see himself from every angle. You turned around surprised, definitely not expecting him to say that.

"Well, let me get dressed and I will show you my favorite spot in town to be cute." You said excited while getting your things. After finishing getting dressed and applying makeup, you made sure to wear tall shoes to be on Armin's height. "Now we are the same size so it doesn't look weird that the "girl" is taller than the "guy"."

"That is so full of prejudice! There are tall girls and I am one of them." He joked pretending to be mad and you couldn't help but laugh.

There is no need to say how shy he was to walk out of your dorm. He had walked in differently and was now walking outside as a total different person. He kept complaining that his white sneakers didn't match the look and was completely embarrassed for it, which to you was nothing but cute; it’d be hard for you in the past to believe you if you said Armin was complaining about his shoes not matching his outfit.

"I love your fit." On the entrance of your dorm some girl told him and he nodded smiling too nervous to speak. You two walked from your building to his, he got a few looks from people passing by and you had to remind him that they were looking at him because he looked like he had escaped from a magical girls anime and not because they knew it was actually honors student Armin Arlert crossdressing through campus.

Once at his dorm, you sat down in the living room while he looked for the shoes in his room but then you both heard the very far away but approaching loud voice of Eren.

"What do we do!?" Armin started panicking and though it made you laugh initially you tried to not do so to not make him feel bad.

"Calm down, get into the bathroom and call Eren, tell him you gave me the keys to pick something up... and that I brought over a friend because she needed to use the bathroom." Pushing him into the bathroom you said.

Armin called Eren and said exactly what you told him, so when the door started to open, the brunette already knew and wouldn't be surprised at your presence in his place.

"Oh my god! I can finally meet you!" Eren jumped to shake your hand once he saw you, his green eyes looking you up and down and mentally taking a note agreeing with Armin's scarily accurate description of you. "Armin is so evil for not letting me, his basically brother, meet you before. I'm..."

"Eren, I know." You smiled and he nodded. After some small talk you realized that if you didn't stop him, Eren would talk your ears off. "Uhm, I think we need to get going to meet Armin, right Tiffany?"

You knocked in the bathroom door and for long minutes Armin stayed quiet, but eventually he came out, with the shoes already on.

"That is your friend?" Eren asked, probably referring to what Armin had told him in the call.

"Yeah, her name is Tiffany and she is a... uhm... childhood education major." You made the story up, knowing that behind all that foundation Armin was insanely red. "But yeah... we need to go, I don't want Armin waiting too long, it was nice meeting you Eren."

You rushed out of the door holding Armin's wrist.

"Bye!" He said in the door seeing you both run away. "Bye Tiffany!"

Once out of the sight of Eren, you both started laughing.

"Tiffany? Seriously?" Armin asked kinda out of breath. “Quit it Tiffany, that is your new persona when you are wearing lolita.” You affirmed to him while trying not to laugh. With the boots on, his coordinate looked more complete.

You two walked the longish way to the bus stop and waited while listening to Best of Blood. In the bus you taught him how to act like a noble from the eighteenth century. Initially he wanted to speak with an accent but he decided to follow Mana-sama’s example and just don’t talk at all.

“Hey uhm… I hope this doesn’t come off as weird but you are very pretty… could I possibly take you on a date?” While walking to the mystery place to told him about, a guy wearing the varsity jacket of your university approached him while you were looking t the window of a store. Armin looked at you with a mix of panic and laughter that he could barely contain on his face.

“Yo she has a boyfriend bro…” You grabbed Armin’s hand and tried to speak with a lower tone than the normal one of your voice.

“I’m so sorry bro, no hard feelings.” The guy seemed genuinely sorry and even offered his hand to dab you up as he assumed you were the alleged boyfriend and left completely embarrassed.

For a second you both stayed quiet, seeing the guy walk away.

“Did that guy just hit on me?” Armin slowly said, turning a little to see you. It felt odd for him to see you being slightly taller than you. “It appears so. too bad Tiff is cuffed.” You said showing your hand over his and laughing but he didn’t laugh. His heart was racing and there was only so much the foundation on his face could do to cover his severe blush. The awkward feeling of another man trying to take him, or more accurately, trying to take Tiffany on a date was completely erased when you jumped to help him implying that you two were dating. You implied that you two were dating.

It didn’t matter to him that you said you were Tiffany’s boyfriend, if he was a girl and you were a guy he’d date you, he’d also date you if he was a girl and you were a girl too, hell he would date you even if you were a guy because as long as it was you it didn’t matter to him what you were as long as it was you, because he liked and loved you and every aspect of your personality, plus you could really rock anything you were or decided to be.

“Yeah.” Armin managed to respond, too lost in his head to formulate a proper reply. His hand slowly grabbing yours back as you started walking —still holding hands— towards the place you had told him about.

“We’re here.” You said opening the door for him, as a true “gentleman” and he thanked you.

“Tea house.” He read from the sign in the door.

There was some French song playing in the store while you two sat down, both in the booth side of the table. The air felt tense as if both of you wanted to do something, anything, grab the other’s hand, maybe throw in for a hug, or even lean for a kiss… The growing feeling inside you both started to turn unbearable, a kind of heartache that came only from longing so hard that the months you had known each other for felt eternal and equivalent to a whole lifetime of being fathoming about the love you had for the other.

When the tea and pastries arrived, Armin saw his reflection on the golden liquid in the ceramic cup, easily mistaken his true self for Tiffany, but he still could see himself in his eyes, his self that had something against him and would not let him believe for any reason that you could like him back; there was some sort of insurrection because a strange shine in his eyes screamed for him to do something.

47 notes · View notes