Dream Bee — Bee and Puppycat
Bee and Puppycat is a visual treat of a show, and when it comes to cosplay, there’s no shortage of incredible outfits and designs to choose from. When we decided on a Bee and Puppycat cosplay group for Dragon*Con 2023, Thea gave me free reign to choose whichever Bee design I wanted to sew for her. To say there were lots of strong contenders would be an understatement, but I ended up deciding on an outfit from Bee’s dream sequence, seen in the very first episode of the YouTube series. In a separate compilation of the full YouTube series, you also get a look at a similar, more ethereal design, complete with a full length gown and sparkly accessories. Since we’d be wearing this during the hottest weekend of the year, we decided to pull favorite elements from both designs to make something wearable, yet appropriately magical.
Thanks to my tendency to grab Simplicity patterns whenever Joann is a running a steep discount on them, I have a reasonable stash of patterns and blocks to use as a jumping off point on most of my projects. However, after seeing Annika Victoria’s video on Tailornova, a digital pattern design software that uses your own measurements, I’d been itching to try it out on something — a bespoke magical girl dress with some specific design elements I wanted to try out felt like the perfect excuse. After taking Thea’s measurements, I went in and decided on full bishop sleeves, princess seams, an invisible zipper, and a full circle skirt ending just at the knee.
Tailornova patterns also include full sewing instructions; however, for something this straightfoward, I have a tendency to skip all instructions entirely and just follow my heart when it comes to assembly, so I can’t speak on how well those instructions actually work. I have seen a handful of comments saying the instructions can be a little wonky, so be aware of that!
For fabric, I picked up some light blue peau de soie from Fabric Wholesale Direct after ordering a few swatches. One thing I love about ordering from FWD is they recommend matching thread and zippers on fabric pages, so you know everything will be the same shade when it arrives. For the unreasonable perfectionist (i.e. me), this is deeply satisfying!
After a quick mockup to make sure everything would fit Thea, I started with the bodice. All raw edges were separately overlocked to prevent fraying, then I assembled and pressed my bodice pieces. I gathered up the wrist of my bishop sleeves and attached them to my bias-cut cuff. This fabric ended up being a bit too thick for the level of gathers I was doing, so next time I’ll probably angle my sleeve inwards towards the wrist to reduce some bulk without losing too much volume. After attaching my cuff, I gently pressed my seams upwards to keep everything in place and enhance the volume.
Next up was the full circle skirt. Tailornova divided the skirt into 3 pieces — one front piece and two back pieces. Raw edges were again overlocked, then I added some pockets to my side seams. The battery pack for Thea’s wig would need to go somewhere, so I measured out some scrap fabric against the battery pack, sewed it into a little pouch, then basted it into the seam allowance of the skirt towards the back — this way, the battery pack could go from the wig, down the back, and safely nestle in the pouch.
Once the rest of the skirt was assembled, it was sewn to the bodice with both back seams open to allow for the invisible zipper. I’ve used many invisible zippers over the years, but I’ve never properly inserted one so it was actually invisible. These two videos were great for clearly explaining it, and I’m happy to report I finally installed a beautifully invisible zipper!
After the zipper, the neckline was finished using the facings provided by Tailornova. I attached interfacing to my facings, then overlocked the raw edges; however, this is a much better method for giving a clean edge on interfaced facings! I then attached my facings to the neckline, understitched on my machine, then slipstitched by hand to secure the facing down. Considering my limited experience with both facings and invisible zippers, I’m quite pleased with my results.
The last thing to do was let the dress hang for a few days, then even out the hemline. Since I (still) don’t have a dressform, I ended up laying the dress out on the floor and measuring out from the waistline to even my hemline. It didn’t not work, but my skirt is definitely a touch shorter in the back than the front. Oops! Since it’s a knee length skirt, this isn’t particularly damning, but there’s certainly room for improvement next time. I overlocked my raw edge, then used this method for hemming.
For the wig, Thea and I really wanted to make something delightfully absurd. Rather than the stars dangling from the buns, Thea went with a glowing gemstone look. We ended up splitting the difference on the two hairstyles above, and picked up Epic Cosplay’s Luna Wig Set. Thea resin-casted clear gems filled with holographic glitter and programmed LEDs to cycle through mulitcolor lights. Some of the gems were glued into the buns, and the rest were left to hang throughout the rest of the wig. The buns also gave Thea an optimal place to store most of the wiring.
I was working on this costume while working on Sailor Skeletor for the Dragon*Con FNCC and my own Temp-Bot cosplay (which went so horribly awry, I ditched Temp-Bot entirely and pivoted to Toast the day before the con), so there’s definitely room for a few upgrades — I’d love to revisit this dress with some celestial body chains and maybe a petticoat with some appropriately themed fabric….
