Yesterday, I took the pieces I had for my Tauriel costume and entered myself in the Costuming Contest at Handcock Fabrics (which is where I picked up most of the material used in the cosplay). We’ll see how that turns out. Plus, I am thinking of entering a couple more online ones.
Today, though, I want to talk about design ideas that don’t translate from paper to reality. About a year ago, I drew up a 1940’s inspired design that I just HAD to make.
Please excuse my drawing skills…it’s something I am working on!
I’m not the best at flat pattern making (something I am going to make myself work on), so I decided to drape it. The final product turned out a bit different than my drawing, mainly because I could not quite figure out how to do what I wanted originally. But I loved the drape, so I went with it. I had bought a really pretty floral print a few weeks before that was sitting and waiting to be used, so I sewed up a final version of the drape.
I hated it. It had this weird combination of sexy with the neckline and frumpy with the sleeves. And it was uncomfortable. The sleeves didn’t move well and my over large rib cage made it hard to breathe. I was frustrated, so I set it aside, thinking I would come back to it later. Well, I forgot about it.
Fast forward almost 10 months, and I was going through things while packing for the move to Texas and I found this particular dress shoved way up under my bed. Poor little guy.
I pulled it out, ironed the ever living crap out of it and stared at it for a good hour. The hole reason I had set it aside was because I really wanted to follow my original vision and have sleeves on it, but that wasn’t working. I ended up tearing off the sleeves, adding a little inset at each side seam to make breathing more of a possibility and hemming it.
I am now super happy with the outcome. It’s pretty, it’s comfortable and most importantly, I can breathe! Now the goal is to take some pictures of me in the dress and put it up in my etsy shop.
Ruth Allynn Makes Things 