Character: Puchiko/Petit-ko/Petit Charat
Anime: DiGi Charat, CFA Cosplay Party
Worn At: Anime Evolution
Status: Active

Introduction: For a few months I concitered cosplaying Puchiko. She was short, and I'm short. It worked. But the costume kept being added and removed from my "possibilities" list. Eventually, my friends wanted to put together a DiGi Charat group and needed a Puchiko. I immediately volunteered to be Puchiko. After a day of shopping and a weekend of intense sewing, Puchiko was complete!

How it was Made:
- Shirt: I had a shirt pattern lying around so I used that for the shirt. For the petit look, I made it size medium, so it looks huge on me. For the fabric, a 100% cotton fabric was chosen for comfort and to reduce transparency.
- Sailor collar: While wearing the shirt, I determind the measurments for the sailor collar. With a pen and ruler, I drew out the pattern onto the blue fabric, cut it out, sewed it together and hand sewed some parts to the white shirt. A white strip of fabric was used for the white line. The green bow was made by sewing two strips of green fabric, crossing them, tieing another strip between them and then hand sewing it in place.
- Pants/Tail: I used a basic pants pattern for these, but used a large size, then lined the waist and pant legs with elastic. A bow was sewn onto the back. I then made the tail pattern, stuffed it, hand sewed brown felt strips for the stripes and hand-sewed that at the base of the bow.
- Cap/Hair: The cap was made with a Simplicity pattern. After making the cap, I sewed together 3D pyramids for the ears and hand-sewed those onto the cap. I then hand sewed brown felt strips for the stripes and used a brown Crayola felt for the smaller designs. The flower was made with white and orange felt and hand sewn on. Because I have short hair, I had to sew yarn hair onto the cap. The yarn was sewn onto strips of fabric, which were then sewn inside the cap. The ends were tied with elastics and the bells were tied in place with extra yarn/
- Boots: I altered my boot cover pattern for these, making it so the peice that covered my feet was smaller and the leg peice was wider. The foot peice was stuffed and paws were hand sewn in. Afterwards, the base of the boot covers were sewn directly onto a pair of slippers (with thick rubber soles) to make them complete boot covers. Afterwards, more brown felt strips were hand sew in.
- Kitty Plush: Friend made it for me as a Birthday present. ^_^

Hardest Task: THE BOOT COVERS! ... Well, actually they're not boot covers... They're boots! The covers were sewn directly onto slippers I had so I didn't need to wear shoes with them. Hand sewing that took two freak'n hours and because my needle was forced to go through a lot of fabric at once, it put a lot of pressure on my fingers, especially my thumb. Favorite Aspect: I love how the sailor collar turned out. I expected to make a lot of mistakes on it, since it was my first try, but I didn't encounter any real problems. I did have to remove the first attempt at the front peice, but it wasn't a major setback and didn't cause any problems in the making of the collar. Flaws: I hate the cap. I really, really, really hate the cap. The ears were placed in the center of the cap, but I should've moved them more forward. You can hardly see the ears and details because of the way I have to wear it, so I'm not pleased with that. Also, the yarn hair... I hate it. I'll probably eventually buy hair extensions and redo it. The yarn looks weird, is too warm and doesn't match my hair color. *sigh* Horror Stories: When I wore the costume to Anime Evolution, my friends and I decided to travel a bit around Vancouver to other anime stores. Unfortunately the boot covers didn't properly support my feet and thereforth was very painful. At first it was just a pain in the soles of my feet, but it became a very painful ankle problem that prevented me from walking on my own for a while.