A couple of weeks ago I attended Worldcon, and although it was held online due to the ongoing pandemic, I entered the virtual masquerade with my Yennefer of Vengerberg cosplay. And I won a prize!
I won the prize for technical excellence in detailing. Apart from wearing the costume to PAX in 2018, I haven’t entered it in any competitions. I’ve been missing being able to cosplay this year, so this was a lot of fun despite being in lockdown. You can see more of my costume in the video below, where I go into detail about the process and the sewing.
This cosplay is based off Yennefer’s costume from the Witcher III: Wild Hunt video game. I really love her character – she’s such a boss.
While I made this cosplay a few years ago, I haven’t really shared it online that much, so I thought some people might be interested in the process of sewing it.
Sewing the Yennefer cosplay
I knew Yennefer’s jacket would be difficult to sew as it had a lot of detail. I picked up a pattern from Simplicity and figured I could amend it. Finding the fabric was also tricky and I used Spotlight online to buy a patterned velveteen, which turned out perfectly for the jacket. The fake fur
was from a roll purchased in store.
One of the things that was really hard to sew in this costume is the fake leather material. It took me a few attempts to get sewing with it correctly because it kept sticking, and I didn’t realize that you need a Teflon foot in order to sew this fabric. So that was a big learning experience for me.
The sleeves had a lot of attention to detail with the trimmings, and I scoured Spotlight and Lincraft for the perfect trims. Don’t tell anyone, but this is secretly the stuff you put down the side of your tracksuit pants for football supporters. I hand sewed the pearls. The white stitching on the sleeves was relatively easy using a long stitch on the sewing machine.
The buttons are also hand sewn and they’re sewn to mimic the buttons that are in the video game. One of the things I learned making this costume was that clearly a man had designed her character as the buttons were all on the wrong side of the top for women!
I made the pattern myself for the collar, drawing the rough shape of an air travel pillow. I sewed it together using iron-on interfacing to strengthen it a little, while tucking in the cord that ties it together. I also made sure that a lot of the fur wasn’t getting caught in the seams, using a trick I learned making teddy bears.
The main gloves are my own as gloves are difficult to make, but I added a glove cover made out of fake leather and fur, which slip on nicely over the gloves.
The pants are actually a pair of fisherman’s pants. I was running out of time when I was making these and I desperately didn’t have any elastic I had a lot of leftover fake leather material from the jacket. So I used it to turn these into a very comfortable pair of pants. They’ve got all the white lines long the legs because this is what’s in Yennefer’s costume in the video games. The ends tuck into the knee-high boots which I purchased on sale from Myer.
The Yennefer of Vengerberg costume took me three days to sew! I was so pleased with how it turned out, and I got a lot of photos taken when I wore it to PAX.
As for my next cosplay… I have some ideas, but I’m waiting for the world to settle down a bit before I start any grand plans. Instead, I’ve been sewing lots of small objects – bags, book covers, and facemasks.
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