River - Brown Serenity Dress

From: Serenity
Date: Shore Leave, DragonCon 2008
Pattern(s) used:

shirt body:

sleeves:

Tunic: N/A

Dress:

Fabric Swatch(s):

This costume I did for Amezri. We spent a lot of time going over patterns options and then another lot of time going through Joann's trying to find suitable fabric for the brown dress…we aren't even sure if it's really brown or more of a faded purple! Eventually we came up with this - a kind of tiered tank dress, with a brown shirt that has one long sleeve and one short sleeve, and a crocheted tank that went over everything.

The dress already had some ruffling too it, but I cut out and pieced in more panels of the skirt to try to get the feel of the dress. The fabric we found was not really all that close - it was a pink and white-ish fabric, with an embossed leopard print, but that was the closest we could find. As a surprise to Amezri, I bought spray dye in blue and purple and sprayed the heck out of it, and I think really helped.

The brown shirt was a mish-mash of two different patterns, and just plain altering. The long sleeve is actually the sleeve pattern from an Arwin costume. The shirt was from a pattern that my mom had given me - from the '70's! It was just a basic shirt, really. And we chopped a cap sleeve and ripped up and elongated the hemline at the bottom.

For the convention, the crocheted vest was not ready (another friend was making it). We had bought some fabric that kind of looked right, but not really, and made that into the vest, but it really didn't look right. So, as another surprise, I went out and found a bathing suit cover (still not even close) and died that with more spray dye. After that was done, we ripped it apart more appropriately and it looked better. I believe the crocheted piece is now done and looks 100 times better, though. Yay!

Favorite part: I think I managed the dress quite nicely!

Least favorite part: the crocheted tank piece that didn't look right

Pictures: