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Aya's Examples      New York- USA

Arwen's Chase Dress

Click on pictures for enlargements.

I am a TOTAL beginner. I have never sewn any sort of clothing before. I knit, and I hem curtains. That's about the extent of it. Nor do I sculpt things - Simplicity pattern 9891 made it easy! However, I generally take a size 6-8 in dresses (these days about a 9-10 in pants though - all in the hips, so I get away with smaller dress size if its flowy) and I cut the pattern in a 10. It wasn't even close to fitting my torso. I redid all the seams at 1/2 inch rather then 5/8 and now it barely fits. (no coughing while wearing the dress!!!)

Simplicity pattern 9891; I modified the pattern slightly in the collar (it is less pointy), the sleeves, and the skirts. You can see that the sleeves I left split up to my inner elbow, and instead of a flouced I sewed a sort of petal shaped piece, self lined. This leaves an ugly seam on the inside (if I figure out what 'french' seams are I will do them in the future; I gather they're less ickly looking). The inner sleeve is just cut off from a shirt I bought and then just handstiched on to the inside of the dress sleeve. The skirts I split on the center back and side seams; for the front I just took scissors to it and cut it, and folded back the edges and sewed them down. The underskirt is a rayon skirt that I cut front and back, petaled the front of (I think I will increase the petalling) and dyed light grey. It was quite a full skirt, which I liked.

Shot of the back; you can see how I made a belt and just used the 'sash' to tie it on. The sash is cotton organza that I dyed light grey. I just freehanded the design of the belt. You can see the seam where I attached the sleeve very well. I would have liked them to be fuller, but I ran out of material! You can also see how the zipper is exposed and straining a bit; I told you the dress is a little small!!

Torso shot. You can see the belt buckle (sculpy - look closely, maybe you can see dog hair stuck to the still-tacky paint), which I tacked onto the belt. I also used some somewhat glitter black cord down the front center of the dress; it extends up around the collars - I though it kind of drew attention away from the seam of the yoke. The loops that I ran the ribbon through are just embroidery thread.

You can see the texture of the fabric - a polyester grey suiting, mid-weight - pretty well (and its artificially shiny gleam), as well as the cording, and the puckery, sewing job I did on the yoke.

I used simplicity 9891.  Even without major modifications it works out okay and is pretty simple to make. It took me maybe week to do - working on it at night after work. Keep in mind I had to rip all my seams multiple times. I had the basic dress done in an hour or two, and another couple of hours to add the sleeves and yoke..

Try it!! It was fun!

Elves like to Party!

In the end I didn't have time to finish the embroidery on the sleeves so I took out what I had already done (*sniff*) and painted the design on with a silver marker. 

I also redid the belt buckle, and though it is now a little too big I like it better than the old one, and I also finally found some ribbon that would take dye and replaced the old skinny ribbon I had lacing the front of the dress.

Elves Like their Pets

http://www.geocities.com/Aya_K_Alt/ears.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/Aya_K_Alt/ear2.jpg

these don't necessarily have to go with my dress; they're just pics of the ears I got. They were, I believe, made by "altered egos". I cut off the bottoms. I bought them at one of the seasonal mall Halloween stores that will be selling xmas ornaments in a few weeks for about $7.99. Make sure you get a 'good' pair; my right ear had a somewhat faulty tip (latex didn't fill the mold totally I think)

Also check out her reproduction of Eowyn's coat

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This page was last updated 11/21/09