The green velvet dress is finished!

After what seems like days of working on those enormous sleeves, the green velvet dress is finally finished!

Just in time too - Faerierhona's coming over to collect it tomorrow, and it's going to be worn on New Year's Eve.

I'm not kidding about the sleeves though. It took me longer to sew on all that trimming and get the sleeves finished, than it did to make the whole of the rest of the dress!

I can't express to you how pleased I am with this.

It couldn't be further removed from the sort of clothes I normally sew, but it's been an absolute joy to work on.

Green velvet overdress...

I didn't post about this yesterday because it was too dark to take pictures - and what's the point of posting about a lovely dress without a picture?

Here's where I'm up to with Faerierhona's New Year party dress:

The gold underdress is completely finished.
All of the seams are overlocked, and all of the hems are finished with bias binding.

The green velvet overdress is almost finished - it just needs sleeves!
However, the sleeves use up something in the region of six metres of fabric all by themselves, and I've run out!

That's not strictly true - I have enough velvet to make the outer layer of the sleeves, but I didn't have quite enough gold satin left to line them. So, for now, I've done all I can until my local fabric shop re-opens on the 27th. Please excuse the mis-matched green cord - that will be replaced by a creamy gold colour, after I've been to the fabric shop.

The only alteration I've made to the pattern was to raise the waistline by about two inches. This has had the knock-on effect of me only putting in eight eyelets instead of ten, although I can easily add two more in at the top, if Faerierhona would like me to. That's a decision to made when the finished article has been tried on.

And that's me, out of the Shed until after Christmas!

One green velvet bodice, coming up!

Today I have been working on the bodice of Faerierhona's dress.

It's three layers - one green velvet, one lining, and a layer of interfacing in between.
Yes, you can see raw edges on the outside - they'll be encased inside a creamy-gold binding when it's finished.

I'm not going to put the eyelets in the bodice or attach the skirt and sleeves, until Faerierhona's tried the bodice on, and we've checked that the waist is in the right place, and that it fits properly.

I'll be working on the sleeves and the skirt in the meantime, but I won't put all the bits together until we've made sure that the bodice is a good fit.


Don't the colours look lovely together?

Golden Petticoat

I have started the process of making this renaissance-style dress for Faerierhona:

and having clarified some details with her today, I now need to make a trip to the fabric shop before I can start work on the dress proper.

In the meantime, I've now done as much as I can on the underskirt, without having Faerierhona inside it to check the fit.

The pattern helpfully says, "purchased petticoat", although I'm not sure why, when you could make this matching chemise pattern to go underneath. In order to avoid having miles of bulky petticoat, I decided to go for a slimmer under-dress, and have made a version of my basic tunic.



(The dress is for a fantasy costume, so historical accuracy is not a consideration.)

I extended the hemline to make the dress floor length, but without adding too much width. However, it is still wide enough to accommodate a hoop underneath, should Faerierhona so desire.

The sleeves are my usual raglan shape, extended to the wrist, and nice and wide. Faerierhona can decide whether we're going to leave the sleeves floppy, or whether she'd prefer them gathered into a cuff.

The neckline will be finalised when the overdress is made. The pattern illustrations show one version with an off-the-shoulder underdress, the other with it gathered up quite high to the neck. This tunic can be made to do either, or something in between!

The deadline for the whole outfit is New Year's Eve, so you'll be seeing a lot more of this one over the next couple of weeks...