How to Make Your Astrid

Hello cosplayers!  This post will detail how I made the skirt and hoods for my Astrid.

You will need three kinds of faux fur: murky tan, blonde, and a short, coffee color.

SKIRT

For the skirt, you want to use the murky tan. I used Simplicity pattern 1663 P5.  I basically followed the directions for Skirt A; the only change was to make the bottom hem 3”.  I found it easiest to pin that on the body form. 

Make sure you fluff out the fur along the seam lines.

In staring at reference pictures, I estimated that Astrid had 8 leather strips down her skirt.  I drew out a pattern by measuring the skirt’s length.  The leather gradually gets wider toward the bottom.  The top measures 2” across, the bottom 3”.  I drew a softly expanding line between the two, rounding out the bottom.  I added an extra half-inch to the pattern for seam allowances.

After cutting out the pleather, I measured in the .5” and folded in the edges.  Sew the edges in place.  Be careful with your sewing machine!  Some spots (corners) may require hand cranking your machine. 

After all 8 were cut, I measured out where the spikes will go.  Astrid has shorter spikes on top, longer on bottom.  I measured about 4” down, then marked every 2”.  I cut a small hole with my seam-ripper and screwed the metal spikes in with a washer to hold in place. 

Next came sewing them on.  I used a Teflon foot and a leather needle, but still snapped a few, so go slowly! 

The bird skulls I bought off Etsy.  I painted them and super glued them in place.

HOODS

Astrid has two hoods.  You need the blonde fur, coffee fur, and tan and dark suede.

I’m sorry I don’t have clear measurements here: I winged it.  Using paper, I sketched out where the lower hood would go on myself and used those measurements to draw it on paper.

The paper is not perfect, but I tried to cut it out symmetrically.  Were I to do it again, I would probably draw half the pattern and cut it on the fold.  I repeated this on the black suede and sewed the two together.

The upper hood took more tries.  You see, cartoon physics aren’t like the real world: in order to make Astrid's hood sit the way it does in the movie, I had to make four pieces of half suede, half fur. The literal hood: suede top with fur bottom.  When sewn to the part sitting on the shoulders, back, and collarbone (fur top with suede bottom), I get Astrid's hood.

Sew the left 2 together.  The right 2 together. 

I sewed the two hoods together where they meet at the collarbone.  I added two suede strips to the under-hood and attached them around the metal ring.

I then super-glued the small skulls on.  Violá.

NOTE: back-heavy hoods need to be secured to the shirt.  I used velcro.