(Photo Courtesy TORn)
For a couple of years I’ve been making
Lord of the Rings costumes for myself and friends...we made the Rose Dress,
Eowyn’s Brown/Blue outfit, the Requiem dress, Galadriel’s mirror dress, a
Luthien dress (my own pattern)...but the one costume I wanted to make above
all others was Arwen’s chase coat. And I looked for fabric, and nothing
satisfied me. I figured if I was going to make this coat, I would make
it as authentic as I possibly could...which made me extremely picky (probably
infuriatingly so).
What I really wanted at first was real suede. But I knew that wouldn’t happen, so I decided on ultrasuede instead. The only problem was, I couldn’t find the right shade of grey. I had already found some beautiful, flowing grey silk (with the slightest purplish tinge) at an Indian fabric store, and nothing matched it quite right. Also, the only ultrasuede I could find was $30.00/yd. I also wanted real crushed silk for the undersleeves, but had the same problem with every bolt I found. Not the right color, way too expensive.
Then one day I was looking for cotton velvet for Eowyn’s green gown, and there it was. Both the crushed silk and the perfect dove grey ultrasuede. The ultrasuede was only $12.50/yd, the silk was $10. I was ecstatic. I bought my fabric and hurried home to begin the mockups. It was a while before I got them finished, because of school, but finally I had the thing fitting how I wanted. I loathe patterns...so I made my own.
The bodice took the most time. I began by making two pieces of the center front (which was all one piece because I cut the collar on the fold), one for the lining. Now, looking at it, I wish I had made the collar just a tiny bit narrower...but that’s niggling. I’m happy just leaving it as is. Anyway, I stitched boning down the center of the lining 5/8" from the edge, and sewed on heavy interfacing around the collar. When the two pieces were sewn together, I tackled the collar lace.
This took the longest of the entire dress, probably 7 hours to finish. I have never made machine embroidery lace, so the whole thing was just guesswork. I started by tracing the collar shape onto wash-away stabilizer, then went and downloaded the huge picture of Arwen with the sword raised. I cropped everything but her right collar, then erased everything around it and all the fabric in the little panels between the lace strands (the thing really started reminding me of stained glass as I did it). I converted it to greyscale, enlarged it as much as I could to fit on one page, and printed it. Because the collar is curved in the picture, and doesn’t show the whole thing, I couldn’t just trace it, but I copied the pattern onto the stabilizer by hand.
Then I stuck the stabilizer in an embroidery hoop and started zig-zagging over the pattern, going back and forth on every line. Sometimes the stabilizer tore and the machine tried to eat it, but all in all I got it to work. When the whole thing was done, I was afraid of just washing it in the sink and getting it tangled, so I lay it flat in the bathtub, turned on the shower, and then let it dry like that. Worked perfectly. A couple strands were barely hooked or hadn’t been hooked at all, but a needle and thread fixed those. Then I hand-stitched the lace to the very edge of the bodice piece, just tacking it down every 1.5 inches or so. I left the rest to float on the fabric.
That done, I made the back sashes, sewed the rest of the bodice together, made and stitched on the sleeve caps. Next thing to tackle was the sleeves. I had pretty much figured out the weird curve on them, so I had my bizarre lower sleeves and undersleeves cut almost identically on top. The undersleeves just have a slight curve on the bottom, and come to knuckle length. The lower suede sleeves extend about 4 inches beyond my finger tips and are just wide, U-shaped pieces. I downloaded the designs for the upper sleeves, enlarged them to the size I wanted, and then used transfer paper and an orange stick to trace the design onto the sleeves. Then I painted over the design with a fine brush and a mixture of black and metallic pearl white fabric paint, just a little bit fainter than the suede. It made a slightly shimmery, very subtle design, exactly what I wanted.
Sewing the sleeves together was tricky, and I don’t remember exactly how I did it. I think I stitched both the lower and under sleeves to the bottom of the upper sleeves, stitched the sleeves to the bodice, then sewed up the sides of the bodice, the underarm seams of the upper sleeve, and somehow just the seam on the undersleeve.
Bodice done. The skirts were the easiest part. I made two large, rounded panels for the front, and slightly fuller square panels for the back. The underskirts I made three inches longer and a good deal wider, making the curve so that it would meet that of the front overskirt right where it straightens out. I made all four pieces the same, stitched two pairs together at the side seams, then sewed all the skirts onto the bodice. The front overskirts overlap the back about an inch at the sides. Last but not least, I hand sewed hooks and eyes up the front, alternating hooks and eyes on each side. Finally, I could wear my chase coat! The bodice needed to be taken in a bit (as seen in the picture), but now that's done...all I have left is the decorative stitching on the princess seams.
Finishing touches. I made a sculpey belt buckle, following the wonderful directions provided, then found myself with just gloves and boots left to account for. I still have to make the gloves. But I had an old pair of riding boots that my calves have since outgrown, so I split them up the back on either side of the reinforcement strip, and cut pieces of my leftover suede to cover them. Glued them on with tacky glue, punched some holes down each side (with my dad’s help:), found some old boot laces, and voila! Perfectly functional, very comfortable boots!
There was only one thing missing now...Arwen’s Evenstar. I toyed with making one out of sculpey, but turns out I didn’t need to...my parents got it for me for a little graduation present.
I've got a few new pics of my adjusted Chase Coat with my brand new digi cam! ^_^ Yes, that is Sting I'm carrying....Hadhafang fell in the Bruinen and I had to steal Bilbo's sword...somehow...;-)
More Pictures Are Coming!
What I really wanted at first was real suede. But I knew that wouldn’t happen, so I decided on ultrasuede instead. The only problem was, I couldn’t find the right shade of grey. I had already found some beautiful, flowing grey silk (with the slightest purplish tinge) at an Indian fabric store, and nothing matched it quite right. Also, the only ultrasuede I could find was $30.00/yd. I also wanted real crushed silk for the undersleeves, but had the same problem with every bolt I found. Not the right color, way too expensive.
Then one day I was looking for cotton velvet for Eowyn’s green gown, and there it was. Both the crushed silk and the perfect dove grey ultrasuede. The ultrasuede was only $12.50/yd, the silk was $10. I was ecstatic. I bought my fabric and hurried home to begin the mockups. It was a while before I got them finished, because of school, but finally I had the thing fitting how I wanted. I loathe patterns...so I made my own.
The bodice took the most time. I began by making two pieces of the center front (which was all one piece because I cut the collar on the fold), one for the lining. Now, looking at it, I wish I had made the collar just a tiny bit narrower...but that’s niggling. I’m happy just leaving it as is. Anyway, I stitched boning down the center of the lining 5/8" from the edge, and sewed on heavy interfacing around the collar. When the two pieces were sewn together, I tackled the collar lace.
This took the longest of the entire dress, probably 7 hours to finish. I have never made machine embroidery lace, so the whole thing was just guesswork. I started by tracing the collar shape onto wash-away stabilizer, then went and downloaded the huge picture of Arwen with the sword raised. I cropped everything but her right collar, then erased everything around it and all the fabric in the little panels between the lace strands (the thing really started reminding me of stained glass as I did it). I converted it to greyscale, enlarged it as much as I could to fit on one page, and printed it. Because the collar is curved in the picture, and doesn’t show the whole thing, I couldn’t just trace it, but I copied the pattern onto the stabilizer by hand.
Then I stuck the stabilizer in an embroidery hoop and started zig-zagging over the pattern, going back and forth on every line. Sometimes the stabilizer tore and the machine tried to eat it, but all in all I got it to work. When the whole thing was done, I was afraid of just washing it in the sink and getting it tangled, so I lay it flat in the bathtub, turned on the shower, and then let it dry like that. Worked perfectly. A couple strands were barely hooked or hadn’t been hooked at all, but a needle and thread fixed those. Then I hand-stitched the lace to the very edge of the bodice piece, just tacking it down every 1.5 inches or so. I left the rest to float on the fabric.
That done, I made the back sashes, sewed the rest of the bodice together, made and stitched on the sleeve caps. Next thing to tackle was the sleeves. I had pretty much figured out the weird curve on them, so I had my bizarre lower sleeves and undersleeves cut almost identically on top. The undersleeves just have a slight curve on the bottom, and come to knuckle length. The lower suede sleeves extend about 4 inches beyond my finger tips and are just wide, U-shaped pieces. I downloaded the designs for the upper sleeves, enlarged them to the size I wanted, and then used transfer paper and an orange stick to trace the design onto the sleeves. Then I painted over the design with a fine brush and a mixture of black and metallic pearl white fabric paint, just a little bit fainter than the suede. It made a slightly shimmery, very subtle design, exactly what I wanted.
Sewing the sleeves together was tricky, and I don’t remember exactly how I did it. I think I stitched both the lower and under sleeves to the bottom of the upper sleeves, stitched the sleeves to the bodice, then sewed up the sides of the bodice, the underarm seams of the upper sleeve, and somehow just the seam on the undersleeve.
Bodice done. The skirts were the easiest part. I made two large, rounded panels for the front, and slightly fuller square panels for the back. The underskirts I made three inches longer and a good deal wider, making the curve so that it would meet that of the front overskirt right where it straightens out. I made all four pieces the same, stitched two pairs together at the side seams, then sewed all the skirts onto the bodice. The front overskirts overlap the back about an inch at the sides. Last but not least, I hand sewed hooks and eyes up the front, alternating hooks and eyes on each side. Finally, I could wear my chase coat! The bodice needed to be taken in a bit (as seen in the picture), but now that's done...all I have left is the decorative stitching on the princess seams.
Finishing touches. I made a sculpey belt buckle, following the wonderful directions provided, then found myself with just gloves and boots left to account for. I still have to make the gloves. But I had an old pair of riding boots that my calves have since outgrown, so I split them up the back on either side of the reinforcement strip, and cut pieces of my leftover suede to cover them. Glued them on with tacky glue, punched some holes down each side (with my dad’s help:), found some old boot laces, and voila! Perfectly functional, very comfortable boots!
There was only one thing missing now...Arwen’s Evenstar. I toyed with making one out of sculpey, but turns out I didn’t need to...my parents got it for me for a little graduation present.
I've got a few new pics of my adjusted Chase Coat with my brand new digi cam! ^_^ Yes, that is Sting I'm carrying....Hadhafang fell in the Bruinen and I had to steal Bilbo's sword...somehow...;-)
More Pictures Are Coming!