Padme Amidala Amidala's Gowns (part 2)

Christmas break is over...and 300 petals have been hand dyed. I did end up buying a rotary cutter and a mat at Myers. The mat was 40- it's a good size,but still a tad bit expensive in my eyes. I just sewed on the first row of petals late last night- I'm so excited! Thanks to everyone for their advice so far!

 

Wow, I admire your dedication - hand dyeing 300 petals!

Looking forward to seeing it jedilucass!

 

I'm excited to see it too!! 300 petals... good god... I feel your pain. I'm sure Sola does too.

The parasol sounds cool too - I'd love to see pics of that when you get the chance!

 

Thanks for the encouragement, everyone! I about screamed towards the end, because my rotary cutter wasn't working correctly. But, I luckily bought one that has replacement blades...
Pictures of my progress should be coming soon!

 

I've got another question about the petal cloak... is it lined, and if so, what is it lined in?
Thanks in advance!
~Laura

 

I cannot see the inside of the actual costume from any of the reference pictures I've found, so no help from there unfortunately.

I didn't line my cloak, but you could probably use regular satin lining, or even curtain sheers or something like that.

 

I didn't line my cloak either - the main reason being the amount of work and time I had, but also because the dang thing has a hard enough time staying on anyway. Since my dress was done out of shiny white bridal polyester (a mistake I won't make again), the cloak NEVER stays on correctly. I've even added hooks to the shoulders of my dress without much success. If the cloak was lined, I'd have no hope of keeping it on at all. I don't know if changing the fabrics when I redo the costume will help (it probably will), but I do plan to put some heavy-duty snaps into place to help keep it on.

 

Built-in snaps - that's a great idea. I just used heavy duty safety pins that were hidden under the petals.

But yeah, this thing gets pretty heavy even with what I thought was lightweight fabric.

 

I have some progress pictures up on yahoo, if anyone is interseted:

parade gown progress

 

jedilucass, the link isn't working for me. I think with Yahoo you have to just post the URL as text and we will have to copy and paste it into a browser. Yahoo doesn't allow linking or something.

 

Okay, here's the link in text:

http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/padme8604/album?.dir=/laura%27s+parade+gown

I hope that works!

 

Sorry, still not working for me! Maybe it's just me....

 

Hmmms... let me fiddle around with the yahoo settings on the phot album....


edit: Okay, I should I fixed it now. Try the old link again.

 

OMG!!!!

WOW!!! jedilucass, those petals are absolutely STUNNING!! Nice work!! Your cloak is going to be amazingly beautiful. All that hard work hand-dyeing will DEFINITELY pay off!

I'm SO excited to watch your progress on this...

 

kreleia, thanks for the compliments! I'm more than halfway done as of last night, and should, if I have enough time, be finished by the end of my three day weekened.

 

I agree with kreleia! The dye job is beautiful! You're doing a fantastic job, girl!

(I absolutely love seeing when costumers are able to take the time to do things like hand dyeing hundreds of petals or spending hundreds of hours embroidering a sleeve. It's always inspiring. )

 

I just finished my petal cloak today! I'm so happy that I finished this weekend. Now comes the dress, which, for me as a begining seamstress, looks like the hardest part. But, pics of my completed cloak will be up as soon as I get the film developed!

 

It looks amazing so far jedilucass! The petals look so shimmery and soft and light, and, oh I dunno, 'melt in your mouth'! Excellent work!

 

I'm in the process of making the dress for the parade gown-(finised pics of the petal cape will be up as soon as my dad gets the film developed, why it's taking so long, I don't know...) and I've got several questions for those of you who have made it-
1. Which pattern did you use? I'm making my mock up using this one:
http://store.sewingtoday.com/cgi-bin/butterick/shop.cgi?s.item.6531=x&TI=10002&pageNum=5&M=&UK=31974963

view d, and altering the sleeves, removing the slits, and lengthing the entire thing so it touches the ground. What has everyone else used?

2. Fabric... I've spent countless hours going around fabric stores looking for a slightly off white fabric that isn't bridal satin, and isn't too white, and haven't had any luck. What kind of fabric has everyone else used?

Thanks in advance,
Laura

 

I didn't make a full dress to wear underneath. I already had a white linen dress, and I made a tabard out of cream satin that I just tacked around the neckline of the dress. I sewed the costume 'tie' to the tabard. I used Simplicity 5843 (the picnic dress pattern) for the tabard:

[image=http://sistersola.com/Extras/boards/Simp5843.jpg]

 

Wow Laura, your cape is coming just beautifully! You did a wonderful job dyeing the petals! I see you caught the "crazy obsessive costumer" bug - there's no hope once you've got it!

Maggie

 

Laura, that looks like a really good pattern to use for the dress. The pattern I used was McCalls #9456 - the shape of the dress is right (to my eye, anyway), but I hated the princess side-seams on the front and back of the dress. As far as I can tell, the original is a plain-front dress. Of course, 3 years ago, this style of dress was difficult to find for some reason. I really like what you have - I think it will work extremely well.

As for fabric, if you can't find a good natural (cotton, silk, etc) fabric to use, you might want to try peachskin. It's a really soft lightweight poly blend, and I've seen it in soft whites and off-whites before. You could probably also dye a bright-white fabric with a half-amount of Rit or using tea or onion skin (experiment with scraps first). If you need a good fabric resourse, check out Dharma Trading. They carry a great selection of natural dyeable fabrics at really nice prices - not necessarily cheap, but usually quite a bit less than what you see at the local fabric store.

I'm SO excited to see pics of the finished cloak!!!

 

George Lucas' *sexual fantasies* about Amidala started with this dress. He wanted it VERY slnky, almost sexy. So Biggar cut it on the bias. Also, the sleeves on your pattern look correct to what was used for the original. Maybe they should be lengthened a bit. Also, on the *skirt* of the dress...it needs to angled/flared out a bit. It looks like white satin to me. and the sleeves a weird chiffon. Looks textured and *ribbed* but wider apart. If that makes sense. Everyone does know this dress is in Japan right now, right? On exhibit. I might just have to go because they also have the accomanying handmaiden mossy green velvet over pale mint green dress!!!

Daniel

 

Thanks everyone for the compliments and advice! And here it is, the completed petal cloak:

http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/padme8604/album?.dir=/laura%27s+parade+gown&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/padme8604/my_photos

(or, you can just go to the progress pic link... why it won't work this time I have no idea....)

And the search continues for decent fabric continues. I'm going to be going out tomorrow looking for dress fabric.

 

GORGEOUS!!! Excellent work!!!