My original page of notes. As I worked on this, I ended up adding two more pages total.
Shift:
The shift Danielle wears is loose, with a drawstring at the neckline and a tie at the wrist. The channel along the neckline is lower on the neckline, leaving a small ruffle effect when gathered. In the scene after she’s been whipped, the back of this is shown to be open a ways down the back while it’s also open a little at the front. The sleeves are very full, enough to be puffed between the upper and lower arm gauntlets.
Pattern: S8192
I narrowed the sides considerably for the body of the pattern to fit on my 45” fabric, but it’s still plenty loose on my daughter. We decided not to make the back opening, but rather make an opening only a couple inches in the front.
Underbodice:
Fabric:
I found a diamond checked green-blue curtain at K-Mart: Martha Stewart Everyday Garden Gate Drapery Panel. It's called blue, but looks more greeny to me and runs around $20 or so. It's polyester, so any attempts at overdyeing would have to be in a large pot on the stove with RIT and a lot of patience. Anyone who doesn't mind a greener version of this gown could use this curtain for the underbodice. Two pics below of it with a flash and without. By my monitor, the real color is somewhere between the two pics.
Pattern:
Sense and Sensibility--The Elegant Ladies Closet
I removed the front gathers, making it one smooth piece across the bust, and combined the side back with the front as one piece. The back shoulder seam was moved to be in the front and the neckline squared. In the pictures, it's not lined up exactly right -- I sort of threw it back on the form to take pics. Then I made 32 hand-sewn lacing eyelets along the back.
Finished underbodice:
Dress:
Fabric found to coordinate with that Martha Stewart curtain I found -- surprise! I was all ready to chuck the curtain, plan on quilting the diamond pattern, and came across 5 yards of 54" teal-y blue on clearance at Hancock Fabrics. Total cost so far for materials? $40. I'm using one pattern for the shift, outer dress bodice and lower gauntlets and a second for the underbodice, -- both of which were in my stash. The upper gauntlets will be based on the lower pattern and the skirt will be winged. I think I'm going to use 2 widths of fabric so there'll be enough for all those pleats. I even did the math to account for 1" pleats (ugh!).
Bodice:
S8192 -- heavily modified
The Simplicity pattern was used for the dress bodice and the gauntlets. The bodice was the basic shape we needed save the neckline, so I re-drew the neckline to where it's as close as Tori wants it. I'd tweak it more, but she got annoyed with me. We really had to work on the shoulders and sides to get the fit right for her shape. Her shoulders slope a lot more than the pattern itself does.
The bodice layers are: fashion fabric, cotton drill interlining, and cotton lining -- that white with blue dots fabric leftover from Marianne. Hey, does anyone else name their projects like that?
Bodice and underbodice together:
Skirt attached to the bodice (had to re-do the pleats twice to get them right), waistband added to the cross piece, tie at waist and hook and eye added at waist. Lacing rings on the bodice, along with black ribbon ties. The picture of Tori from the side is a fairly close color match IRL on my monitor.
Without the sleeves or hem:
Finished dress:
Tori okay'd using grommets on the sleeves, so I was able to save myself hours of work making hand-sewn eyelets. The sleeve ties are thin matte ribbon, the smallest I could find at JoAnn Fabrics. The ties holding the sleeves together and to the bodice are simply lengths of dark gray embroidery thread that I had a ton of.
If I make this again, I'll make the sleeves so that they fit tighter and nearly close.
Tori says she's happy with it and that it's so warm she hopes Halloween is cold this year. It's not a costume she can get into and out of by herself easily, though. Without the sleeves, she could, but with it's harder.
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