eowyn's green dress
After much thinking I decided to alter my generic green dress to Eowyn’s green dress from The Two Towers. Everyone kept saying how my dress looked like the one in Lord of the Rings and it was bothering me, since I know it didn’t. So instead of making a whole new dress I decided to alter the one I had into Eowyn’s.
Fabric: Olive green silky brocade from JoAnns, which I actually used the wrong side of since the correct side of the fabric was too shiny for my taste.
Alterations:
The panel in the front was made by cutting the front piece of Simplicity 9891 (the same pattern I used for the dress, see my Elven Green Dress. I cut the fabric according to the pattern from the waist down, then flipped the pattern over and cut it out on top of the other one so the panel is just one piece. It’s kind of hard to describe, I’ll get a picture in here soon to show what I mean. I then split the seams on the dress between the front and side fronts up to the waistline and sewed the panel in. I still have to hem the bottom of the dress that I added.
The sleeves were very large all the way down, so I made them tighter to my elbow and then had them drop down to their normal width. I then lined them with the brocade fabric. This actually caused some headaches because I had to undo the sleeves to line them and reattach them. After putting the lining in backwards and inside out a couple of times, I finally got it and sewed them back together. Hey, it could have been a whole lot worse.
1/12/2005
Update!! I finally put the yoke in! I used the Simplicity 9891 yoke pattern and sewed it on. I also put trim around the neckline. It’s finally beginning to look like Eowyn’s dress! All I have to do now is attach hooks and eyes to the back of the yoke since the zipper only reaches to the top of the original dress. I also have to put trim on the inside of the collar and hem that darned bottom hem where the brocade was put in.
I never realized the color difference between some of these pictures... must have something to do with the flash or something. The dress in real life looks like the darker green pictures. Pictures of the dress so far:
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April 23
Well after about 3 months of this dress just sitting in my closet, I decided to finish it. I hemmed the front panel and sewed a hook and eye to the back of the yoke to close it. The only bad thing about this dress is that is about 2 inches too short. I knew that already since when I made it the first time, just the green base, I had an accident with the hem and it was too short then. But if I wear any kind of shoe, the dress is about 2 inches off the floor. So I have to figure out what to do. I want to wear it for taking my little cousins trick or treating this year for halloween. I may add a strip of the panel fabric around the bottom. It won't be exact then, but it'll be long enough. Or maybe I'll just leave it. I don't know, anyway, here are a few pictures of the finished dress.
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