Friday, December 31, 2010

Dr Girlfriend - The Jackie O Dress

This was the first dress I made in my Dr Girlfriend collection.  I drafted the pattern from scratch using a form-fitting dress of mine and the sleeves from a loose-fitting blouse.  It was difficult to get the pattern right the first time, and I ended up making a giant red sack out of curtain material on the first go.  The second attempt was better, and I used a stretchy pink fabric that actually had some kind of rubber coating on it which didn't prove ideal for wearing, so that one was nixed.  On my third attempt, I got the pieces right, the sleeves the appropriate three-quarter length, and the collar to stand up the way I wanted it to.  I used a pink bengaline-like fabric that I bought at Joann's, added snap tape instead of velcro and seven white buttons, placed as obscurely as Dr Girlfriend herself has them, and voila - the Jackie O dress was born.  As for the hat, I tried making it out of a small, round cardboard box but the seams were showing at the top so this wasn't ideal.  Yesterday I had the idea of making it out of fabric as I had done with the Lady Au Pair hat, and this came out much better - no pics of this yet, but they will be coming.

I've had an order for one of these dresses already and I hope more will follow as it's great fun to make and I enjoy knowing that my costumes will be worn by somebody other than myself...as for accessories, I got a pair of white leather gloves off eBay that come just over the wrist, and boots from Fantasia Shoes - but be warned, they are extremely narrow in the calf, so unless you're fairly thin, you might want to pony up the extra money and get the wider foot/calf selection instead.  I'm holding mine together with white duct tape, which is an option for those of us who, um, aren't fairly thin.

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