Merida Formal Dress Part 3: Trial and Error

Well, overall I'm not as happy with this dress as I was with Chaela's.  There are still some things that need to be tweaked.  You can't tell in this picture, but the wimple is way too short and has a ton of excess fabric that makes it look nothing like the one in the movie.  I also need to glue a button I got onto the D-rings that fasten the belt to cover them.  Maybe once that stuff is done I'll feel better about it. I'm off to the sewing room to see what I can do!

Merida Formal Dress Part 2: Finishing Touches

Most of you probably figured that I finished the main part of Joci's dress when I posted a picture on Facebook and in my last blog post.  However, if you didn't, here is Part 2!

Here's a view of the dress from the back.  I made it lace-up because I'm too lazy/impatient to go to the store and buy a zipper.  The finished muslin/under dress shows beneath at the neck and ends of the sleeves.  It's not supposed to show at the neck, but it doesn't really matter because the wimple (the white thing Merida wears on her head) will cover it.

Here are the fastenings I sewed on today.  Snaps on the under dress and a hook and eye on the dress.

This is what Joci does when I want to take a picture that shows off the dress:

The circlet and wimple.  

Now all that's left for this costume is to have her try on the whole thing!  I'd also like to get my hands on the official bow/arrow/quiver set that Disney makes.  It would really make the costume complete!

Deep joy.

Just dropped the girls off for grandparents' weekend.

Ate an a-freaking-mazing beef sandwich from Cubby's.  If you live in or near Provo, go there.

Kairi is asleep.

Lunch with Rosalie tomorrow with no kids to force to behave in a restaurant.

I can sew all night if I want because I don't have to get up early.

Also this:

Deep joy.

Merida Formal Dress Part 1: Pattern Alteration and Muslin

First of all, don't you hate it when you're trying to sew and...

Sigh.

Anyway, I've had a lovely hiatus.  I got some writing done and finished about 80% of a pirate costume for my friend's daughter (which I didn't post about because it's straight from a pattern).  Now it's back to the grind, especially since I've had two more (non-pattern) costumes added to my list, bringing my total up to seven.  I'll post about them later, I suspect.

So, here is how I'm going about the formal Merida dress for Joci:

First, I have this pattern that I used four years ago to make Chaela's first Halloween costume ever.  

It's amazing for a long, basic dress with a fairly full skirt.  First I measured Joci and resized the pattern because the smallest size on there is a 3, and I needed something smaller.  You can see how lovely and organized I keep my sewing room.  The smallest size you see on there is the one I drew.  I also did the cutting a bit differently than last time.  I didn't have tissue paper (where are my presents, people?! ha ha) so I laid the pattern directly over the muslin and traced it with a marker that bled onto the fabric underneath.  I didn't mind this firstly because it's a muslin and secondly because I knew if I did it right I would finish all the edges, so none of the marker that ended up on there would be showing anyway.

Now, the sleeves on the pattern are substantially different from what I want.  Even the tops of them were weird, so I couldn't even trace those.  My solution to this was to lay out the two pattern pieces that attach to the sleeves and trace.  Like so:

Then I drew the rest of the sleeve to fit the measurements I'd taken of Joci's arm.  At first it came out like the one on the left, but when I folded it, it looked too small (besides not looking like any sleeve pattern I'd ever seen), so I added another seam allowance on each side and ended up with the pattern on the right, which I used.  While the curve is still weird, which made sewing it weird, the rest of it looks a little more normal.  A little.

Once all of the pattern pieces were finished I cut them out and sewed them together.  This is the muslin I ended up with:

I'm pretty happy with it for a first try!  All I want to change is to let it out about half an inch around the waist, and I don't have to change the shape of the pattern to do that.  So I'm going to tear this apart to use as a pattern on my "real" fabric and then sew it all back together, finish it, and add the other sleeve (and a bit of fiddly embroidery... you know, for fun) and this will become the under-dress for Joci's costume!  Part 2 to come soon!

The ticker you see here ^

is to help motivate me to write.  I'll try anything since I've been a major slacker.  In fact, this ticker and blog post are nothing but procrastination.  Oh well.

As you can see above, my goal for complete manuscript #2 is 80,000 words (which would translate to roughly 280-320 pages in novel form, depending on the format).

I am not close.  However, I am hoping that public accountability will help.  We shall see.