These are the fabrics I will use. You can see my cat Gandalf is also interested in fabrics. I bought the red fabric with golden inwoven pattern on KreaDoe-fair in Utrecht. It was imported from Pakistan.
This evening I drawed the pattern for the body of all three layers. I cut the fabric for layer three.
I put layer 3 partly together, but I do not like the way the sleeves look. Next try. I will go to the fabric-market next saturday to buy more red lining fabric.
I remembered I had about one yard of red satin so I did not need to go to the market. Now the sleeves are lined with red satin. I made the sleeves detachable so I can use the Arwen dress for non-Tolkien parties. It's a pity to make a dress for one occasion only...
Today I decided to update my sloper-pattern. I bought the book 'fit for real people' which explains perfectly how to do this. After an evening of drawing, fitting, redrawing etcetera my sloper is ready.
The bodice of layer 2 is almost finished. The sleeves are still longer than necessary because I want to be certain that there won't be a gap between the upper- and undersleeves.
Folkdanceweekend with a halloween dance evening. A good reason to try my new sleeves. Everyone liked, but most important: the sleeves stayed put even after four hours of dancing. The elastic on my left sleeve was a little bit too tight, perhaps I will replace it with a somewhat longer one.
Wednesday sewing day. I sewed the lining for layer 2. Unfortunately not once but about three times. Very smart to forget that a sloper-pattern needs a zipper. I hate zippers! So, more adjustments to the pattern to get red of the dreaded zipper.
I'm acustomed to these kind of mistakes so I luckily started with the lining instead of destroying my nice, expensive and irreplacible fabric :-)
I sewed the sleeves of the lining and the bodice of the second layer. To get an idea of the finished dress I pinned the fabric of the skirt to the bodice.
Sewed the lining on the second layer at the neckline and zigzagged the seams.
Problem. I bought to little of the black cotton velvet because the nap is not on the selvage. Therefore I cannot use two pattern pieces as I intended but have to use four. I don't have enough fabric to make four. So I decided to have a horizontal seam in the side-patterns. I tested it on the dress form and it doesn't look too bad.
Finished the jumper. I showed it to my roommate who didn't know of my fabricproblems and luckily - she didn't see it. When I pointed to the horizontal seam she did see it, but she liked the way it looked. Problem solved.
I already pinned the neck-decoration on the jumper.
More work on the lining.
The lining of the second layer is finished.
The jumper is completely finished! I haven't got a picture yet of me wearing it because I cannot take a picture of myself.
I sewed the lining to the neck-decoration. The lining has the shape of the bodice, but the decorated fabric itself is a straight strip. So I make some tucks towards the neck to compensate for the curve.
Started to sew the decorated fabric to the bodice. It is now sewed at the neck, but only pinned at the other side.
Finished at last. The bodice of the underdress didn't look well on its own so I decided to wear it only beneath the jumper. I still need an attached skirt because the weight of the skirt pulls the bodice straight. But I do not need a nice fabric for the skirt anymore, so I cannibalized an old skirt.
17-12-2003
Today is the day I from the premiere of Return of the King. This is the front of Faramir's costume made by Reinout van Rees.
And this is the back.
My costume complete with elven ears.
In the cinema.
Also in the cinema. We were the only ones in costume. The owner of the cinema liked that so much that we were offered a free drink!