Wednesday, May 7, 2008

A Tale of Many Costumes

Thus continues the saga of my recreation of Susan's Purple Dress, and begins the stories of Caspian's Brigandine and Edmund's Battle costume. Below is the red (fake) velvet I bought for Edmund's tunic. It was cheap and 50% off. So in other words, double cheap. ;) The brown lacy fabric is going to be transformed into passable chainmaille by the help of my friend, the silver spray paint.
Below is the beginning of Caspian's Brigandine. I am basically following in the footsteps of the very talented DeLancy who is introducing me to the wonders of FUN FOAM.
8x2.5 rectangles...although unlike Delancey, I no longer have a nice paper cutter. So once again my wax-based tailor'schalk becomes incredibly useful.
And, since I bought the foam in a roll, I am trying to "unbend" my pieces...We'll see how they look tomorrow morning.
Next- the daffodil applique for Susan's dress. I have no idea if this is going to work or not...but here's what I'm doing. I spread fabric glue over some fusible interfacing on the non-fusible side...
...and smoothed the gold fabric over that. Now, however, I am thinking that I should have just attached it with the fusible side and sewn it directly onto the dress. If the glue doesn't work, I'll try it that way.
Meanwhile I had already sewn the piping as shown below...
And spent all of Monday attaching it...
...pretty much by hand...
...the same way I did the peplum...
...and enjoying Gilmore Girls season 5, which has become a guilty pleasure for me...
And unfortunately it is too late at night to take a proper picture of the finished piping, but I assure you that it looks wonderful.

Now, lacing, sleeves, and the guy's costumes!



4 comments:

DeLancey said...

Looking good! I think that lace might actually look really close once it's painted. Oh, have you tried fusible webbing? That might work if your glue applique doesn't. It's like fusible interfacing but fusible on both sides. I used it to apply my lion to Edmund's Tunic. I was worried about ironing something that had been glued. I didn't know what it would do. Anyway, are you making Caspian's White Shirt too? Oh, and every time I look at my Edmund Tunic I wish I had dyed the suede even darker. The original is almost brown. Just a thought. Keep up the amazing work!

Anna Mittower said...

you are dedicated.I just went out and bought piping that matched. So did you hand sew it and then machine sew it or did you just hand sew it?

Elenatintil said...

Thank you both for the compliments! I'm having a ton of fun with this...

Delancey- yes, I think the lace is going to turn out well. JoAnn's had some stuff about four years ago that was perfect for chainmaille- the right color and everything. No more! So I finally (after much fruitless looking) decided just to find the best lace I could and paint it.

Fusible webbing sounds amazing...(sighs) I have looked through the interfacings at JoAnn's before and was unable to find anything double sided. Like you, I am also concerned about the effect of heat on glue. I guess we'll see!

And I'm getting off easy...my Caspian was Jack Sparrow two years ago, and the white shirt that I made for him then is close enough to Caspian's to be used again. Very thankful for that!

Anna- I machine sewed the actual piping...and then my first pass at attaching it to the neckline was also on the machine. However I couldn't get it close enough to the edge and I was having trouble spacing everything properly, so I went back to the handsewing. Ever since I worked in the alterations department I have had soooo much more patience for handsewing!

Anonymous said...

Wow Elena! This is really amazing!