Wearables Kuragehime - Jellyfish Dress Project

I first found Kuragehime (Princess Jellyfish) when I was 13 or 14 years old. That story has stuck with me ever since. Tsukimi Kurashita is probably my favorite character of all time.

I recently bought a Gem of Doll's YOSD Beth with the intent to make her into a little Tsukimi. While I'm still working on many of the details, including finding the right wigs and eyes for her, I've made some progress.

Despite the fact that I'm working on a Tsukimi Doll... of course the first thing I want to tackle is Kuranosuke's dress, the iconic first dress that Tsukimi drafts.



I've seen a few cosplayers attempt to recreate this dress, with a variety of results. I want the dress to be fairly accurate to the original concept, but I also want it to look good, especially at teeny tiny 1/6 doll scale!

I may have bitten off more than I can chew...

I want to take my time with this project, but not go so slow that I lose motivation. I can always make another dress later, once my skills have improved more, if this one doesn't go exactly as I want it.

I've bought a thin white satin fabric and some tulle to start with. I'm going to need to make the dress and a petticoat to give it the right shape. I think I'm also going to need to buy some tiny pearls, and it's possible that I'll need to find another material to make the ruffles with.

So far, the progress I've actually made on this project includes the following:

Retouching my first bodice pattern for this doll. I realized that my first pattern was a bit crooked in the process of making some dresses recently. I'm hoping the new version will be more symmetrical.



I've cut out the pattern pieces in the satin and my lining fabric (which is not actually lining fabric, it's a stiffer cotton(?) meant to provide a little more structure to the satin). I've also sewed the darts in already.



This satin frays like crazy. I basically have to drown the edges in fray check immediately after cutting or it's hopeless.

My next steps will be to hand stitch the bodice and lining together, except for the bottom edge.

If anyone has any advice, tips, recommendations, etc, for tackling the rest of this project (ESPECIALLY the skirt and those ruffles on it!!!), please let me know. Like I said, I'm in way over my head on this project and I have no idea what I'm doing! Hopefully I'll figure it out.

Thanks for stopping by. Wish me luck!​

 

Thank you everyone!!

I've made quite a bit of progress! I'm actually pretty excited about how well it's gone so far. Things aren't perfect and I've made some mistakes, but I'm fairly happy overall.

I sewed the bodice and lining together:



And then I decided to tackle the petticoat. I looked up some human-sized tutorials and based my plan off of those. I ended up making four of these guys (tulle and tissue paper):



But to be honest... I don't know if I'll actually end up using them.

The original plan was to have these four layers plus a petticoat made of the same satin as the dress. I used the same pattern from the above photo to make this, and I successfully attached it to an elastic waistband for the first time ever! (All my previous attempts at elastic have failed.)



This could honestly be a super cute skirt all on its own, and I might have to go back and make another, more simple white dress after this.

After playing around with what I had, I decided to create another layer of satin, and four more tulle/tissue paper layers. If I had thought ahead, I would have been able to attach them directly to the above skirt, but now I'll have to figure out a different solution. My current plan is to attach them with snaps:



which is still a work in progress.

At this stage, I have enough put together to do a test on the doll! (At least, one that can be photographed well.)



The bodice is currently tied to the body to keep it in place.

Beneath the petticoat is a velvety scrunchie. This will be part of the permanent outfit as well - it gives the petticoat more bounce and structure, and it looks cute from below, too. The one there is a cream color, but I'm going to be getting a white one for the final look.



The second satin layer + 4 layers of tulle and tissue paper have been sewn together. In this photo there is a tiny clothespin keeping them in place.

At this point, I'm not completely satisfied with the shape of the petticoat. I want it to flare out even a bit further, like in the original picture:



So I need to decide if I'm going to settle for what I have (which is already pretty cute), or put myself through more torture in order to create more layers.

My next steps will involve making a pattern piece for a circle skirt. I haven't decided whether I will do one or two layers of satin for the skirt, and I still haven't decided what I will do to make the ruffles. I just know that I need the skirt to be strong enough to handle the dangling pearls.

I'll still take feedback, suggestions, etc.

Thanks for reading!​

 

Thank you! I might still end up adding wire, but for now I'm happy with what I ended up with!

This is the final installment of this project journal -- I finished the dress! I'm so happy with it. I never thought it would turn out so well when I started

Let's start from where I left off. I made the pattern for the main skirt, cut it out, and hemmed it. Here it's just tied in place.



I bought some sheer, kind of shiny ribbon, stitched sets of two layers together, and scrunched them up a bunch:



And then I measured and marked, and meticulously attached the scrunchies to the skirt!



What's left is to attach the skirt to the bodice and add the detailing pearls to the dress.

At this point (not pictured), I have also sewn some trim to the back of the bodice that will behave like a corset to tie it together. I have also cut one layer of the tulle in the petticoat shorter so that it will support the dress to "float" higher in the shape I want it.

After waiting a few days for my tiny pearl beads to arrive, I started beading. And beading. And beading. It was my first time working with invisible thread. I swear it took me as long to get all those beads on as it did to make the entire rest of the dress. (Not really, but my progress on this was SO. SLOW.)

But finally. Finally! The beading was done! And the last thing I did was make a little pearl necklace.

Here's the finished thing!













The only things missing are the shoes and wig, which I might have to buy sometime. For now, I have other priorities.

Thank you all for stopping by! I hope you enjoy my project


​