Padme family gown
Well it's official I have finished cutting out ALL the fabric for the Padme family gown. I'm working a 12 hour day tomorrow so I can't sew it tomorrow and I have to be at work at 7a so I can't start sewing tonight, but I have Friday and Saturday before work. I'm working 46 hours this week so NOT MUCH is getting done today was my only day off and I spent much of it resting my knees and ankles (gotta love arthritis and working a retail job). I'm beginning to have doubts that they'll all be finished in time now.
21 more days
I have 3 more weeks until I fly to Dragon*Con YIKES! I finished modifying the pattern for the Padme AOTC dress and cut out the fabric for the top. Next comes some minor modification of the skirt and cutting that out then sewing then dyeing it.
I'm going to modify my front seams gown patterns to make side seams since I feel a LITTLE more comfortable modifying patterns now at least something that simple.
Still sewing on the damned pearls on the Neverending Story costume. I'm considering getting a poncho pattern for the top of the drape since there IS a seam at the elbows and then just sewing on more of the fabric underneath it to about the same length as the dress.
I still have yet to get my digital camera from my car so sorry, no pics yet!
Costume Dream List
I figured while I'm here I might as well write about what costumes I plan to start in 2005 other than the ones I've mentioned:
Bespin Leia which is pictured to the left. Great costume, requires countless hours of embroidery...that I'll start as soon as I'm ready to even THINK about more handsewing *shudders at thought*
Episode III Obi-Wan based for me I have the boots, fabric that will work but I have to lighten up the colour a bit, patterns and undertunic fabric. I need the boots to be made to fit me, a belt which I know where I'm going to get it from and a pattern and fabric for the pants. Yeah lightsaber wouldn't hurt either and I know my friend Wendy will be making me a robe since she can finish seams and I can't (don't have a serger)
Sheltay (Bail Organa's Aide) is one I'm considering....and I really think that's enough since school will be starting in a few weeks and I hope to get some commission work as well.
Oh! My tips and picture of me in my Flame Handmaiden costume made it to Maggie's site! Yay!
Update
I received my fabric for Padme's Family Gown yesterday. I'm going to wash it today and I should be receiving the pattern tomorrow when I'm going to start cutting and modifying the pattern and possibly start sewing the costume.
Still sewing on the pearls for the Childlike Empress costume (more like the Neverending Costume) and going to start cutting the fabric for the LOTR dresses as soon as I fix the sleeve for the Arwen Arch gown. All things considered, it's all moving along quite nicely. As soon as I get my digital camera out of my car, I'll start taking pictures of my progress.
4 Costumes for Dragon*Con
This is the first costume I decided to make for Dragon*Con. The Childlike Empress from The Neverending Story. In my sheer stubbornness, I wanted to make a costume that almost no one ever makes. Unfortunately, that leaves me to figure things out alone and I've only recently started sewing...I will learn one of these days...really! The dress itself was really simple to make, I used Simplicity 7964 view C, and modified the pattern to have a scoopneck instead of a v-neck. White fabric found relatively inexpensively since I was working at Jo-Anns at the time of the purchase. Now if you take a look closely, you see there are pearls all over the bodice...yep handsewn pearls. This is the kicker. I'm actually giving up on a pattern and starting toput them on there randomly because it's going to save me time and energy and I don't have that much longer left to finish it and the rest of the costumes (Dragon*Con is Sept 2-5 2005). The drape will be a little harder to figure out because I can't figure out if she actually has SLEEVES or if its just a full drape. There aren't any really good reference photos. I found a trim for the neck that will work. Too expensive, but I didn't have to get that much of it. My friend Tara has a sodering iron so I'm going to see if I can find wire thin enough to string the beads on for the head piece and improvise the brooch type thing on the forehead and attach the pearls to it. Bobby Pins will hopefully help keep the head piece on. The hair is not difficult, it's a half pony tail and then at the bottom, a full pony tail.
This is a dress from Lord of the Rings that was never actually seen in the movie. I saw it on Maggie's Costuming Site http://www.costumersguide.com and fell in love with it. Fabric seems to be either a sheerish blue or a blue/purple cross dyed fabric. There's some gold embroidery at the neckline and on the upper sleeves along with a belt made of multiple gold strands connected in the middle with a type of knot or something. There is a pink lining for the sleeves and bottom of the dress. My theory (as wrong as it may be) is that the overfabric is translucent and that the color changing effect is mostly from the pink lining. Again, could be completely wrong. I bought some Shantung from Jo-Anns that's a cross dye light blue and purple that will work. Not the best, but it'll do. I also bought a pink lining from Jo-Anns as well as a Simplicity pattern which I'm going to have to find again. The problem with the pattern is that it's a front seam pattern, while the dress isn't. It has the upper and lower sleeve thing though so it makes it easier for me. Unfortunately while working on the muslin, I found the upper sleeves don't fit me and the pattern isn't generally true to size so I'm going to have to make it bigger. I don't know how to make a lining either, so that's going to be interesting...seam ripper will be my new best friend. I'm not good enough at modifying patterns to make the sleeves on my own otherwise I'd use the same pattern I did for the Childlike Empress except use the V neck this time. Not sure if I can take the sleeves from one pattern and use it on another...maybe I'll do another muslin and try. For the belt, I'm skimping on details again. I just bought a really fat gold cord trim and that's just going to have to do for now.
I spoke recently with my best friend, Misty and have gotten her to go to Dragon*Con with me. This will be interesting because she's a mormon and there's a lot of alcohol and debauchery there...although not essential to participate in. So after talking to her and to another friend of mine who has gone before (since I haven't) named Wendy, we decided it would be more fun for Misty to be in costume even though she's not as huge of a fan as I am. So I had her look at the Padawan's Guide (another site from Maggie) http://www.padawansguide.com and she picked out this costume. This was Padme's family gown from Episode II which was cut from the final movie, but shows up in the deleted scenes on the DVD. Maggie's site is a godsend people! With all the reference pictures and other people writing in their comments and how they made their costumes, I can actually make this for Misty. Thanks to Jennifer (Ferd) for the whole write up and pictures of the pattern modification! I bought fabric for this on ebay and bought dye as well. I also found labradorite strands on a link from the Padawans Guide to make the trim. This is one of those costumes that if I could pull it off, I'd want to wear it as well, but alas, I'm too fat. Still waiting for the fabric to arrive in the mail.
Eowyn's White Wool gown from The Two Towers...Misty liked it a lot, so I'm going to make this for her too. She said it didn't have to be exact so it's not going to be wool (she would fry, she lives in Arizona!) and no sleeve lining. I bought the trim for the neck and arms and am using crepe backed satin for the dress, except I'm using the crepe side because the white velvet is too sheer. For the belt, I found a ribbon that doesn't quite look right or wide enough, but it'll do and I'm using puffy paint for the embroidery at the neck (I'm doing the same thing for the embroidery on the Arch dress) Eh people will get the general idea. Same problem with arch gown...side seams, but the pattern I found has front seams and a zipper...don't know how to do those yet either so again, my seam ripper and I will get to know each other very well. I've cut out the pattern, have all the fabric, just need to get started on it.
New Blog
I'm starting a costuming blog now. Keep up with all my costume progress! Pictures will be included of what I'm doing and how my costumes look! I'm currently in the process of making 4 new costumes for Dragon*Con and I have people asking me all the time how it's going, so here's a quick and easy way to find out!
This is me from Shore Leave 2005 in my Flame Handmaiden costume. I had help making it (THANK YOU TANYA!) and I've received many compliments on it! I made it from a silk velvet that I ordered online, used a pattern for a Medieval Knight costume, altered the pattern for the sleeves (OK Tanya did that with me too hehe), sewed it up (again with Tanya) and we dyed it using RIT Tangerine Orange and Yellow dye. We dipped the entire dress in the yellow except for the very bottom, let it soak up, then quickly dipped the bottom to get a lighter yellow fade. Then we drained the sink, put the dress on a hanger upside down and make the orange dye. We dipped in the hood past the shoulders and left it in there, then took foam brushes and brushed the dye down (well up) into the yellow. After a while, we emptied the sink again and flipped the dress over right side up and let it dry that way, which helped with the fade effect. Then I bought red crepe backed satin fabric and made a belt with it. I bought a red turtleneck shirt, bought fabric to match it, made a hood, extended the sleeves and VOILA! There's still a little more to be done (I need to put interfacing on the hood to make it a visor like and put trim on the sleeves). The dress sleeves was the hardest part because it had to be done inside out...to this day I can't remember how we figured it out, but we did, and everything turned out really well! Unfortunately, I washed it recently and the nice pale yellow I had at the bottom is now an orangey-yellow :-( I might use dye remover and dip it in yellow again and then just dry clean it from now on. I don't wear it often enough to be incredibly expensive to dry clean.
