January 2008: I've ordered gimp trim from TrimsbyDesign on ebay. Many thanks to padawansguide for the link!
January 2009: I had a terrible experience with the seller TrimsbyDesign. First, they sent the wrong color trim, but offered to exchange it. However, they never sent me the exchanged trim, nor did they ever answer anymore emails or refund my money and now I'm out $15. It's not a lot of money, but it's ticked me off royally.
So...change of plans.
Belt: I took a loosely woven fuchsia ribbon I bought in 2007 at Hobby Lobby on clearance, sewed white loopy trim to the edges, then built on that, adding a line of gold stitches along the edges of the fuchsia trim, then the gold zig-zags. After that, I added wooden 5mm round beads and red beads alternated between turquoise seed beads. After that came the tips.
Dress: I used Simplicity 5375 -- view 3 the angel costume. I just turned it on the bias, drew the outline of it on the fabric and cut. There was a tiny bit of taking in in the neckline and a heck of a lot on the sleeve, but I'm happy with it. In the first muslin, the sleeves weren’t wide enough, so I added width when cutting the fashion fabric. Also, I re-drew the seam for attaching the dress to the sleeves.
For the neckline drape: It was a partial bodice panel. If I could have fit a full to-the-belt-line panel I would have, but even being short cutting a partial was all I could fit on the fabric with it bias cut. It's a continuous piece that flips to the inside and is stitched to the armscye. I made a mark with washable fabric pen where the neckline and armscye started before removing the pattern off the fabric and flipping the pattern to make a mirror image as far down as I could before running out of fabric.
There’s a line of elastic across most of the back that will be hidden underneath the belt.
Sleeve decoration: First, I hemmed the sleeves. Then I added the white-ish embroidery. I used my old machine that has embroidery cams for that. Next was working the blue eyelets on the sleeve edges. I used Sulky Totally Stable and while it ripped off okay, picking out the bits in each eyelet was a PITA. I had a terrible time with the old machine on these! I had to fiddle with the machine after about every 12 eyelets. Right now I’m working on adding the beads between the eyelets.
Mostly done pic - no buttons yet, beads half done and belt not yet attached.
And pictures of the just finished dress. Have not gotten around to taking good pics of this yet.
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The Cape:
The cape was cobbled together in an hour. Seriously. I took about 3 yards, maybe four, of brown fleece, draped it on my dress form, cut the excess off the bottom, hemmed for neatness, created a hood, added trim and ties and boom, it was done! Warm and comfy and wearable aside from covering a costume.
