Chambord Fairy: skirt

Preparations for Costume College are beginning to pick up speed.  As I was clearing out the crafting kingdom of finished pieces for Costume Con, I set out a little inspirational pile of my CoCo projects to be there to welcome me home.  The 1950s Avengers dress there at the bottom is already done, so the next step was up to the pink and gold ridiculousness in the upper left.

There's a cluster of us that are doing a twist on the Absinthe fairy, picking a new booze and a fairy style of our own choosing.  I decided to go with Chambord, mostly because I liked the sound of the flavor and was digging on the burgundy and gold color scheme.

Then plotting led to ruffles and ruffles led me to a tutorial from Tea in a Teacup about making a steampunk skirt and a cohesive theme was born: late Victorian Steampunk Chambord Fairy.  Since the skirt was the driving force behind the costume, I started with that first.  I used the suggested cutting diagram as more of a guideline.  I originally thought to use a crisp silk like tafetta, but finding the right color at a reasonable price just wasn't working out for me.  So I ended up getting the hot pink shantung pictured above for something like $11/yd and I tried my hand at dyeing it.  The fabric took up the burgundy dye beautifully, but the texture was forever changed by the super hot dye bath.  What was once shiny and crisp had been turned into something dense and of an interesting texture...

AND I LOVED IT!  I started playing with scraps and totally fell for the petal-soft fabric with the tiny cross-hatch appearance.  I was getting a Moulin Rouge can-can dancer type feeling going on, and the ruffles just made it happen.  The skirt has a raised front panel that shows off some leg, and a faux-bustled back with two extra layers of ruffles.  Rather than a boring old zip or button closure, I embraced the hardware-heavy steampunk style and put in some gold grommets for lacing.

Three tiers of ruffles in across the back.  Each row has a three and a six inch roll of ruffles, set off with a strip of gold satin piping.

The bulk of the skirt is flat-lined with brown cotton bed sheet.  I ended up cutting the narrow side panels away a bit, to give the skirt a bit more of a swept-back look.  But this mean that a bit of the brown could be seen by someone sitting.  I'm going to add some twill tape ties to the seam between side and back panels, using these to bustle the skirt a bit.  This should help that side panel to curl inwards a bit and hide the lining.  It'll also pull the back hem up just enough to keep it from trailing on the floor.  I also took a lesson from my Avengers dress on built-in petticoats and used extra sheeting to make a small built-in bustle for added umph.

I ended up doing bias-cut ruffles and giving them a rolled hem by hand.  The super-tight weave post-dye bath didn't really need finishing on the raw edges, but the fluttery fabric was so thin that I worried the ruffles would just hang limp and lifeless.  The rolled hem makes me think of the curled edges of a rose petal, and I flipped the ruffles over so that you see the 'wrong' side of them, added additional texture.  All told, the skirt has roughly 30 yards of ruffle.  I got through the entire first season of Daredevil working on that nonsense.

Next up, I need a bodice.

Sideless Surcoat - Historical Sew Monthly Stashbusting Challenge

Building on the generic Medieval fantasy costume that I started working on last month, I made up a relatively straight-forward sideless surcoat.  Went the easy route and again brought out the Burda 7977 for this instead of using one of any number of fabulous tutorials that are out there.  The goal here was to bang something out quickly so that I could show off the kirtle at Figments & Filaments here in Kansas City next month.

I was already planning to avoid buying anything new for this project, so it fit in nicely with the Historical Sew Fortnightly Monthly challenge for March which was "Stashbusting".  I found a five yard section of wool suiting that had a subtle brown and tan twill weave to it that I picked up at a steep discount eons ago with the notion that surely I could use it for something.  Thems dangerous words right there.  Well, to make it a little less 'shiny suit' and a little more Fourteenth Century, I serged the raw edges and dumped the lot of it into the washing machine on warm, and dried it on medium heat.  This resulted in an every so slight bit of felting which softened the overall hand and color nicely.  The contrasting was done in black silk velvet that was leftover from my Queen of Hearts project, and plus the thread, that's all there is to it.

Lol.  My neighbors must think we're so weird.

Not sure why it's riding up like that in the back.
Must have caught on the belt I'm wearing over the kirtle.

Another shot at that paternoster and the decorative edging on the sleeves of my kirtle.

You can almost tell in the close up shot above, but for the velvet, I just laid out the pattern pieces and cut strips about four inches in from the arm hole openings.  The velvet was sewn to the WRONG side of the arm openings, then folded to the outside, encasing the seams.  I then top-stitched about 1/4" from the edge, then again about 3" in from the edge and trimmed off the excess.  The top stitching largely gets lost in the pile of the velvet, so I didn't think it detracted from the historical look too much.  To finish those raw cut edges, I just used black silk thread to whip stitch and short intervals all the way around.  The collar and hemline were treated in much the same way

WIP: Man's 18th Century Court Suit

We're into the home stretch of getting ready for Costume College.  People at work have started noticing that I've got a vacation coming up, so they're asking about where I'm going and those inquiries usually lead to questions of "Are all of your costumes done?"  I usually just laugh and try not to cry.  Costumers are NEVER done.  We just run out of time and sequins.  There's no time for a proper write up, of anything, and it feels like most everything is in a state of almost done, so how about a photo-heavy sneak preview of what I've been working instead.

Honey is getting an 18th century court suit to be my escort to the Gala.  I had to start the costume from scratch and did so at T minus 28 days before con.

Linen shirt, linen stock and fall-front silk tafeta breeches.

The breeches were lined in cotton flour sack material from my grandmother's stash.  While the opacity was necessary, it adds a touch of bulky that, when combined with the extra roomy seat of the style and the "plastic-ish" shwerpiness make them kinda diaper-like.  Oh, my honey must love me, to wear something so unflattering.

Final fitting of the waistcoat before buttons and top-stitching.  I ended up trimming off about two inches of the upper neck area where it's folding back in the photo.  Adding a safety pin to close the cuffs really helps the look of the sleeves.

Adding the waistcoat does help tone down the ridiculousness of the bum fluff.  Not that the whole thign won't get covered up by a coat, anyway.  I saw it written in somebody's blog that the terribly unflattering seat of the pants just helps encourage the modern gentleman not to do anything so terribly inappropriate as take off their coat.  :)

And a shot of the knee band and buckle, of which I am terribly proud.  I found that lovely bit in the jewelry section intended as a photo fram for a necklace.  The plastic backing was held in place by a horizontal metal band, so rip out the plastic and trim off the loop for the necklace and Viola!  We have a buckle.

Since the fitting photos, I've finished up the buttons and button holes on all three pieces, as well as the top stitching on the waistcoat.  Now I just need to find some white tights that'll pass as stockings and finish up the coat, and that outfit will be done.  And by "finish the coat", what I really mean is "stop procrastinating because you think it's going to be hard and just get on with it already.  I have the mock up cut out, so at least it's started.  I don't fly out for another eight days yet.  I've got plenty of time.

I think.

HSF 12: Shape and Support - Bodice to the 18th Century Court Gown

I'm playing a bit of catch up as far as the blogging goes.  I leave for Costume College in two weeks and my summer thus far has been absolutely packed with sewing and other costumer prep for it.  I've thus far been able to find a current project that applies to each of the recent Historical Sew Fortnightly challenges, so at least I'm caught up there.  Challenge 12 was Shape and Support and, while I hadn't finished the court gown for the Bodice challenge, I was able to buckle down and get it done for this one.  I was originally intending to wear this over stays, despite most references to court gowns stating that this wasn't the case.  To be honest, I just wasn't sure that I could get the support that my plus size figure needed without them.  However, once I started putting the layers of the bodice together, the whole thing started feeling way too bulky. (My stays are fully boned, and with cane.  So they are a tad thick.)  I already had already made an interlining layer which had a handful of bones set into it, so I went back and added about ten more and then left the front three inches of the lining and fashion layer separate so that I could tightly lace the inside closed, then pin the outer layer into place.  Adding in four inch wide facings to the linen lining and silk outer was necessary to hide the raw edges, as well as the unsightly (and somewhat doodled on) cotton canvas interlining as well as the last of the pepto pink cotton sheeting that I'd been using to flat line the silk.  Come to think of it, that's four layers of fabric.  No wonder it felt so bulky over stays.

I chose to attach the overskirt to the bodice along the back half of the waist line instead of finishing the waist band of the skirt and wearing it over tabs.  I liked the added security of knowing that the top and bottom wouldn't separate while sitting or dancing.  The front half of the waistline of the overskirt was faced and finished and still needs a hook to anchor it at the side.  The open front will then pin closed under the front edges of the bodice.  This also gives the added bonus that I can adjust where the fur trim on the open front comes out from under the bodice so that I can keep the look of a solid strip of trim down the entire body.  The bodice still needs a bit of fur trimmings to make it look like the inspiration painting, and then I'm going to attach my engageants to the dress sleeves instead of the chemise, but it is otherwise done. I'm pretty stoked about it, as the bodice was the part of the project that I was dreading the most.  (Not knowing how to do something usually results in a frankly astounding amount of procrastination on my part.)

One of my goals for this project was that any stitching which could be seen on the finished garment had to be done by hand.  This made the bodice a cumbersome project, but I really am pleased with how it turned out.  I managed the edges by turning under the linen lining and whip stitching it to the interlining.  The edges of the red silk were then turned under and stitched into place.  With hand sewing, I find that I have a lot more control over how the edges of my fabric meet.  It's much easier to make minor adjustments between stitches, as opposed to just pinning everything in place and hoping for the best under the speed and indiscrimination of the machine.  Also, hand stitching makes all those pretty little stitch marks that I love so much.  

Info for the HSF:
What the item is: bodice to an 18th century court gown
The Challenge: Shape and Support
Fabric: red silk jacquard flat-lined to cotton sheeting (the pink stuff left over from the pet  panniers!), lined with coffee-stained linen and sandwiched in the middle is a boned layer of cotton canvas interlining.
Pattern: I used JP Ryan's Robe Anglaise as a starting point, adjusting the lower edge to end at the waist in the back.
Year: 1770s
Notions: reed boning, boning channels, silk buttonhole thread for the lacing eyelets and cotton thread for the top stitching.
How historically accurate is it? I had to do a lot of guessing when it came to construction techniques of a court gown, but the overall 18th century-ness of it is pretty good. All hand sewn, excepting the construction seams and boning channels, which are now sealed up insde the layers.
Hours to complete: hmm... maybe 20 or so.
First worn: for the Gala at Costume College in T minus 16 days...
Total cost: probably around $50 for this part.

HSF Challenge #10: Art - the skirts for the 18th century court gown

The 18th century court gown project is coming right along.  After this, it's just the bodice and the wig that's left and it'll be done!  The skirts on this monstrosity took a bit of thinking, actually.  There were several different ways I could have done it.  The major decision here was how to do that open front.  I had originally thought that it would be the most fabric-conservative if I just simulated the appearance by applying the fur trim.  But then I worried about that looking TOO false.  Even if I shortened the hem on the center panel and layered the fur, the whole piece would still move as one when I walked.  On the other extreme, making a full under petticoat seemed wasteful, and there was NO WAY that I was using up any more of that silk than I absolutely had to.  

So to compromise, what I ended up doing was making a single panel and attaching it to the ivory petticoat.  The panel is single width (45") wide and flat-lined with some of the leftovers of that lurid pepto pink cotton sheeting that I used to make the panniers.  I've given myself permission to machine sew all of the internal seams on this project, so that sped things up quite a bit.  I also basted the two layers together under each of the fur swags with a zig zag stitch on the machine.  This helped avoid puckering of the silk since the two layers were feeding under the machine's foot at a different rate.  The whole panel was then inserted into the waistband on the ivory petticoat and is currently held out with safety pins, although I'll go back and tack stitch it in place once I've decided just how much it needs to be stretched.  The panel is heavy, and is sagging  bit here on the dress form, but when I wear it over stays, there's enough waist-to-hip contrast that it stays up nicely.

The next decision had to do with cutting panels.  The ivory petticoat was cut in four panels, then pleated to curve up over the humps of the panniers.  The silk is so light, I was afraid of putting any vertical seams into it.  I could have flat-lined it, but then I'd have lost that lovely flowy feel of it.  So instead of cutting 46" long panels and sewing them together (2" longer than the petticoat), I just cut one long length of 45" wide fabric and wrapped it around.  Luckily, the pattern of the jacquard is intricate and not terribly direction-specific, so no worries there.  The cut ends were faced with 3" wide strips of cotton sheeting and red silk - the silk to keep it pretty if the ends flap open and the cotton to give me something weighty to attach the fur to.  This left me just a touch short on length.  One of the patterns that I had been playing around with was of the 1751 coronation robes of Queen Louise Ulrica of Sweden (as patterned out in History of Costume, From the Ancient Egyptians to the Twentieth Century by Blanche Payne).  In this dress, there was a keyhole-shaped piece of fabric that went over the top of the panniers that the panels were sewn into.  S and X being the front and back at the waist and V being the most lateral point of the hips.

I set up the panniers and petticoat on the dress form, then took the single length of skirt and made a narrow hand sewn hem along one selvedge.  I then pinned the piece to the petticoat adjusting so that I had an even hem all the way around.  I took a piece of scrap cotton and laid it over the gaping holes above each hip and outlined the shape of the piece that I needed to fill it in.  I cut a pair of these out of the silk and used a narrow strip of fabric to face a slit just a bit forward of the center of each piece so that I could access pockets.  The narrow ends are for wrapping tot he front and were faced with silk that had been flat-lined with the cotton.  These are the bits where the vertical strips of fur will hang down from and, as they'll just be pinned to the stomacher, they needed to be finished.  The larger, sweeping curve was left with 1/2" seam allowance as it'll be sewn into the back waist of the bodice.

Instead of making large box pleats, like I did on the petticoat, I gathered all of the excess fabric over the hips.  I turned under a narrow seam on the keyhole piece and basted it in place, then pinned it to the skirt panels so that it only just covered the narrow selvedge and the entire thing was whip stitched into place.

Showing off just how much narrower I got the panniers to go by tightening the internal ties a bit.

And the specifics for the Historical Sew Fortnightly:
What the item is: the skirts for my 18th century court gown project
The Challenge: #10 Art
Your inspiration: portrait of Queen Maria Carolina, painted by Francesco Liani, ca. 1770s
Fabric: red silk jacquard with leaf and scroll pattern, "grizzly" synthetic fur, some of the pepto pink cotton sheeting leftover from the panniers project for flat-lining and facings.
Pattern: none/draped
Year: 1770s
Notions: cotton thread
How historically accurate is it? Pretty damn close
Hours to complete: around about 14, me thinks
First worn: it's for the gala at Costume College
Total cost: $150-ish

Also, holy crap, these things are HUGE!  I was as wide as the kitchen.  I know I'm not the only one showing up to the Costume College gala in a court gown, so I just have to wonder.  Has anyone thought about how on earth we're all supposed to sit down for dinner?  Will everyone in a hoop skirt be sorted to the left to sit at the tables with chairs spaced farther apart?

I suppose that if we get kicked out of the hotel for partying too hard, we can always camp out under it.  ;)

HSF 9: Black & White - 1920s Accessories

I didn't really have any projects on the to do list that would work with both black AND white, so I had to split it up a bit.  It turns out I had LOTS of small and medium projects that were one or the other.  So this fortnight was all about getting some of those smaller projects off the list.  The first thing that I did was focus on projects that would complete an outfit for my chartreuse leopard print charmeuce 1920s dress.

First up was a hat to kind of round out the outfit.  I've been on an ultra-short hair kick lately, and that's been making it where I've had to get pretty creative figuring out what to do with my head when I costume.  The cloche hat is awesome because it totally covers the head.  So not only do I not have to do my hair, it's completely irrelevant what it looks like.

What it is: cloche hat
Fabric: black wool felt and dark blue silk habotai for lining
Pattern: http://mymagicmom.com/cloche-hat-tutorial/, modified to add in another triangular panel to the crown, up-size for an adult head and seam allowances added to allow for a lining.
Year: 1920s
Notions: polyester (construction) and silk (top stitching/embellishment) threads. 1 yard of 1 inch wide black silk satin thread.
How historically accurate is it? I'd say pretty close.
Hours to complete: 4, including adjusting the pattern to fit a grown up head.
First worn: not yet, but this is part of completing my 1920s outfit, so I hope to find an event to break that out for soon.
Total cost: < $10 Everything was from materials on hand, even though I'd marked that ribbon for for tying back my honey's 18th c hair.

I didn't have any black habotai laying around, so I used a bit of the dark blue left over from the MIL's
Acadian short cloak.  A bit of fudging on the challenge, but a white lining would not have looked nice at all.

What it is: poncho
Fabric: 1.75 yds of 51" wide black silk burnout (so most likely a silk/rayon satin)
Pattern: inspired by the tunic that's included in the Folkwear Monte Carlo dress pattern, but they didn't have the 3 yds I would have needed to pull that off, so I just made do with what they had.  Turned out MUCH simpler in the long run.
Year: 1920s
Notions: polyester (machine stitching to attach bias for neckline and prep hemline) and silk (for top stitching/finishing) threads.
How historically accurate is it? meh.  Close enough.
Hours to complete: About three.
First worn: see above
Total cost: Fabric was on sale, so about $12.

As you can see, the poncho is super thin.  It's not so much that I wanted something to keep me warm as I wanted something to kind of break up the top half of the Monte Carlo dress, which was fun, but not of a style that's very flattering for a pear-shaped human.  This way, you can still see the top of the dress, but hopefully won't focus on the boob-waist-hip ratios.  It also adds some flow to the top half to kind of balance out the movement and scope of the hemline of the dress.  The abstract garden design gives it just enough interest, without being too interesting.  And it's vague enough that the pattern on the back half being 'upside down' shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The construction was simple.  I just folded the yardage in half and cut a narrow oval for the neck, placing more of a dip in the front than that back.  The neckline was finished with a narrow strip of fabric cut from the ends.  Not a true bias, but the fabric was so light that it didn't really matter.  The front and back hemlines were cut in a shallow point and finished with a hand done rolled hem.  I left the selvedges along the side seams alone because I figured that there's nothing I could do to them that would look nicer or less obvious.  My only complaint is that the satiny bits of pattern tended to fray whenever they were manipulated, so a close inspection of the hemlines shows lots of tiny little threads sticking out.  Let it be a message to me to treat it VERY gently when it comes to washing.

I had kind of wanted to take pictures of the complete outfit, but I can't seem to figure out where the hell I put the dress.  Needless to say, organizing the costume storage is at the top of the list for projects to get started on this summer.

HSF 6: Fairytales - 18th century short cloak

For the Fairytales challenge, I decided to make myself a Little Red Riding Hood cloak.  I used the pattern diagrammed out in Costume Close Up, partnered with the instructions from The Hive Online's discussion on short cloaks and building on what I learned from the short cloak I made last fall for my mother-in-law to wear with her Acadian costume.

The wool is re-purposed from a plain hemmed shawl that I wore with my Melisandre costume.  It had been run through the abuse of a hot wash and high heat dryer cycle to get it a bit felled and a softer, more abused look.  The lining is silk twill and it and the silk ribbon for the ties and hem facing were dyed together.  (The ribbon went into the bath first, then the twill.  But at that point, I needed to add a touch more water to keep everything submerged, and thus the lighter tone of the hood lining.)

The entire thing is hand-sewn, with a silk ribbon used as a lightweight hem facing instead of leaving the edges raw.  I doubt it's terribly historically accurate to accentuate the ties with buttons, but I had the wolf head buttons on hand and couldn't resist.

The Challenge: #6 Fairytales

Fabric: wool outer and silk twill lining

Pattern: from Costume Close Up, with modifications from The Hive Online

Year: mid to late 18th century

Notions: silk ribbon, gold tone buttons and cotton thread

How historically accurate is it? Just about as accurate as I can get.

Hours to complete: Maybe 12, I didn't really keep track.

First worn: you're looking at it

Total cost: $18 for the wool, $1 worth of silk twill, $3 worth of ribbon and $3 for the buttons.  So $25 total.

Yeah, ignore the fact that I'm in my skivvies.
I was pulling double duty and photographing an upcoming project at the same time.

I just LOVE the way this falls over the shoulders.

Yay for an even hemline on the fist try

Close up of the back of the hood.  I'm still not sure I got the pleats arranged the way they were intended,
but this is what I could manage to make work.  The instructions were very insistent on there being a
correct way to do this, but not terribly clear on exactly what that way was.

Close up of the buttons and ties.

And the hem facing.  I pretty pleased with the color matching.  Even though they're not all the same intensity,
they are all the same shade and I think they go well together.

Now, to find myself a basket!

HSF #4: Under it All - Petticoat for an 18th Century Court Gown

Next milestone in the 18th century court gown project is the petticoat.  Now, at first glance, the dress looks like it might have an open skirt on top of a petticoat of the same red fabric, with a bit of additional fur trim.  However, if you look closely at the far right hand hem of the dress, there's a small bit of something off white -ishsticking out there at the end.

Hmm... might have to find me a stuffed spotted dog to go with the costume.

The lovely people over on the Grand Ladies website where I first spotted this dress have hypothesized that it's a pale bit of petticoat sticking out and that, consequently, the fur-trimmed panel in the front is simply intended to create the illusion of a second petticoat underneath.  Now, I'm all about keeping it simple, and it seems that having the skirt be all one piece will not only save fabric, but also be easier to maneuver in. There's no worrying that the heavy fur will flip parts of the skirt open and look unsightly.

So, a pale petticoat it is.  I decided to keep it simple with this one and use what I had on hand.  I had eight yards of un-dyed dupioni silk left over from a cosplay project that never materialized, so I opted to use that.  Bonus points in that if I ever stop wearing this costume, I'll have large pieces of silk that I can tear out and dye to fit whatever the new project needs.  It's what they would have done back then.

On to the math.  My panniers have a 160" circumference at the bottom hoop.  For simplicity's sake, I'm going to pretend that's in a perfect circle for the next bit.  Working under the assumption that each additional petticoat is going to add 2" out from the body has worked well for me thus far in life.  If you'll remember from your geometry classes, the circumference of a circle is equal to 2πr, where r is the radius of the circle and π is Pi, (approximately 3.14).  So my pretend-it's-a-circle panniers would be have a radius of 160/2π, which is roughly equal to 25.5 inches.  Assuming that the ivory petticoat is going to stand out two inches from that, the petticoat would have a radius of 25.5 + 2 = 27.5 inches.  The circumference of this would be 2(3.14)(27.5) = 172.7 inches.

The fabric I have is 45" wide.  Assuming 1/2" seams, that leaves me with 44" of usable width per panel.  If I had 4 panels, then that would give me a circumference of 176 inches.  That sounds close enough to me.  So, four panels it is.  Now, how long should I cut those four panels of fabric?  I came across a couple of great tutorials from La Couturière Parisienne (excellent break down of the length requirements over different sizes of foundations) and The Fashionable Past (superb step-by-step instructions for the pleating that deals with all that extra fabric).  While the final dress was going to be floor length, I wanted to make sure that the petticoat was a good 2" shorter than that.  Keeping in mind that I'd be in 1" heels, and that another inch was going to get eaten up in the hem,  I decided on 44" for the raw length.  I'm trying to be careful about keeping track of the math now, because this is acting as the trial run for the outer skirt.

I used machine stitching to assemble the panels and attach them to the waist band, then hand stitching to finish the hem, waist ties and the top of the side pleats.  The lengthwise seams were pressed open and the selvages left as is.  Openings were left on each side to access the pockets, and these seams were turned under twice and finished with a running back stitch.  The hem took about 3 hours of hand sewing to do, but it was a simple stitch and kind of meditative.  I figure that some people can spend 3 hours watching tv in a single night, so I don't consider that time wasted at all.

From the front.  You can still see a bit of hoop showing through, but the pleats stacking up on the ends should offer enough cushioning where I'll need it.  I'll wait and see how the fashion fabric drapes over it before I decide if I need to make another petticoat to go under this one.  It's hard to tell from this angle, but my friend crawled around on the floor and assured me that there's about a hand's width gap between the hem and the floor.

Side view.  While it't not quite as narrow a depth as historical references, neither am I.  So I'll call this good.

And THAT is how I plan to get through doors in this costume.  Will just have to make sure that the chemise is long enough to provide some modesty in the elevator.

Just the facts
What the items is: petticoat for an 18th century court gown
The Challenge: Under it All
Fabric: ~ 5 yards of un-dyed silk dupioni
Pattern: La Couturière Parisienne and The Fashionable Past
Year: 1770s
Notions: poly thread for the panel assembly, gold silk thread for the hem, un-dyed rayon ribbon for the waise binding and ties
How historically accurate is it? 9/10
Hours to complete: 6, about half of which was spent hand-sewing the hem
Total cost: $55 US

Project Summary: 1920s Poison Ivy

The first costume I want to talk about from our group of Batman villains is Poison Ivy.  This was by far my favorite character of all that I worked on.  I love this color and I love this character.  Poison Ivy is a villain who wields her sexuality as a weapon.  It was a super easy choice to assign that character to my bff, V, as it is my personal goal in this life to find her costumes that show off her super long legs.

The theme for our group was 1920s reinterpretations of the characters as they were presented in the Batman movies that came out while I was growing up.  Poison Ivy was featured in Batman and Robin (1997) and was played by Uma Thurman.  

Even though her cape here appears to be a burnout velvet, I really loved the light, fluttery hem of it.
It was this hemline that helped me chose how I wanted to realize this costume.

I loved how this character was done up in such a way as to take advantage of the long, lean lines.  She wasn't super busty or showing a lot of skin.  To capture her look, I went with a long, dropped waist dress with a handkerchief hem, which reminded me of the hemline on her cloak.  I started with the following pattern:

Folkwear #264: the Monte Carlo Dress

 For period inspiration, I found this little vintage number for sale on Etsy.

I used a silk chiffon, and flat lined the bodice with silk habotai, both of which were dyed emerald green.  The only adjustment to the pattern was to change the way the straps were put together.  The bodice is covered in tiny little o-shaped arrangements of gold seed beads and the neckline was outlined in alternating seed and bugle beads.  There is also one narrow sash of beading and embroidery that hangs down from the right hip.  I dyed up a scrap of silk velvet in a darker green, and used it to make ivy leaf appliques with couched gold silk beading thread for veins.  These were placed on the left shoulder and right hip.  The idea was to be balanced, without being symmetrical.  Litlle dangly bits of beading hang from the appliques on the shoulder.  

I also cut out an 8x80" strip of chiffon with angled ends for a scarf.  I didn't want to try to pair a lot of jewelry with this dress, as I thought the beading was rather taking care of the bling factor for us.  But her neck just looked too naked without something there.

For the hand bag, I just sketched out a rectangle on a piece of habotai that I dyed gold, then machine basted it to a piece of interfacing and stuck it in an embroidery hoop.  The pattern I just made up after looking at too many art deco designs.  I sketched on four horizontal lines and had V start beading them.  The rest just sort of developed as we went along.

The gloves were white nylon gloves bought from the party shop.  Everything on the internet said that nylon dyes up just like silk, and they were right!  We set V up in a pair of latex gloves to protect her skin, then put the nylon gloves over them and started painting.  The idea was to replicate the purple and red fingers on the characters leather gloves in the movie.

The shoes were simple enough.  A pre-owned and well worn pair of strappy heels were given a new life with a coat of gold leaf.  Simple, yet elegant.  Her hair pin was salvaged from this retro iron work peacock thing that my mom has hanging on her wall.  The thing had this blingy rhinestone bit stuck to the top of it's head, and she hated how out of place it looked.  It had obviously fallen off and been hot glue back on (poorly), so I spent a fair bit of time picking glue out of the settings before soaking it in vinegar and baking soda, then giving all of the metal parts a touch up with gold leaf, as well.

Woo, look at that hemline.  I think that's my single favorite part of this dress.
Eight sided skirt, with round about 8 yards of hem, all hand stitched rolled hem.

On stage, with the Joker.