Tag: fitting

Buttercup – Beading Begins!

Previously on All My Sparkles: The base dress is done and the first round of applique has been glued in place. I’m happy with the fit, and have slowly been gathering pieces required for the crown and jewelry. What needs to happen next is the beading on the dress though. There’s a lot of it!

I decided to go with ivory pearls rather than optic white and have stuck with this throughout.

Once I’d got this far with the beading, the giant white space over my chest was becoming really obvious. It definitely needed filling. I found some decent silver applique pieces, though when they arrived they were really bright in comparison to the rest of the costume, so I put a layer of paint over them.
Above – Before and after reshaping to better fit the dress. Below – After painting it blends in much better with the other pieces.
Each bead is placed on a white translucent cup sequin and then stitched in place. I used the same sequins on the shoulder pieces to blend them in where there were very obvious silver sequins originally, and added more pearls.
The top of the oversleeve splits also have small pearls on each side.

The underdress Buttercup wears is a scrunchy affair. To do this I bought silk chiffon, soaked it, scrunched it and left it to dry. I heat-set the pleats, created narrow piping from ivory satin and attached it to the overdress at the front and back.
Below – Close up of the piping – I embellished this with a ric-rac ribbon and small pearls.

Quick trying on session to show the fit and size of the skirt! This was before I embellished the underdress.

 
Next up – The crown. All my pieces have finally arrived! 

Buttercup – Sleeves and Silver

So last time I jumped in on this outfit it was basically a top with some stuff pinned onto it. Since then it has fortunately progressed to the point where it’s actually look pretty damn sweet! This horrendous photo of myself is the only one I got after the skirt had gone on, but does show that it’s in roughly the right position on me bust wise. More when my chest is actually hoiked up where nature (alright, Gossard) intended it to be. 

I’ve also had a breakthrough on colour! As previously mentioned, this thing looks anything from blue to shiny white to silver in photographs. Fortunately for me I have a friend in Seattle, and this dress is on display at the Seattle EMP in their Worlds Of Myths & Magic exhibit. She said this thing glows shiny white. It’s like Galadriel appearing in Lothlorien. So bowing to her eyes-on opinion I’m going to forget about attempting to dye it.
The sleeves are medieval/fantasy style, split oversleeves that hang to impractical lengths and are once again embellished around the edges, and undersleeves that are tightly fitted. The fabric I have is slightly more opaque than the original, and the underfinished side doesn’t look quite as nice. I did toy with the idea of lining them with the same fabric, but decided to forget about that idea as it would remove all ability for light to shine through. It also wouldn’t flow as nicely, so I machine hemmed them and put them in.
This is the back drape of the dress as it stands, with sleeves. It’s pinned to overlap at the top just to keep the bugger on the dummy as the sleeves are quite heavy.
The dummy is slightly shorter than I am so it won’t be dragging on the floor quite as much as it is here.

Finally I can start putting all of the applique pieces on this monster! First up is this silver edging. It is actually far more matte finish than I thought originally so I may go over it with a bit of paint to highlight it and bring it up to the shoulder pieces earlier pictured.
For the early stages I glued the trim in place with a fast-grab, washable fabric glue. The applique needed to be cut and shaped accordingly, with bits added or removed where necessary to move it around the corners. There will also be much sewing on of pearls and sequins with this, so the later stitching will also give it that added security.
I have also started work on the crown so check back soon for some babbling about that! Mostly there will be swearing as making jewellry is always a challenge for me.
The Back – To be laced or zipped.

Boromir – The Surcoat Continues

Another Boromir update! The above shot, from AlleyCatScratch.com shows the waist detail. I started by chalking a guide line on the inside of the piece, folding it and stitching it at 0.5cm. Each of the four pieces were prepped like this.

The four pieces were then sewn together with the seams being pressed open. The centre back seam was stitched to just below waist length and left for the back split. The side seams were sewn to hem length.
Once the four pieces were sewn together I fitted it to my model, over a thick jumper and the chainmail. It needed taking in on the centre back waist and sides, so I marked it up and did all the adjustments, then trimmed it to just above his toes.
Once I was happy with it I looked at the edging, shown here – 

Aside from the trim, which I still need to find, this has what looks like a slight piped edge. I found very thin piping cord and rolled the edge around it to create this –

Full back and side shots over the chainmail, after adjustments – I now need to do the shoulder pieces and the basic construction will be done. 

This screencap from the film shows a cap sleeve (If anyone can remember the correct term, shout me, it has slipped my mind right now!) and a relatively narrow shoulder, then yet more trim. Now the cap sleeves are on it just needs hemming, the decorative stitches adding to the waist and the trim adding. I’m considering embroidering the trim as I have yet to find anything close.
Next up – To London! Fabric sourcing for the gambon, overshirt and trim! 

Boromir – Fellowship, Surcoat Begins

Sourcing materials! Dark blue leather, brown leather and chainmail.
The entire skin is larger than my cutting table!

Surcoat patterned and cut – I’m going to add in the waist seam for strength and the decorative top stitching. I’ve also patterned the gambeson and acquired a horn and replica sword.

Next stage: Sourcing the other materials. To Goldhawk!

Boromir – Fellowship Outfit, Referencing

Building this alongside my Eowyn build (and a few million other projects) – Boromir’s outfit from Fellowship of the Ring. Photos sourced from AlleyCatScratch.com

Dark blue (some sources say black, it always looked blue to me) surcoat, red undershirt with dark red or black collar and heavily embroidered sleeve cuff.
Padded silver gambeson – This is never actually seen given that it’s covered by chainmail, gloves, gauntlets and the over shirt. It’s still damn pretty though, and protects from the chainmail.


Here you can see the chainmail sleeves are actually attached to an undergarment to save on weight. I may do this at some point but for now I’m using full body chainmail.

This is the full costume, worn with his first cloak instead of the Lothlorien cloak.