Silk Maiden

 Firstly, I've added two new items to my etsy: some grey and black striped arm warmers, made from an old t-shirt, and a pair of black fleece button-up leg warmers. Feel free to check them out.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/98617984/grey-black-striped-arm-warmers?ref=af_shop_favitem

 http://www.etsy.com/listing/98625135/steampunk-victorian-leg-warmers?ref=v1_other_1

Secondly I've finally got some pictures of the completed Silk Maiden dress.

 Gogo is my Cheshire cat for the day.

 I forgot to wear my bow and my gloves for this costume: oh well.

 Went to the Avengers premier dressed like this. The Joker and an Anbu ninja were there too.

How I made this dress:
The bodice of this dress was based on a kimono style top pattern. I had to lengthen that pattern and draft out the darts to get the right shape. The enormous puff sleeves came from Burda's Danielle pattern.
The skirt is a simple half circle skirt. The obi/apron belt is basically two trapezoids sewn together. It fastens with hooks and eyes (I love hook and eye tape). I drafted the apron myself. It tapers out so that it is larger at the bottom, the form a curve with a point in the centre. You can't really see the point in the pictures.

Materials: The aim behind this dress was to use up as much material in my collection of cloth as possible. The main fabric came from some old tablecloths (love things, wit a scalloped edge). It was thin, so I lined it, mostly with cotton, though one piece was so big that I had to use a large piece of chintz. The skirt was lined with the remnants of an old satin skirt.

I used pink satin for the obi and the ruffle on the bottom of the skirt. The hot pink fabric came from an old umbrella. The apron is white cotton, lined with an old sheet. The design on it was drawn on with fabric markers.The ribbons on the obi do not go all the way round: I miscalculated the amount of ribbon I needed.

I had to replace the invisible zip that I used, because it was 10cm too short, and made it really difficult to get in and out of the dress. the new 40cm zip makes it a lot easier to put the dress on.

Alice wear an omega necklace for all her costumes, so I made that too. I used polymer clay and painted it green, then strung it on a piece of black wool.