Sailor Moon was my jam growing up. I watched it every day after school, and particularly identified with Sailor Jupiter. While she and Sailor Mars both had a very "take no crap" attitude, Jupiter was not only introduced as protecting someone but was also portrayed very tomboy-ish in her behaviors and interests, something that rang true for me as an awkward pre-teen (and let's face it, also into the teen years).

With Sailor Moon Crystal being a thing now, I started rewatching the old series and rediscovered my love for the show and the characters. When the itch for a new costume hit, it was obvious that I had to pay homage to the badass I had loved in my childhood.

This costume was deceptively difficult. At first glance, it's a leotard with sleeves, a collar, some bows, and a skirt. Piece of cake, right? No, not right. Very not right. It turns out that even with the magic of 4-way stretch fabric, body suits are hard. While the stretch gives you some leeway in your fit, the stretch also over-emphasizes imperfections in a way that you can't see until you actually put the mostly-finished piece on. You'll notice that is the voice of experience. That voice will tell you the one you see in the picture is actually leotard number 3, and I still intend to remake it yet again sometime in the future.

The leotard was created using the Crystal Lake Skating Outfit Green Pepper pattern, commonly recommended for this project. The base leotard goes together easily, and I'd definitely recommend this one to anybody who wants to make their own Sailor Scout uniform. I skipped the steps about the sleeves, and instead of sewing up the crotch seam as instructed, I folded the edges over, stitched them in place, an added snaps so that I could more easily go to the restroom while wearing the costume. The difficulty came in creating the top part, where the under-bust seam is located. If you've never sewn an inverted corner before, it goes completely against intuition and your normal practices when lining up fabric to stitch together. I've done the before, but for whatever reason I couldn't wrap my brain around making this one work. The first attempt was a disaster; I didn't line it up correctly and it ended up off center and with a weird pucker. The second was better, but still not great. So I went a different way.

The top part of the Sailor Scout uniform appears to be raised from the rest of the suit, so I opted to add a layer of fleece between two layers of the stretch material. I sewed a layer of the stretch fabric directly to the fleece right sides together, so when it was turned right side out the seam was hidden. I then top-stitched that pieces onto the leotard to attach them. Boom, no more inverted corner adventures.

The puffed up shoulder pads were another one of those things that shouldn't have been difficult, but I had to remake them due to complete and utter failings the first time around.

You'll notice there's roughly half an inch of fabric still exposed off to the side of the smallest roll. That is what was used to attach the shoulder piece to the leotard body. It is incredibly important to have this edge!

Each shoulder piece was formed from a 17"x7" piece of fabric folded in half lengthwise. On this folded piece, I marked a 1" height (from the fold) on each end, and cut the fabric on an angle from both ends to the middle of the long edge. When unfolded, this creates a diamond that is 2" wide on each end and 7" wide in the middle. The 2" ends were sewn together, and then the fabric was refolded in its original orientation.

To create each channel, I stitched 1" from the folded edge (and then 1" from the previously sewn line) all the way around the ring of fabric, tapering the lines together at the narrow point, and leaving a 1" gap in each seam to allow for stuffing. I filled each channel loosely with polyfill starting with the furthest channel, and sewed each one shut before continuing to the next one.

The collar was pretty simple. I started out with two rectangles of my green fabric measuring 16" x 24" each. On one, I pinned a white satin ribbon (wrong side up; correct side was too shiny) 1.5" away from the edge to form a stripe, taking care to fold it evenly at the corners. I topstitched it in place along both edges of the ribbon (rather than one seam right down the middle), then repeated the process for the second stripe, with a 1/2" gap between the two. With the stripes in place, I stitched the two green layers together, right sides facing each other, along the three edges next to the stripes (leaving the 4th side completely open).

To shape the neck opening, I enlisted a second set of hands and held the piece up to my back where I wanted it to hit, and used a pin to mark where the base of my neck was. Turning the piece inside out again, I used a chalk pencil to sketch the curve on one side, tapering the line towards the end where the stripe began. I then folded it in half and placed pins along the line through all of the layers so that I could make a symmetrical line on the other side. After stitching along the newly drawn lines (leaving a gap to turn it right-side-out, obviously) I did a test fit to make sure the shape was right, adjusted the seams as necessary, and then trimmed away the excess fabric. It's also worth noting that clipping the curve before stitching up the gap was an absolute must; the collar wouldn't lay flat across the shoulders and back without that!

To make the skirt, I started with a strip of fabric that was 90" long and 12" wide (after hemming). I used the pin method for creating pleats rather than drawing lines. I marked the edges of a box pleat at the center that was 2.5" wide at the top and 3.5" wide at the bottom with pins. From there I alternated marking 3" then 2" along the top out from the edges of that pleat, and 2" then 3" along the bottom. This creates pleats that are 3" wide at the bottom and 2" wide at the top when folded. I literally used every pin I own to form all of the pleats, then ironed the heck out of it. Once the pleats were formed, with all of the pins still in place, I held the skirt up just below my belly button (higher than a normal skirt would sit, but approximately in line with where the top of the skirt will need to hit over my hips to get the "V" shape") and marked with even more pins where the two ends met in the back to stitch them together. The seam became the center of an inverted box pleat.

With the skirt actually a skirt and not just a strip of fabric, I laid it down to mark the V shape out. On the front, I measured up 8" from the bottom of the skirt in the center and marked it, then drew a straight line from that point both ways to the edges of the hip of the skirt (making a triangle at the top of the skirt). I did the same on the back, but measuring up 9" instead. Cutting along the lines gives the patented "V" shape to the front and back.

For the hip roll that was attached to the top of the skirt, I cut two pieces of the spandex material that were 20" x 5". For each piece, I folded it in half, and sketched out a rounded shape that was 1.5" tall on each end and went to the edge of the fabric in the middle, with one end having a slight inverted corner drawn towards the crease. After cutting both pieces out following the sketched curve, I stitched the two together at that inverted corner edge. When you refold the now joined pieces, it creates a v at that seam! I stitched along the edges, leaving a 2" gap in the middle on each side and leaving the ends open. Using the open ends and the gaps, I lightly stuffed the tube with polyfill, then closed up the gaps (but left the ends open). From there I attached the skirt to the hip roll, taking care to line up the point of the hip roll with the V of skirt front. At the back, I cut the ends of the roll to the appropriate length, fed one into the other to encase it, and hand-sewed them together. It wasn't the prettiest, but the bow covers it.

The bow is two sets of rectangular fabric, one set at 12" x 10" (the main bow) and one at 14" x 8" (the "fake" bow that actually becomes the tails of the main bow), with one piece of lightweight fusible interfacing for each. Along the long side of each rectangle I marked 1" in from the edge at the middle and drew a line from that mark to the two nearest corners, cutting along that line to give the rectangles a more bow-like shape. The interfacing was fused onto the back side of one piece of each set before the pieces were sewn together with right sides facing each other, with a small gap at the middle on what would become the bottom of the bow so I could turn the bow right-side-out.

With both bow pieces made, I laid the 12" piece over the 14" piece and bunched them together at the middle to make the bow shape. Once I was happy with how they looked, I ran a needle with thick thread through the middle of it a few times to hold them in place. I made a small strip of fabric to wrap around the middle (actually a tube so that the edges were finished and seamless), and hand-sewed it closed around the bow. Repeat for bow #2!

Sailor Jupiter has green boots. As lovely as they are, I didn't want to spend $70 on exact replicas of them because, let's face it, they don't exactly go with my every day wardrobe and that's a lot of cash to shell out for shoes I'm only going to wear with a costume. I opted instead to try to learn a new skill: making my own shoe covers. This allows me to still wear the shoe like an every day thing, then transform it temporarily for the sake of the costume.

I couldn't find any boots I liked that were the right shape, so I started out with some black pumps. Who doesn't need a good pair of black pumps? I started the process by putting a shoe on, then gracefully sandwiching my leg between two layers of muslin, doing my best to pin the two layers together along the middle of my foot as tightly as I could (without stabbing myself). After I had pinned around the entirety of my foot and as far up my leg as I believed the shoe should go (leaving a gap around the heel itself to make it easier to put on and take off), I took a marker and drew a line directly over the pins on both sides of the fabric. After removing the pins and the fabric from my foot, I retraced the line I had drawn and smoothed it out, then cut along the lines to make my pattern pieces. The cool part is I can now use this pattern for any shoe cover that uses these pumps as their base!

Since I needed the boots to match my skirt and collar, I used the same fabric as I had on those pieces. Using the muslin pattern pieces, I cut out two of each piece (flipping the muslin over to make the mirrored version for the other foot). The two layers for each shoe were stitched together along the top and the bottom, with the back left open. I folded over the exposed edges that would be surrounding the heel to give them a finished look, and hemmed the top of the cover as well. To the back of each over I attached a black invisible zipper to keep the look clean as well as help with easy use.

To create the laces, I made a separate rectangular piece of green fabric with hemmed edges and punched 8 black grommets into it (4 along each long side). I attached the piece to the shoe cover, then threaded white cording through the grommets. I couldn't thread it before attaching the piece (which would have been easier) because getting the correct tension without it being on my leg would have been impossible. The goal of the laces was to have them be purely decorative and not serve an actual function, as needing them to function would have required major reinforcement of the fabric in that area. Since I have the zipper, functioning laces weren't needed.

The wig I used as my base was the Jeannie in Dark Brown from Arda Wigs. I liked this one because it came with the separate ponytail clip which not only makes styling easier (it's much easier to fix a ponytail that's a couple of inches long than one that's several feet...pulling that much hair through an elastic without tangling it is a nightmare!), but packing it is 100x easier too. The downside was that I had to cut my own bangs, and cutting wigs is terrifying. Spoiler: that hair doesn't grow back.

Because of the weight of the wig, I added multiple wig clips to the inside of the cap near the hairline. The wig came with a small comb already sewn in, but it's not nearly enough to keep the whole thing in place. One clip went in on either side of the comb, and another on each side on the ear flaps. This distributed the weight of the wig pretty evenly, as well as eliminated any gapping that was initially present over the ears.

Arda wigs are heat-resistant, meaning heat styling is a viable option for reshaping them. To form the bangs, I put the wig on and marked with a bobbypin the length I needed to trim. After securing it on a wig head, I separated out the pieces I needed to leave long on the sides and cut up to 1/2" below the pin on the rest, knowing that I'd lose some length to the styling process. I then used small foam rollers, a hair dryer on low, and hairspray to make the bangs separate and poof up a bit away from the middle.

The tiara and earrings came from the Catzia's Collectibles Etsy shop. The tiara is actually made of brass and is incredibly comfortable to wear. I highly recommend it!

The ponytail was too long as is, which was really unfortunate because I loved the way it was shaped originally. To shorten it, I again put the wig on, clipped the ponytail into place, and used a bobbypin to mark where the longest layer should be cut to. This didn't need to be exact because the position of the ponytail will vary every time I put it on, so the awkward "reach behind myself and try to do this in a mirror" limitation wasn't so bad. After take it back off and securing it to a post so I could work, I separated it from top to bottom (rather than from side to side) into three layers. Starting at the bottom layer I cut it just shy of where the bobbypin was placed, then used a razor comb to thin it out and give a more natural shape to it. I then clipped that layer out of the way, released the middle layer, and repeated the process (ultimately repeating it again for the third layer). Each layer started approximately 6" above the previous one.

The ponytail holder is simply a set of wooden balls I found at Michael's that were painted with a mixture of glossy acrylic paints to achieve the right color. The balls also came with a hole predrilled in the flat end, which I filled with hot glue and shoved the end of a black elastic cord into. The piece is simply wrapped around the ponytail base (on the actual wig, not the separate clip) tightly, with the balls twisted around each other, so the friction of the elastic holds it in place.