Vampire Eras, Finished

Here are our vampire dresses, finished! Mine was made using the "Shakespeare in Love" style Elizabethan pattern by Simplicity, now out of print. My sister's is the Josephine-style Regency pattern by Butterick. I took the train off and raised the neckline on hers, and skipped the skirt's cartridge pleating on mine, but other than that I followed the patterns pretty closely. The black crushed velvet is fantastic stuff we bought online from Sy Fabrics, the colored organza fabrics were clearance table finds at JoAnn's (blue--leftover from the Beauxbatons collars) and Hancock's (purple). Probably my favorite fabric was my underskirt and sleeves, which was a black crushed organza that I found on the Walmart $1 table. Bottom line cost on both gowns was probably $25 each. Not too bad!

Vampire Eras, Step One!

So this year's crazy Halloween theme centers around vampires. (Basically, my friends and I just wanted an excuse to make cool, gothic-inspired dresses.) We originally planned to be a bit more matchy-matchy, but it's evolved into kind of a neat idea--each one of us will be wearing a style from a different era. So perhaps were got stuck with the fashion sense of the time we originally lived in pre-vampire? Anyway, my friend (and fellow Beauxbaton) is doing Tudor with a twist, my sister is going Regency (possibly with a miniskirt!), and I'm going Elizabethan. Mainly so I can recycle my costume to be Titania for our school's Shakespeare carnival too. =)

Anyway, here's today's progress--the embroidery for my bodice. Not much to show for hours of watching my Bernina struggle with metallic thread and rethreading every three minutes or so. (Thread's fault, not the machine's, I think.) But I'm quite happy with the finished product. All three dresses will have black crushed velvet bodices, with organza skirts in a jewel tone layered over black lining.

Fleur Costuming 101

Since I've had a few requests for more specifics on this costume, here's some help, pattern and fabric-wise, for those who may want to make their own.

Fabric:
The blue silk-like material for the dresses is called silkessence, and I've only found it at JoAnn's. It's fabulous stuff--washes and wears like a dream, doesn't require much ironing, and it's CHEAP! (We got ours on sale for like $1.50 per yard--always use a coupon!) A great alternative to cheap costume satin, which I despise using. =)

The collars and cuffs are out of organza--I got it at JoAnn's too, and the color was called old blue, I believe? It was on clearance for $1 per yard.

Patterns:
For the dress, we used this pattern, believe it or not--McCall's costume pattern 4889. We changed the neckline to a simple round one for the peter pan collar, and combined the upper and lower sleeve into one pattern piece. Oh, and made it knee length. I spent a lot of time making the collar "just right" by looking at screen caps from the film, but honestly, nobody is going to see it with your cape on! So save yourself some trouble. As long as your pattern is empire waisted with a flared skirt and long sleeves, you'll have the right look.

For the cape, we used a pattern for a capelet (McCall's 5006), but it had shoulder seams I had to draft out. Honestly, you're better off just cutting out a circle (well, it's more oval-ish). Ours are almost a full circle and that's something I'd change--I'd cut away the front edges (so it's a more 3/4 circle) rather than trying to have them meet. We were constantly flipping them back so you could see the collars of our dresses underneath.

I'll put the underdress on my dressform and take some photos soon so you can see that without the cape. Right now I'm in the middle of making two vampire dresses--yes, Twilight fever has caught us all, hasn't it? =)

Harry Potter Mania!

Well, even though I'm not a big Harry Potter fan I wanted to say that I'd been to at least one launch party. And why not go to the last one and go big? So my friend and I went as two of the lovely ladies of Beauxbatons. She made our fantastic hats (which you can't fully appreciate from this angle!) and I did our capes. Ironically, we got the most compliments on our shoes! (Which were cool, but the easiest part of our costumes--a fantastic find at Famous Footwear on clearance!) I'm the Fleur on the right--this is the great life-size Hagrid backdrop they had at the BYU Bookstore party.

So we spent the evening party hopping, and getting our pictures taken with a bunch of people. We were even finalists at the Barnes and Noble costume contest in Orem (if you any of you in the final group read this and took a picture, email us--ours didn't turn out!) It was a blast and now I have a Harry Potter costume to add to my overstuffed costume closet! If you are attempting your own Fleur Delacour costume and have questions on what we did pattern-wise, please post and I'll be happy to help you out.

Veils, veils, veils!

I've been tie-dying a bit lately, and am selling my first batch of veils for the year on eBay (follow the link to the right to see what I have up for sale right now). I've just been doing some basics right now, but am excited to get into mixing more of my own colors. I think it's good therapy for those of us who are perfectionists, since you can never tell how one is going to turn out--so you just have to let it go and hope for the best!

Dance Costume Marathon

Well, here I go again! Here is a pic of the latest sew-a-thon--new handkerchief skirts for our dance troupe. The tie-dye tops and scarves we did last fall, but wanted something to dress them up a bit. Since we all did different colors, the trick was finding a fabric to "match" everyone. I found this great fabric at JoAnn's on clearance--you can't tell in this photo, but it is a really nice heavy chiffon, with this great galaxy motif embroidered in variegated metallic thread and tiny multi-colored sequins sewn into it. The skirt is just your basic circle skirt, only cut in a 58" square. The waist opening is a 7" radius circle, and I cut a 3" casing of the material to accomodate a 3/4" elastic. Roll-serge the hem and you're done! I love these skirts because they're easy to make and they work for a variety of sizes--the only alterations I had to do were lengthening or shortening the length, since I cut the waistline a little large so it gathers in a bit.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Gold Dress Finished

After someone just asked me about the sleeves on my gold Elizabeth dress, it occured to me that I never posted a completed photo! Unfortunately, the night I wore it we were in quite a hurry getting ready, so it's not the best--but at least you can see how it came together. I really need to finish the panniers to wear underneath it, and hem it properly--as you can see it's dragging a bit here. Next time I have my colonial corset on, I'll take some proper photos!