Ice Climbers process/progress

So, I made this blog before I made our Ice Climbers costumes, and I never took any progress photos during the creation of them. I'll describe what I can here, since I've had a few questions about them.



I will take a few photos of details and things so you can get a better idea of what I am talking about.

For the suits, I got a simple pajamas pattern and altered the shirt to close in the center front. I just used a drawstring pants pattern for the pants.

Everything is 100% lined because the fur I used was uncomfortably itchy. To line the top, I essentially made 2 of each jacket, one out of fur and one out of the lining fabric. I inserted the lining so the wrongs sides of each fabric were touching. since I was adding white on the edges, I sewed the lining straight to the outer fabric, and hand-stitched the white edging on the sleeves and the center front.

To make the pants with an elastic casing was a bit tricky since pants are usually fully lined. I ended up making the outer as usual, but I left a space in the crotch of the lining so I could turn it right side out.  I put the outer fabric inside the lining, RIGHT sides touching. I left a little space so I could string the elastic into the waist after I finished sewing it.
I then turned the pants right side out through the hole in the crotch, and sewed in the space for the elastic casing. I threaded the elastic into the casing, and hand hemmed the pants to finish them up.

For the shoes, I got some Uggs-style slippers at Wal-Mart, and covered them with some padding and white vinyl on the toes. To complete the shoes, I used a thin piece of upholserty foam sandwiched between a lining fabric and the white vinyl. I then handsewed it to the shoes, and hand sewed in a zipper to the back of each shoe. It took the entire 6 hour car trip to Katsucon that year to sew the tops on the shoes and the zippers.

For the hoods, I made some patterns based on measurements, tried them out in junk fabric, and then cut them out f the fur and sewed them. To make the edges extra puffy, I stuffed the white edges, and sewed with some strong thread around it to make the little puffs. I just looped it around and pulled tightly to get the puffs the size I wanted them.
For the mittens I just traced our hands and made the patterns from that. I really want to re-make the mittens if we plan on wearing these costumes again, since the pleather I used tore pretty bald in-between the thumb and fingers. I would also make the fingers roomier.

The hammers were designed by my boyfriend. We used a piece of wood as the handle, and 2 inch thick green upholstery foam from Hancock to make the base of the hammer. We skinned the hammer in 1/2" thick upholstery foam so it could be mostly hollow.  We made two intersecting pieces for the main base, and some quarters of circles to flesh it out, leaving quite a bit of empty space. We wanted the hammers to be as absolutely light as possible.
We glued the foam together with contact cement and we used some sewing pins to help hold it together
Here's a diagram of how the inside of the hammers look on the inside:

To cover them in fabric, I just pinned the fabric on and sewed it by hand.
I really wanted to take the fabric off and screen print a wood grain print on it, but I don't think I want to undo all that sewing.

That should pretty much cover everything about this costume. It's extremely hot to wear, and it pretty much a legit snowsuit, all things considered. I can't believe we wore it the first time we went to Dragon*Con.