Padme Amidala Padmé's Packing Dress in AOTC

Adalia-Durron! Wow! I made the rainbow lake retreat dress for a little girl too! tee-hee...
Everyone in your group looks fantastic. Great picture!

I've been up to my old tricks again...my sleeves came off and were reworked. About three times. They were just too full and I had to take them in. I'm marginally happy with them and since a fellow costuming guru gave them an passing grade, I suppose they are good.

One of the things I did when I originally made them was to use three layers of fabric. I used a white batiste as the lining, a very fine layer of silver/gray tulle as the middle layer with the black warp chiffon as the outer fabric. The tulle ended up giving a little too much poof to the sleeves overall and so it came out when I took the sleeves in. I find that, for me, just having the batiste under the chiffon serves the dual purpose of making the chiffon opaque and giving it just the right ammount of body.

One of my favorite parts of the sleeves are the cuffs. I made seven chiffon covered buttons per cuff and corresponding chiffon loops as their closures.
(I don't know why...I just really like that detail.)

I've also been working on the vest's front panel. Just like FERD! Yay!
I'm on my second one. Blarharharhar! I got my first version partly beaded and chucked it to start over.

I've been using the back cover of the AOTC novel as my main resource. There is a lace appliqué on this piece. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were an antique piece that Trisha and co. found along the way somewhere. Its shape is not completely symmetrical. In fact, the whole design on this front panel isn't perfectly symmetrical to my eye.

Here's my little rundown of how I see this thing, which is not certain, by any means!:
It looks like there is some type of netting/fine lace/tulle ? that covers the entire panel. This layer seems fine enough to let the gray color of the actual panel come through. (In fact, I'm not 100% sure about whether or not this is really covering the whole panel or I'm jusat seeing it around the appliqué edges.) Over this is the lace appliqué which fills the mid portion of the panel and has all the scalloped designs. Running throughout the entire panel it looks like there is a very fine gold thread chain or cording (for lack of better terms) that loops this way and that. If you study the book cover image carefully, you can make this gold cording out to loop around the turquoise beads that radiate out at the top and bottom of the panel. This gold cording weaves around on top of the lace appliqué and around the beads.
I see three different colors of beads: turquoise, white and a antiqué gold seed bead. The turquoise and white beads come in a few different shapes and sizes.
It's a pretty intricate design to my eyes.

So, I'm using a piece of my charcoal velveteen as the base fabric, but I'm using it wrongside up. This is then backed with black cotton duck. I've sewn two layers of a creamy fine tulle onto the panel, these wrap around the edges so it looks like it's all one piece. I bought some lace that is 5" wide and I cut out a piece, lengthwise, in the shape of the appliqué. I am about to stitich it onto my panel. I also have some other laces that I may use to form smaller appliqué's ontop of this to bulk it up and define the shape a bit more. I have some very thin gold cord that I am going to couch onto the lace and then I will bead it.

Wish. Me. Luck.

 

Great picture!! Thanks for sharing.

Dawn LOL--I'm fixin' to chuck mine too. I think I might have dove in too fast to it, and that "lace" back ground as seen on the novel is driving me bananas. When I made my Ever After dress I used a floral paint in Champagne silver to color my bullion and lace the right antique color--I'm thinking about playing around with that and some lace scraps to see if I can capture that antique feel the original has. I agree it looks like one of her famous antique one-of a kind pieces. There's a whole lot of detail going on that one little panel. **Joann's is having all of their jewelry making supplies on sale (including beads) this week or next. Good time to get all of those different beads

I haven't done the sleeves yet (trying to finish up POTC right now) but thanks for the warning about the sandwiched tulle--It sounded good in theory, but I guess they are more drapey in actuality.

Can't wait to see your progress Dawn, and I'll post mine here as soon as I get my "real" computer back--This one is a dinosaur

~Ferd

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one that is going bananas over the lace. It seems totally conceivable that Trisha found some piece of antique lace somewhere and had it slapped onto this piece, doesn't it? *grumble grumble*

Yes, I took the tulle idea for the sleeves straight from you! It worked really well. Just a little too well. tee-hee....

I threw some progress pics up at my site. The lace appliqué is in progress, so I know it looks fun-kay right now. If it doesn't work, there's always a third try to be had. Blarharhar!

Progress pics of my panel and sleeve cuff

 

O-D, I think your new approachto the lace is looking really terrific -- it has that same delicate look of the original gown. Fabulous!


-sg

 

Dawn Oooooohhhhhh! That sleeve...those buttons! Drool!!!! I love it!!!!! Fabulous job, as always

The lace looks great-the open weave looks very similar to the original--Very nice!

~Ferd (who is now embarrassed to show her progress next to Obi-Dawn's tee hee

 

Dawn!!! Please tell me how you did those sleeves!

I need to redo some fof my dress, including the sleeves.

 

Ferd, don't make me come over there!
We KNOW yours is gorgeous, too, so make with the pictures!

 

Wow Obi-Dawn! Your panel looks amazing! You're so smart and dedicated!

 

Samantha, those sleeves were the bane of my existence for about a week. ARGH!
Anyway, I'll try to write up a little explanation of how I did them for you, although ...I sorta just winged it. I started with a pattern, but it got very altered by the time I was done. I'll get pattern numbers to you and such.

Thanks for the confidence in my lace idea guys. I worked on it all day yesterday and last night. I cut and pieced together small bits of other laces and appliqué's and 'built up' the base by hand stitching them ontop. I really concentrated on building up the edges and the scallopy areas. I think it really helped to define the shape and gives it a lot more texture.
Now I'm working on adding the gold cording. I hope this part will look alright....*crosses fingers*

Here's where I'm at now: Panel progress #2

And, FERD, you are a silly monkey. YOU are one of my costuming gurus, and your stuff is always gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous!

 

Whoa.
Dawn, that looks wonderful. More than wonderful -- glorious! Plus, you're zipping right along with it!
You're gonna be done before you know it.

 

Obi-Dawn - I totally see what you mean about the lace. And it doesn't look even or symmetrical.

If you want to give me some hints or ideas for a writeup on the panel (when you're done or have time) - I can update things on my site. (That goes for you too, Ferd!)

Anyway, Dawn - your costume looks terrific - I love your buttons and sleeve and your panel and it's going to look so great!!!

Maggie

 

Obi-Dawn Thanks! I gotta take apart most of my dress except the skirt and redo it. I wanna make it better. The vest needs to be stiffer (any ideas?) and i wanna redo the sleeves & Middle piece (I used paint & beads and some hand embriodary)

One of these days i'll do it lol

 

Wow Dawn! Your packing gown is really coming along beautifully. I never knew that the piece in the center was lace - and I never would have thought of combining two kinds of lace to re-create it! I think once all the embroidery and beading is added nobody will even know it wasn't just once lace applique piece

I am also very impressed with the sleeves. Amazing work as always!

-Kay Dee

 

Dawn Your lace just looks awesome!! It flows so nicely, and I know it will be just perfect when it's all said and done. I'm just anxious to see you in those nerf football hair buns!! (no, seriously, have you thought about the hair? I'm no 'hair expert' but I have always thought in the back of my mind that you could implement a couple of nerf footballs for this odd hairdo. They are lightweight and about the right size and shape. If you could make a slit in one and take your hair--or better yet fake hair and wrap it around the footballs and tuck and possibly glue it into the slit to hold in place and hide the 'nerf-ness'
They could maybe be pinned into place or possibly hooked to the headband thing for support ---Thoughts?

I'll post my pics as soon as my computer comes back from repair- (Don't buy an I-Book!!!! Mine smells like lemon! )

~Ferd

 

Thanks FERD!
I've moved on to the beading now, so I think it'll be done relatively soon.

 

Ferd the nerf football idea is too funny! (That hairstyle always kind of reminded me of footballs too)

I know I have not studied this dress at all, but I went to a costume hair tutorial/workshop this weekend and had another idea on how to make the side bun things based on our lesson. (If someone else has already done the hairstyle this way I'm sorry for the repeat).

The woman giving the tutorial showed us these long foam rods (about 1 - 1.5" in diameter if I remember) that are flexible and can be purchased from "real" hardware stores like Lowes (she said Orchard and Home Depot didn't have them). Anyway, you can take the fake weaving hair that is purchased in bags (wig stores in San Francisco sell it for only about 4 dollars a bag) and wrap it around one of the long tubes. You can experiment with two tubes side by side, or one long tube bent in half to create that double roll look.

If you want to make sure the beige foam color does not show through you could first cover the foam with brown fabric (she uses tulle a lot because bobby pins can go through it) or color it with a permanent marking pen (like a sharpee).

You could get the buns to stay on your head by perhaps attaching them to a thin headband that goes over the top of your head, and your 'real' hair brushes over the top of it to hide it.


-Kay Dee

 

Great ideas for the hair you two.

I finished my front panel over the weekend. I really enjoyed making it and that's probably why I was able to zip through it. Yay.

Once the beading was done I decided the lace really needed to be antiqued. So I stained it with tea by using a small paintbrush. It took two applications, but I think it was worth it. You can see a finished pic of it here: Finished panel

I also updated my site with some sketches I did of the design. I really just consider them as my interpretations and not exactly exact.

Next stop on this costume train will be making the vest.

 

Beautiful work Obi-Dawn! I'm so impressed with the bodice panel - it looks so much like the real thing!

-Kay Dee

 

Dawn!!! It looks PERFECT!

I think when i decide to redo my dress, i'll be borrowing your idea with the lace and what not

 

Oh Dawn! It looks fantastic!! Love your attention to detail. You continue to raise the bar. Of course, I wouldn't expect any less than perfection. You are the Packing Queen now! Can't wait to see the rest.

~Ferd

 

Looks terrific, Dawn.

And don't think I didn't notice you changed your icon from picnic Padme to packing Padme.

 

Looks exquisite Obi-Dawn!

 

Gorgeous, Obi-Dawn! I love the idea of using the tea to dye the lace!

Maggie

 

Well, everybody already used all the good superlative words, so:

*applause*



Katie