Toeto pattern help and neoprene?

By Grassangel. 26/11/10, 04:49 pm

Firstly, I plan on doing Megurine Luka's Toeto costume and it's easy enough to make a 'catty hat', even one without the band, but I'm a bit stuck on what pattern I should use for the dress.
The main problem I have is that the dress doesn't seem to be made with a bodice piece sewn onto the skirt, which also appears to be quite (as in... should have a petticoat underneath it) full.

I've thus been looking through pattern books looking for something suitable but they're all either bodice + skirt or belted. Belted isn't too bad I suppose... the belt could always be removed.

I also have two, rather retro, dress patterns that I could use (from the 70s and 80s, both Simplicity and apparently unsearchable on the internet) however, they're about a size or two too small and I have no idea how to resize patterns beyond length. They also don't have collars on them.

So... any suggestions for patterns that I should use? Or should I use the ones I have – in which case how do I size up a pattern and add a collar to something?
References: https://2img.net/h/i7.photobucket.com/albums/y253/Grassangel/Images/3632b81b.jpg https://2img.net/h/i7.photobucket.com/albums/y253/Grassangel/Images/89a0d6fd.png
https://2img.net/h/i7.photobucket.com/albums/y253/Grassangel/Images/b0554971.jpg

Second part, totally unrelated - does anyone know of any shops that sell neoprene AKA wetsuit material? Preferably in Wellington, though I suppose online might be good too. Spotlight has been checked and they had absolutely no idea.
It's for a mermaid tail that's going to be swum in, so sheets probably aren't good unless they're a metre by two and something NOT black would be best.
The fallback, in case it's too expensive/too hard to get, is to of course butcher an existing wetsuit.