Padme Amidala Padmé's Packing Dress in AOTC

Lol, I hadn't considered that Dressing A Galaxy might be incorrect, and I was treating it as my Star Wars costuming bible.

I know that the voile that I used didn't work out too well, but I thought Amaryllis's skirt looked fantastic with the silk she used.

 

Wow, thank you Cleopatra! I really adored your gown, so it's exciting to hear that from you!

I think some of you already know, but I used the lightest silk tussah available from silkconnection.com for the skirt. I received my newsletter from them a month or so ago and it mentioned that they are discontinuing the silk tussah. If anyone is interested in using that fabric, you should probably order it soon. I just wanted to give everyone the heads up on that!

 

Amaryllis , you dress is just a masterpiece!
Never liked this gown. Never liked the way it fits Natalie. Never considered to even look at this dress' way. You made me reconsider the last part!
I ADORE how it fits you! You are so lovely in this dress . It's only my opinion, but I really think it fits you much better than Natalie. You are so beautifull in it...
Now I'm doing packing gown, too. And only because of you. Thanks for that!

 

Well, I've started this dress. My first step is armbands.
[image=http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/6093/dsc05191cc4.jpg] [image=http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/1629/dsc05178er2.jpg]
I think it won't hurt to share the details of constraction. I hope this will help to others
First of all, it's not metal, it's plastic! As a result - a wonderful light weight and neat fitting. For the base I used an ordinary plastic cup for cold food. I cut the top of it with a metal-working saw (the plastic is rather thick, 3 mm), polished the cut with 2 different sandpapers, fused the edges. I put on the design with a 3D paint. Then, I painted the whole thing with an aerosol enamel. After drying I added the 'stones' with acryl paint.

 

They look lovely!

 

They look nice!
Mine are sooooo heavy, I have to secure them really tight to make sure they don't fall down and the weight of the 8 bracelets is awful!

 

So this dress has been sitting around since last November and I?ve decided to redo it for dragon con.

2 quick questions:
1) How do you do the headdress? I was going to attach football shaped wire mesh to a headband and cover it with fake hair. But how does one attach fake hair? Hot glue?
2)I'm using an embroidery machine to replicate the gray chain stitch design under the beads. Has anyone done this? Or might have a pattern already digitized? Just checking.

Thanks ya'll- good to be back at this costume!

 

Holy cow, thank you so much! I'm glad you couldn't see velcroed/glued/mounting taped mess on the back of my armbands. xD

I'm excited to see how your dress turns out as well! I've been in love with the Packing Gown for a long time. I love corsets and I think the hair is gorgeous. And BIG FLUFFY SKIRTS are always good. So far, your armbands look great! Makes me want to go back and de-ghettoffy mine.

 

I'm not sure who you were directing this at, but I'll give my two cents.

I did my headdress by sculpting a big block of styrofoam (my dad got it from his job site, he works in construction) into the shape I wanted and covering it with hair by using clear adhesive caulk. I thought it ended up looking shiny and plastic-y. If I could do it again, I would do it slower and more carefully and try not to have any caulk show on outer hair.

I don't have an embroidery machine, so I had to do it all by hand ;_; I'm afraid I can't be much help on that one.

I know Cleopatra used wire mesh and her headdress turned out great. I think you're probably on the right track!

 

*click* Shot fabric, aka two tone aka iridescent (though technically in fabrics that refers to at least three different colours ) I had though it looked shot but wondered if that was an effect of the two layers woven together. I've seen a few examples of this type, usually the threads are quite stiff so the fabric is quite stiff.

Cleopatramwi and Amaryllis your work is absolutely gorgeous. Fantastc stuff

 

I covered my wire mesh with felt and then sewed the hair to the felt. I did secure some of the ends with hot glue. It works best if you can get "weave" style hair that has a sewn edge so there is something to put the needle through. I wouldn't recommend using human hair. I started using human hair and ended up with flyaways no matter what I did.

I did my embroidery by hand as well.

 

Amaryllis your gown is stunning and I am sure the photos do not give it justice!

I like the look of hte fabric you used for the skirt, which is what I am having difficulty with. I went to Silk Connection and they still have it but before I do can you tell us what the fabric is like? Weave, texture and if it was easy to dye?

Also, what colour dye did you use? The colour is amazing!

 

Ahh I'm not very good with technical terms but I will try. It's very lightweight with a tiny bit of stiffness. It seemed heavier and stiffer when I first bought it - numerous dyeing attempts and copious amounts of handling softened it. It has some lines running through it (is that called slubbing? I dunno) in both directions, but not nearly as thick or pronounced as the vertical lines on Padme's. The dyeing helped these lines stand out, which made me happy.

As far as the dye goes, honestly I don't really remember. It's a mix of RIT pearl grey and I think slate blue? Some kind of blue. Maybe navy? Also a little black, in my final attempt, to get a nice dark saturation. I dyed it three or four times, so the mixture is really convoluted. It came out too light and too blue the first times, so I mixed up the combination of dyes and tried again a few more times.

Also, there are/were two kinds of tussah on silk connection and I can't remember which one I bought =X I need to start writing these kinds of things down.

Thank you for your comments, I'm glad you like my gown! I need to clean it up a little bit and wear it again soon.

 

Thank you! I think the hardest thing about the skirt is finding that right texture. But your looks great so I will go with that! How many yards did you use?

 

Ten yards.

 

I am nearly finished my beading and embroidery on my vest and have come to a problem. What to do around the edges! Is it a yarn or beading? I don't know what to do! Any suggestions?

 

Nope, it's not a shot fabric. That's much more even with the warp being one color and the weft another. This fabric is not so even. It is more like a natural hand woven type of fabric where you occasionally have cross wise or horizontal fibers that are darker. It's not even like a shot fabric at all. One close idea is this fine fawn wild silk "muga" but I got a swatch and it is too coarse and slubby. I swear, they used a very unique weave or fiber blend I have not yet been able to find anything exactly like it.

You mean the very edge going around the design? It is not beads. It is either a flat trim (kind-of rope like) or actually individual silk-like yarn strands. I tend to think it is some kind of flat trim with maybe a knit-like quality (not stiff) The trim is couched down at intervals with two rows of silvery-gray heavy silk or rayon yarn/floss. It don't believe it was metallic either.

 

Thanks Kay Dee, I was leaning towards the yarn. I read somewhere that is was beading (whether this was an observation or not?). I will go with the yarn!

 

Gosh, I looked at it pretty closely at FIDM since it was in the front row of costumes and I remember thinking 'oh, this is not beads... it is a fiber trim couched down'. I looked again at my DAG book and it was as I remembered, some sort of trim made of fibers. Not rows of seed beads. I kind of suspect it might not be rows and rows of yarn, but I've never come across a flat knit-like trim like that yet so I'd guess couching down strands of something like heavy silk or rayon floss could give the next best impression

 

That's awsome for being made before the movie was even released! I know how it feels to want to do a redo. I keep telling myself to start my picnic redo but I'm so nervous to dive in again. I've set my expectations too high and I don't know if I'm ready to really have the patience to do it right.

 

I have completed (somewhat my vest embroidery!!!!

I would share a pic but it does not want to work for me but as soon as I figure it out I will post!

 

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Nope. Still can't do it?

 

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