Arwen Dress

For the last Hobbit premiere I knew I needed something special.  I had planned on wearing my Tauriel again...but I have now worn that costume 6 times and it wasn't as exciting any more.

Ever since I saw Lord of the Rings and fell in love with it I have been wanting Arwen's blue and red dress.

So I decided this was the perfect excuse to make it.  Because when am I going to make it otherwise?

I decided to use a pattern rather than drape one because I wanted to conserve my stores of draping fabric.  TERRIBLE IDEA.  This is why I drape and always, ALWAYS make a mock up.  Or two.

But I had used this pattern before, a long time ago, and was pretty confident in its fit.  So I set about cutting out.  For reference it is a Mccall's pattern.  And it is a good pattern...if you use your brain while making it...

I cut everything out, having to make some huge adjustments in the hem circumference because I didn't buy enough fabric.  I was pretty pleased with the way everything was going.  My fabrics were coming together nicely on the sleeves, and the trim was perfect.

And then I sewed the sleeves together and attached the sleeves to the dress.  I had forgotten the sleeve gore.

For those of you unfamiliar with gores.  THEY ARE AWFUL.  I usually adjust my sleeve patterns so I don't have to add gores.  But I had forgotten that this pattern had a gore.  Forgetting the gore made the sleeves about 3 inches too low down on my arm.  I cobbled something together, because I was all out of the blue fabric, and made things work...ish. 

Hopefully one day I will rip this dress apart, get some more blue velvet and add a gore to really solve the problem.  But for the Hobbit premiere I had an ill fitting...while pretty...dress. 

I did convince my friend to wear my Tauriel costume.  I think I may have turned her off of ever wearing a lace front again.  The adhesive and latex was kind of mean to her face when we pulled it off her that night.

Here are the finished pictures!