Anne Boleyn – Anne of the Thousand Days

Made for: Dragoncon 2014

Background: One of my favourite Anne Boleyn movies – I thought this would be a fun project.

Journal Entries: Read more at my Anne of the 1000 Days tag

Patterns Used:
Simplicity 2589 and Simplicity 2621 with Jean Hunnisett’s Period Costumes for Stage and Screen

Under-things:
Initially, I was going to use all of my under-things I’d made for my 2009 Anne Boleyn costume – but I ended up only using part of them: the petticoat, bum roll, and hoopskirt. I decided to make a new under-corset, as my 2009 one was uncomfortable. I made a new one that is much better and more comfortable (using my leftover Haunted Mansion fabric!)

Dress:
It was a comedy of errors with the fabric for this dress – I picked out something I liked at Joann’s, since I had a gift card to use. Each bolt only had 8 yards on it, so I got 5 yards from one store and 5 from another. I asked if they could order more in, which they did. That took a long time. When it finally arrived it was dirty and covered in tiny ink marks. They damaged it out and I got the whole bolt, all 8 yards for $20 total. It cleaned up fine and ended up being a lifesaver – I thought I’d only need part of it, I ended up using every bit of it (it was only 45″ wide so cutting out large panels was not fun).

Anyway, I used the above Simplicity pattern pieces as a basis. I lengthened the sleeves a little, and added length to the skirt as well as two additional panels. The skirt is cartridge pleated and sewn onto the bodice. The underskirt is made of a gold taffeta – I’d rather have found a high-quality gold-lamé, but searches were fruitless. The neckline trim I made out of the gold taffeta and gold trim.

Sleeves:
The undersleeves are made of the gold taffeta as well. They were an adventure. I used the Simplicity pattern piece, enlarging it and changing the shape a bit. I interfaced them for some support, cut each slash out and faced it, and then added the pearl trim around each one. They were the most work-intensive part of the whole costume – especially since I finished the pearl trim on one sleeve, decided I didn’t like the pearls and removed them and had to redo the whole sleeve with smaller pearls! The interior is a silk gauze, which I dyed to be slightly blueish-silvery-grey. They are lightly sewn into place in the dress, but could easily be removed if I wanted to change them out. (Don’t know why I would, though)

Jewelry:
The neckline jewelry was a pain in the butt. It’s all found pieces that I altered and/or painted. They are all sewn in place and my fingers are still sore from doing that, haha. The sleeve pieces were bought, and I made the two necklaces. The “B” I made out of sculpey.

Crown:
I decided I wanted the crown she has in this scene instead of the hood she wears earlier – my husband created a pattern for it, and had a laser template cut out of abs plastic. The crown was formed, decorated, painted and I glued the jewels and pearls on lastly.

Hood:
IN 2015, I dug up my fabric scraps and used the hood pattern that came with the Simplicity pattern above to make a new hood! As much as I love my crown, I wanted to make a hood to go with it, too. I made it slightly larger than the pattern called for but not by much. Everything on this hood was leftover from last year, with the exception of the veil fabric, which was just a silver netting I bought online.

History: This is one of my favourites I have done! I’m just so pleased with how it turned out!

                       

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