Victorian Dress Complete!

No, the hat is not actually part of the costume...

I have finally finished my dress for Rose's Victorian birthday party. This is the most labor intensive project I have ever done but I definitely enjoyed every minute of it! I unintentionally picked a project that forced me to use many new techniques. I have never added trim to anything so that was an adventure, especially in the quantity that this dress required. I also had never made the bunched type overskirt and it to a bit of fiddling to get the folds to look nice. All in all I am pleased with the result.

For this dress I used a heavily modified Vogue 8615 bodice. I used McCall's 4090, View C for the skirt. I just made up the pattern for the bustle/apron thing (I am not really sure what to call the maroon part.) Sorry I don't have a better shot of the details and the apron in the back. I used the pink fabric with the floral print from my stash, so this one counts towards stash busting!

Sunday Strategy # 5

This week:

1. Finish my dress for Rose's birthday party.

Last Week Recap:

1. Work on my victorian dress for Rose's birthday soiree.
• I made a lot of progress on the dress. Blogged here.
2. Finalize the list of all the gifts I need to make for Christmas.
1. Done and I have made up some of the patterns for the various items I want to craft. I don't want to blog about these projects until after the holidays because a few of the recipients follow my blog.

All in all this was quite a productive week!

Victorian Dress So Far

Rose is having a Victorian Musical Soiree to celebrate her 18th birthday. We are all supposed to come in costume. I am making a beautiful ball gown for myself! I have never done a project that has embellishments on it. I am not sure why I waited so long to try. They add such dimension to the piece.

Here is the basic dress before so you can see the silhouette. I have a 6 hoop underskirt underneath to give the dress volume. The pink fabric is a light weight home dec fabric that was given to me by a lady at a curtain shop in Philadelphia. They just throw all the fabric that people leave there in the trash so the woman loaded up a few trash bags and sent me on my way. This was about 5 years ago and I am still working my way through all of it. This counts towards my Stash Busting and also my 52 Dresses. I am so going to wear this dress after the party!

Front view (and Punkin.)

Back view

Front view with ribbon flowers pinned on. I am not sure I really like the flowers on the skirt. 

What do you think? Is it just to much?

I do like the flowers on the bodice though. Maybe I will just do this part with the embellishments.

The ribbon flowers and scallops around the bottom of the dress. 

Should I add some lace to the bottom hem?

     

Sunday Strategy # 4

This week:

1. Work on my victorian dress for Rose's birthday soiree.
2. Finalize the list of all the gifts I need to make for Christmas.

Last Week Recap:

• Finish our Halloween costumes.
• Blogged here.
• Make Peony. This is my second priority because there is still a lot of work to do for Halloween.
• Scrapped... just no interest in making all the adjustments necessary to make this dress wearable. Maybe I will come back to it in the future.

Sunday Strategy # 3

This week I need to:

1. Finish our Halloween costumes.
2. Make Peony. This is my second priority because there is still a lot of work to do for Halloween.

Last week recap:

1. Halloween Costumes for me, Brian and Billy.
1. I got Brian's boots and pants. I still need to make his vest and our accessories. Still no inspiration for Billy. My costume is almost complete.
2. Fabric for Peony. I have a few different options that I can't choose between. I think I should really make it in a flannel so it is nice and warm for the fall and winter. The only problem is that I have all these cute cotton prints that are just begging to be sewn into a beautiful dress.
1. Still not chosen... I think I hav just avoided it because I am so unsure about this pattern. I almost don't want to make it up again because there are so many fit issues.

Renaissance Faire Costumes

This year I made 5 costumes for the Santa Fe Renaissance Faire! It was a blast!

For my outfit I designed the top, skirt and overskirt. The vest is Simplicity 3618.

Billy's outfit is made using a pattern from Making Baby's Clothes for the top. Pants are an out of print Butterick pattern that I don't remember the #. Vest is designed by me.

(Someone gave him funnel cake. cough cough brian cough...)

I designed Brian's vest and made his boots. Top and pants are McCalls 5446. 

This is Michael's costume. I designed the vest, bracers and the shirt. Pants are Butterick 4574. This is the first time I have worked with pleather. I kind of like it. So easy to work with and no finishing required!

This is Craig's costume. I designed the shirt. Pants are again Butterick 4574.

Craig said "What is funnel cake?" This is funnel cake.

I'm a dragon!

Halloween Costume!

I made Billy's Halloween costume. It was a blast. I made the mad scientist lab coat by altering the Kimono Wrap pattern. I made the pants using Simplicity 3711. I bought the little white shoes at Wal-Mart for $5. I bought toddlers swim goggles and painted them using non-toxic acrylic paints. It didn't work very well because the paint started to peel off. It didn't really matter though because Billy didn't want to wear them for long anyway. At least we got a picture.

Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer!