Ok so wow… my expensive fabric I ordered for Amidala is ALREADY HERE. I was prepared to wait a month for it, because it was coming from India. I ordered it last Friday and it arrived Tuesday. WOW!
It’s not perfect, but I think the pattern is good and has been the closest I could find in a decent fabric (found plenty in a cotton…). It’s a little sheer, but I was planning to line it anyway, so not a big deal there. My main issue is that it’s pretty stiff, whereas it should be a bit more drapey.
Just pinned onto the dressform with the robe fabric wrapped around.
I’m going to try soaking it with a bit of fabric softener, and then tumbling it on low heat in the dryer. I’m not going to full on prewash it — I don’t THINK it would shrink, but I’m not going to take the chance, I need every inch I can get and it’s already only 44″ wide.
So other than just look at it and then dump it on the floor in my office, I haven’t done anything else with it… I need lining for both the robe and the dress before I can start, hopefully picking that up this weekend.
In the world of Tink, I got the outer dress panels cut. Originally I was going to do some pleated/gathered panels (similar to Meg or Johanna) but I thought that would add too much bulk. So instead I decided to follow the seam lines of the upper part, and then just past the waist flare out and leave length. So that’s how I cut the panels, and I only sewed them together to just past the waist for now.
Threw them in the dye tuesday night.
LETTUCE!
I’m going to let them dry coiled up like this so they have a crinkled texture.
Only problem with that is… it’s not summer and I can’t set them outside to dry quickly like I usually do LOL I’m setting them outside in the sun during the couple of hours of daylight I’m home in the afternoon, but it’s not enough. Right now they’re wrapped up in a towel. Today is supposed to be warmer so I’m hoping to get them out in the sun again when I get home.
I don’t want to wait 4 weeks on these things to dry LOL
Besides the dress panels I also dyed what was left of the fabric to use as drapes/extra floof, whatever.
(Also just a curiosity – I tried ironing them to help them dry but it did something weird to the dye. So I stopped doing that. Honestly I’m seeing some really weird stuff going on – possibly just due to the fabric this fabric was previously dyed red, dumped in dye remover, cleaned and now back into green dye, and also just that I was dip dyeing and constantly adding more dye in different concentrations. And I noticed two of the panels took to the dye differently. WEIRD. But I’m not too worried, because spots and streaks and whatnot are ok with me for this project. And I like the fact that both my main Tink and main Peter Pan fabric are both “reclaimed” fabrics I cleaned up and dyed, I think that’s fun.)
Oh and I forgot to post my finished underdress:
It ended up being a LITTLE big! I had to sneak a couple of darts into the back. But overall very happy with it.
And here’s a random snapchat selfie.
I honestly don’t know that I’m going to work on anything tonight; I’ve been feeling weird since yesterday afternoon. I think tonight I may just rest and then focus on sewing the rest of the weekend. If I can get that Tink fabric dry, I’d like to start playing with that… if not, going to mess around with Kevin’s Peter Pan tunic, and start on my amidala underdress.