cosplay-by-play: Make Way for Mary, Queen of Scots (Part 3)

"Reign" is known for their strong female characters and a fierce wardrobe to match. This post will be dedicated to Mary's skirt.

But Mary usually just wears black, pouffy skirts. I really like this one from the episode "The Plague". It's simple but has little black flowers along the hem and scattered up the length of the skirt.

Mary in "The Plague" (photo from Reign wikia)

I bought 2.5 yards of black satin at Hobby Lobby for about $8. After watching about 20 YouTube videos on DIY gathered/full skirts, I finally said "screw it" and made a basic elastic skirt. My friend Mary taught me how to make one of these a year ago. I found a video that helped refresh my memory and got to work.

I first pinned down the "pocket" for the elastic to go through. At this point, I was still under the impression that my sewing machine was flawed. I hand-sewed across the 2.5 yds. with sore fingers (from working on my sister's cosplay the other night) to make the pocket. I then sewed along the length of the skirt to join the two edges. I figured I would give the sewing machine a try once more, and lo and behold it WORKED!! SOOOO much faster than hand sewing!

"pocket" for elastic

The next step was to run the elastic through the pocket. The measurement of the elastic was about 3 inches smaller than the circumference around my rib cage (Mary wears many of her skirts right under the bust). Because the elastic is roughly 25 inches and the skirt is 45 inches, the skirt will be gathered and full. I then cut the bottom to a floor-length and hemmed the raw edges to prevent fraying.

skirt gatherings after elastic

I bought a cool floral trim from Hobby Lobby to use as the flowers. To my disappointment, they were too small and also there was not enough of them to cover the edges of the skirt.

I decided to just skip the flowers. It would have been a nice touch, but time is running short.

I didn't like the way the skirt bunched at the waist band--it made me look super wide. After looking at more pictures of Mary, I noticed she wears a lot of belts. I think this helps blend the shirt into the skirt as well as add a nice embellishment to the outfit.

Reign's costume department (@reigncostumes on Instagram) had just posted this Dolce and Gabbana belt.

Not really my taste, but I still thought it was very "Reign"-like.

I had a wide elastic belt with studs all over it. Because I actually like this belt and didn't want to make any permanent changes, I created, what I call, a "belt sleeve." I took some scrap satin from the skirt and cut it to about the length of the belt and about 3 inches wider than the belt. I sewed the edges together and turned it inside out. I then slipped the sleeve onto the belt. Taking a gold trim, I hot glued it to the edges. I also added pearl pins I had from a flower girl basket and hot glued some more pearls to the sides.