It continues...

I had a supremely productive weekend. I have made a lot of progress on a lot of my current projects. But in particular I am referring to my Sister of the Dark costume. It's a fairly simple costume but just has a lot of layers that I have to put together. The thing that really stumped me though has been the fact that not all of the sisters of the dark have the same costume. The necklines on the dress vary as do the skirts - some wear pants. It has worked to my advantage in some respects; giving me a lot of freedom to play and actually find something that works really well for me. 

I decided that I wanted the pants. For comfort and movement sake. So, this was the first piece that I have completed. They are made out of cotton voile for breathability sake. My first hurdle was that I couldn't actually buy red cotton voile. So, instead I headed into the fabric dye section, picked up some idye and headed home. Because of the amount of regency re-enactment that I do, I have a large stash of white cotton voile on hand (I buy a roll every time that I see it on sale) so I just ripped off a 2 metre chunk and dyed it red. The thing I like best about the idye is that you can do it in the washing machine. I put it on and forget about it until it needs to be hung out to dry. And best of all the colour is even because of the motion of the washing machine. When I do it in a bucket, I'm not so good with the even colour. 

Anyway, once my fabric was coloured, I ironed it out and got set to cut out. I ended up using two patterns. I wanted a very harem pants sort of fullness, so I grabbed one of my simplicity costume patterns for the base of the pants. However, instead of an elastic waist and cuffs, I wanted a yoke and button cuffs to that the fullness does not show through on the dress. My resolution was to dig out the pattern pieces for a pair of yoked pants. It was then simply a matter of gathering on the pants and adding an invisible zip in the centre back. I added ankle cuffs that button on the inner seam and they are done. 

I think that they turned out rather well and will provide a good undergarment for my dress. I will be back soon with more updates.