Construction Details:

This costume...sadness I worked really hard on it, I loved it, but I didn't have any good pictures yet - then I decided to wash it in my washing machine (WHY) and ruined it. So, this costume is pretty dead, because I have no good pictures of it and no way of getting them. I made it to wear while camping out for Revenge of the Sith in 2005. I used 11 yards of silk chiffon, and 3 yards of silk dupioni. The necklace is made from Sintra and painted with acrylic paints, as well as the armbands. The pattern is based (extremely loosely) on a Vogue pattern and a McCalls pattern. Forget both numbers. I altered them so much that it hardly matters. The only part I really used a pattern for was the top of the underdress - getting the underdress to contour to my body so I would stay covered. The overlay, and the train, were both very complicated and I have no idea how to describe how I did it. I made about 5 muslins of each, and kept working with the drape, length, gathering, etc, until it finally looked about right. Roughly, the back is two 2yd panels sewn together longways and cut prettily to drape nicely. It gathers/bustles/pleats (it's very confusing) at the V in the back of the underdress. It also gathers on each sleeve band, which I made out of lycra to slide on to my arm. The overlay is...uh....kind of a U with a triangle on top. It knots at the bottom and gathers to meet the back overlay on the sleevebands. I made each of these pieces, and sewed "binding" of silk dupioni to each. The dupioni was a pain to work with, but after ironing it to death it did eventually look nice. Before connecting the pieces (overdress1, overdress2, front overlay, train), I dyed them. The dyeing process was fun and easy much to my surprise. I busted out some big buckets in the backyard and just did it. I got everything wet and moved it quickly from bucket to bucket, holding each piece in a long thin strand and dipping the appropriate parts by hand. It was gorgeous, I did it right before sunset and as it was drying there was rainbow silk waving from chairs all over my backyard, glistening in the setting sun. I took lots of pictures, but I don't know where they went. The underdress is yellow Casa polyester satin, and then there are two overlayers of the same thing of rainbow silk over that. I really wish I hadn't ruined this dress...it was so pretty before it shrunk and the colors faded, but I have no pictures. Oh well.

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