Elf dress!

So, anyone who knows me, will know that my main hobby is LARPing. This is a cross between historical re-enactment and all the epic fantasy stories you have ever read. You can therefore imagine that for such a cool setting, you need awesome clothing. That's where this post comes in. Two years ago, shortly after starting a new character, I realised I had no cool clothes for her and no money to buy them. So I set about my most ambitious project up til that point - making a medieval style dress.And here it is:

The main dress was made from some taffeta I had lurking about. It is a gorgeous material and fairly easy to sew. I had intended to make the sleeves out of the same, but didn't have enough. Working to a budget as I was, I searched through my magical fabric box of wonders, and found some gauzy material in an appropriate colour.

My character is an elf. Clearly the coolest race. Also v necklines are awesome. This one was trimmed with some gold ribbon I had lying about. This was my first introduction to the effect trimmings have on making something look finished. The sleeves are also trimmed with the same ribbon

The belt was for Reasons - namely having somewhere to attach a sword, pouch, and any other items essential to such an awesome Hero :D

Eyelets are fun! There's nothing like hitting fabric with a hammer to take out your frustrations! It's not completely smooth and even, mainly due to me being slightly larger than I'd like, but meh, it did up and worked amazingly!

In Summary:

This was a difficult project, because it was my first time of making a whole outfit like this.

The eyelets looked awesome but were tiresome to do up every morning - in future I'd keep them, but add a zip under the arm to make it easier to put on and take off

I actually hate that gauzy material I used for the sleeves. Next time I'd make sure to have enough taffeta for the whole thing.

Also next time I'd add more embellishment. Embroidery or beads or something

However, it did look awesome, and flouncing round the field as a pretty elf was really very cool indeed.