Katie again, as promised, with details on the making of the boots and shirt for Kelson’s Comic-Con Golden Age Flash costume. This shouldn’t be nearly as long as the helmet post, I promise. My aim here is to show the entire process from design to display, as an aid to anyone else who might want to try something similar.

The Boots

Our original intention with the boots was to get cheap boots and make boot covers. I’d picked up a pair of costume boots for myself at Payless at a huge discount a few years ago, which was surprising given that anything in a size 10 or over is hard to find in women’s shoes. However, men’s fashion boots are even harder to find, let alone with a price restriction, and in the sale room of DSW we reformulated our plan. We thought about permanently attaching semi-rigid covers to an old pair of sneakers, but realized that tying laces would prove impossible inside a boot. So it came down to slip-ons, and we located a pair at (surprise!) Payless that fit pretty well. The only question was whether to make them permanent or removable, and the material made the decision for us.

I tend to be a cheapskate when it comes to crafts that I’m going to keep for myself. For gifts, sales, or commissions, I spare little expense; but for my own use it’s Red Heart Super Saver and Westrim beads, because I’m willing to undertake for myself the maintenance that will make the piece look like more than it is. We went to Jo-Ann with no idea what we wanted beyond “shiny bright red.” Luckily, this was during a huge fabric clearance and we found some less-than-half-price red vinyl, which settled the question of what to make the boots from. I also picked up some E-6000 cement, which claimed it would bond vinyl, and some muslin for making patterns and test covers. I didn’t intend to sew the final covers, as it would punch holes in the vinyl. But something else happened then that I did not intend: the E-6000 not only wouldn’t hold up to much pulling (even when I roughed up the shiny vinyl lightly with sandpaper), but flat-out refused to bond to the back side of the vinyl. It didn’t matter that the suggested temperature range meant I’d waited until nearly sunset to be able to use it at all. It just beaded up, dried, and fell off. So, since I didn’t want to mess with mass quantities of hot glue that I’d need to shepherd along definite “seam” lines, it was going to have to be sewing.

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