Padme Amidala Padme's Naboo Nightgown

Sigh, my husband says my blue velvet looks like superman color in daylight. Not good!!!

Hopefully, the smocking will add a little 'dimension' to the shade!


ecila

 

Super Padme?

Men.

I'm starting a mock-up of the nightgown this week, as soon as I figure out how to do it.

 

Heehee, Super Padme it is!


ecila

 

I think to REALLY work the Super Padmé angle, you have to swoop around the house in your robe, making the appropriate swooshing noises.

 

That sounds like fun, actually.

 

Yes, yes, definately need to include the swooshing!


SWOOOSSSHHH.....


ecila

 

Ah, but to be truly Super one must take the ultimate step and wear one's underpants on the outside!

 

Does wearing a nightgown in public count?
Well, they're cheap enough so I'm ordering a skien of both. I'll also get one of each in beige to compare for the white battle cape (yes, I'm still working on that).

wraith13

 

At c3 us girls with Padme nightgowns should all wear them on the same day

 

Oooooo Padme slumber party LOL

 

I started a mockup of the nightgown out of some atrocious yellow-printed fabric we have at home. It looks decent, although going slowly since the sewing machine decided to go kathunk!kathunk! the moment I touched it. Been hand-sewing the whole stupid thing. Arrrghhh!!

It hates me, I know it does!

Oh, and if you're going to be Super Padme, you need a catchy Super Padme theme song!

 

We need Will the filkmeister for that.

 

Hi JadeSolo,
A song is definately needed! I am sorry that your machine is kaplanking - but now the nightgown can be considered couture right? And who is this Will character anyway?!?

After a good trip to Michaels and Lowe's, I now have several shades of gel pens and a 48" by 36" piece of peg board. My goal is to finish the dotting before I leave on a busines trip Monday and to smock a little every night in the hotel!

ecila

 

Will is my fiance He's great at coming up with funny filk and song spoofs hehe. He's also a costumer, but not as much as I am Here's some of his parodies

 

Oooooo Padme slumber party LOL

Seriously! Us girls with nightgowns should walk around together in them

 

Got the Admiral Blue yarn in today. It's a really dark navy blue and not as soft as I thought. I'm going to knit up a swatch while I wait for the Dusk yarn to arrive. I had found another knit stitch called Lattice that I want to compare with the woven cables I did earlier. I'll post a pic of the swatch once its done.

wraith13

 

I (FINALLY!) finished the nightgown mockup. Couture and everything - well, except for one side seam that I managed to do before the sewing machine went kathunk!kathunk! again. Now I have to try it again with...more nightgown-y fabric. And as soon as I figure out how to work the digital camera, I'll post a picture of the smocking test.

Actually, I have a question. Maybe it's just the fabric I used, or maybe I don't know what I'm doing. I tried doing laces instead of a zipper or buttons in the back, but no matter how I lace it, the very top part of the back gets pulled down too far. Maybe the laces are too heavy, and the fabric too light? Or does the very top need something else to keep it together?

 

I got the dusk yarn in and it is much better. So soft and the blue is lighter. I have a pic up here. It's the last one on the page. I took apart the lattice swatch because the scale of the cables were just too small and it was too hard to adjust the pattern. So I'm sticking with the woven cables design.

wraith13

 

Yay wraith - I am glad you finally found the perfect yarn! It looks so soft and the color is great.

I have finished dotting and I am going to start the stitching tonight!

ecila

 

Thank you everyone for your input on the yarn! I really like working with it. I think I'll just use this yarn alone. The shadows from the texture of the cables creates a variation in the color (the "sheen") I was looking for.
Ecila, I hope your stitching is going well.
I plan on setting aside some time this week to start on the mockup of the robe. It seems to me in the pics, the openings of the sleeves are sewn up, leaving just a small opening for the hands, sort of like a penguin sleeve. Am I seeing things?

wraith13

 

Guess what ? I've started smocking royal blue velvet myself for my 16" Padme doll ! it's quite an ambitious project, I've calculated over 12 500 dots painted on my meter lenght piece of fabric. The dots are separated by 1/4 of inch, it took about 3 days to paint those dots.

I've already done like 6 rows of smocking...it's quite long....the weight of it quite heavenly too !

I'll keep you all posted

 

Wow Anthony - that is a LOT of dots!!

I was dotting forever to make the marks every two inches on 45" by 13 yrds of the velvet. I sewed the two panels of velvet together half way and started smocking away! The first 5 rows took quite a while, between work travel, sloppy sewing, and inexperienced smocking. I finally got the hang of it this weekend, and I have been smocking wildly ever since. The robe is about 1/3 of the way done, going from the floor to halfway up my back. At this rate, I will finish the smocking this weekend.

I will post pictures soon. Still need to do the gown too!

Wraith - how is the knitting coming along?



ecila

 

Well, I'm saving up right now to buy the yarn and long enough needles for the project. I'm working on the mockup to figure out the yardage needed. I may be able to order all the supplies for the robe this weekend though. It doesn't help that I finally got the yarn for a cherry blossom scarf I've designed. My knitting group is meeting this week and I wanted to get their opinion on the scarf so I'm working furiously on it.
Wow, Ecila, I can't believe you're almost done! Is it all done in one piece?

wraith13

 

I'm soooo desperate...

I did not use a ruler to mark my dots....I just painted them...and of course there are some parts that the dots were veeeery close to each other...I'm not to the part of the smocking where I have to smock those dots...and it's reeeeeally reeeeally ugly compared to some other spots of real nice lattice smocking.

I want to start all over again, it's not really the smocking that makes me cringe, it's marking the dots. is there any way I could paint equaly those dots If I'm too lazy to use a ruler ??? I know they sell papers, but I'm not sure of how to use them, and I'm not sure they would have any papers with dots placed at 1/4 inch each...

 

Hi,

My robe is over halfway done now! Wow, my fingers are even sore from all of the stitching.

Anthony - I would look in someplace like Staples to find the engineering drafting paper with the small lines. Also, how about a piece of window screening?

Wraith - it is all in one piece now, but it was initially made from two 7 yard pieces of velvet. Each piece of fabric is 45 inches wide. I stitched the two swatches of velvet up togeter halfway, so it sort of looked like a Y (with the bottom half of the Y 90 inches wide.) I started at the bottom of the Y, which will be the back, and I am at the apex now. The back is actually too long, so I need to back track a bit and unhem the stitching and lop the smocking in half.

Unfortunately, my camera is MIA, so no pics. My goal is to finish smocking by Monday night!

I really like this robe a lot. Its taken most of my free time over the past two months, but I absolutely love how it looks. Now I just have to speedily finish!

The clock is ticking!!


ecila