Steampunk Bunny

Many years ago, I made a bunch of stuffed bunnies. Like, one for every little girl I knew, and a few for some of the big girls, too. I made them from muslin, because I wanted a simple bunny, and then I dressed them up. A few years ago, I made a second batch, this time out of flannel. Of course I have some of them around the house. I've even entered one in the fair.

This spring, after attending the Wild Wild West Convention, a steampunk convention held at Old Tucson, I got the itch to play with some more steampunk. I don't know why it is, but every time I think about steampunk making, I have a hard time thinking about it on ME. Anyway, this little bunny came into view, and told me the SHE wanted to play steampunk. Well, that sounded like fun to me.

Well, I thought about what I wanted to make for some clothes, and it really wasn't too hard.

Bunny in a corset? yeah.

I put together the basic dress from the pattern, with a few modifications. Instead of elastic at the wrists, I took tucks so that it would give a more mutton leg shape to the sleeves. You can kind of see it in the right sleeve on the bunny. The dress IS long but I am going to work on some hook & eyes so that it can be fastened up to show the bloomers. I wanted it to look like she was wearing boots, so I modified the bloomers to have "feet" on them. Brown, boot-looking feet.

The boots still need some work.

My plan is to use either a very narrow ribbon or some cross stitch floss and add laces to the boots. That will let them tighten up and look more boot-ish. I would be able to loosen the laces to take the them off if I wanted to, as well.

Finally, I had fun making a corset for this bunny. I really love the ringed fabric for the corset, and the decorative hook fasteners. I doubt that they would truly be strong enough for a real corset, but they are quite decorative on the bunny... and I like the scale of them as well.

Proud of how the corset turned out!

I pretty much had to wing it on the corset. It is lined, and also has a layer of thin batting. A real corset would have a layer of canvas in it, and boning as well. Just didn't think either was necessary for the bunny. It is laced up the back, though.

get those laces tight

Now that the garments are basically complete, I have some decorating to do! I am going to look for some chain, I think, to drape around that corset, and hang little things off of. I'm also thinking of some kind of wrist ties. Leather maybe, or the brown fabric to match her boots. That would show the mutton leg sleeve a little more. And then, some head gear. hmmm a small hat perhaps? Or perhaps a feathery fascinator...