My mum always said things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect . . .
. . . all my shoes have mysteriously disappeared. I suspect the Nargles are behind it.
Luna Lovegood is done! I finished the dress last week, and the jewellery today.
Spectrespecs:
I followed a great tutorial, but added a few touches of my own, such as using clear tape and craft foam to reinforce the specs.
Here's the tutorial I used:
http://diyfashion.about.com/od/maskandmasquerade/ss/Spectrespecs.htm
Dress
I bought a pair of pyjamas, and drew up a design that I though would suit Luna, rather than copying any particular costume from the films.
My first idea was to convert the shirt into a shirt and incorporate the sleeves as pockets.
That didn't work out very well. The skirt lacked volume and the pockets didn't lie smooth.
I scrapped that idea, and converted the top and parts of the trousers into a large rectangle of fabric, which I then gathered down. For the bodice, I converted a burda pattern and added some straps.
I had some bra cups from an old top and thought I'd try and add them to the dress to provide support, since there's no boning. These were more trouble than they were worth. Perhaps I just sewed them in badly, but it was really hard to make them sit neatly, and they made the seam at the top seem bulky. I had to add topstitching just to make everything look all right.
The next step: sew the skirt and the bodice together!
I gathered the skirt to fit the bodice. In hindsight, pleats would have looked nicer - oh well. I tried to match the seams of the skirt and bodice, so that the pockets of the skirt would sit neatly on the sides of the dress.
Jewellery
I've never tried beading before. Luckily I have a talented friend helping me make the radish earrings and the cork necklace.
For the earrings, we used this tutorial:
https://svyet.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/dirigible-plum-earring-tutorial/
First we made the leaves. We used 28 gauge silver wire and some of my friend's beads.
I don't have any pictures of making the body. I found the body of the radish a lot harder to make, so no photos, but if you use the tutorial linked above, it explains it very well. My only advice is to write down the number of beads you use on each row, and then use the same number on the other earrings. Seems obvious, but I forgot to do that and had to estimate how many beads to add for each row on my earrings.
My friend did most of the beading work on the necklace, and I added the clasp and jumprings. We made two necklaces and just had enough blue beads. Mine is a bit short due to lack of beads, so I added a piece of chain at the back. My friend strung the beads on wire, then twisted the ends into loops. We slid the cork on, and attached the lengths of beads to jump rings. Then I added a lobster clasp. The cork is an ordinary cork with a metal flower decoration glue to the bottom. The top flower decoration is anchored with a pin (jewellery pin? not sure what it's called) directly into the cork. The cork pendant is attached to the necklace with jump rings.
