The Modern Thranduil Dress

In case you were not aware, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies comes out in exactly t-minus one week. Needless to say I am so excited and emotional.

(Carolyn can back me up on this one)

Now, if you've been reading this blog at all, you might have noticed that I'm just a tad attached to elves and other nerdery. Which is 105% okay with me because elves are so important. SO important.

In order to celebrate my love of Tolkien and to get even more psyched for BotFA, I couldn't think of a better time to share what I made for my Halloween costume this year. But Becca, wouldn't Halloween have been a good time to share your Halloween costume? Shhhh, no.

But not going to lie, this is quite possibly one of the best dresses that I have ever created. Not that I'm biased or anything...

I knew that for Halloween I wanted to dress as Thranduil because I have so many elven feelings, but I really didn't know how to go about making any of his outfits. I mean just look at this majestic being:

Source: x

So instead of trying to figure out how to create his robes with my limited sewing skills, I decided to go with something more cute and wearable.

And in the end, I'm actually really excited by it. Here is what I did to make it:

First things first, I made a simple circle skirt for the bottom of the dress (with the overseeing eye of Kitty, of course).

I then used my trusty New Look pattern that I use for everything to make the bodice of the dress. 

I knew that I wanted to do something that was a little more elaborate on the bodice rather than just leaving it plain grey, so I decided to do some stitching to mimic the look on his original robes. I did this by pinning down the middle fold of the bodice and started to pin some matching angles meeting at the middle.

Just so. many. pins. Which I then stitched in with tan and black thread. Then I just attached the bodice to the circle skirt, hemmed it up, and threw in a zipper. I decided to wear the dress over a grey chiffon shirt I had, as well as a red circle skirt that I had previously made. And now I have a Thranduil-inspired dress to frolic in whenever I please. Which is everyday. All the time.

Because who wouldn't want to pretend to be an Elven king? Especially one as precious as the party king himself. 

Also, as noted many times in the past, I am the most awkward picture-taker on the planet. Actually, I'm just an incredibly awkward person in general... but I did have fun screaming at walls and pretending to shout at dwarves while photographing this dress.

Now I'm going to see how many times I can wear this outside of Halloween before people start to notice/become concerned... Hello all future family functions (I'm already "the weird socially awkward art school graduate." This shouldn't phase anyone in my family). (Also, check out that alliteration).

So, anyone else as pumped as I am for the final Hobbit installment? Because I'm not sure I'm emotionally prepared...

Linkin' up:

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DIY Circle Skirt

Fun fact: I'm not a huge fan of wearing short skirts.
Additional fun fact: Most clothing stores that cater to people my age only sell short skirts.

You see my dilemma?

Therefore, along with refashioning, I've super gotten super into making my own skirts and dresses, and it's actually easier than you might think! I made two circle skirts at the end of the summer and have already worn them so much that I'm plotting to make like.... 87 more.

Circle skirts are just so much fun to wear and make. They're super easy to construct and they're perfect for twirling in. Not that I like to stand around in my living room and twirl around like an idiot in them. Nooo, no, def not me. Nah. For this first one, I found this red suiting fabric at Joann's and loved the color of it. It's less of a hoochie red and more of a deeper red, but either way, it's pretty fab.

I also made a second one out of black suiting fabric because suiting fabric is just... yes. Last time I was home my friend Carrie and I had a very deep conversation about our love of suiting fabric, so trust me. It's legit.

Interested in making your own? Because you should be. Because like I said-- prime twirling.

Well the best resource I found on constructing your own circle skirt can be found with the lovely Annika Victoria, and her tutorial can be found right here. I seriously love the stuff she makes so if you have never seen her site before, please check it out!!

I followed her tutorial pretty much throughout the whole process but with a few alterations here and there.

First things first, I laid out my fabric, folded it with selvages together, and then folded it again the other way just like in the tutorial. Naturally, Kitty apparated out of nowhere to lend his sewing expertise and critical judging eye.

Then, using chalk and a measuring tape, I marked in my measurements. My waist measurement came out to about 4.25 inches and for my length I did about 22 inches. If you don't know what measurements to use, then there is also this handy dandy calculator which tells you what to do so you don't have to math yourself. Because everyone knows that no math is the best kind of math.

Also, whilst cutting it my skirt out, I found that the center piece makes a great hat/cat-judgement blocker.

The only thing that I really did differently from Annika's tutorial was the waist band. Instead of cutting one piece of fabric and folding it over, I cut two pieces that were about 2.5 inches tall and about an 1.5 inches bigger than my waist. I then did a straight stitch along one of the long edges.

And then I ironed it like so, pressing my seam inside and the two remaining edges up so that I could encase the raw edge of skirt, thus eliminating all raw edges. (Oh yeah, and fabric switch here because I only remembered to photograph the black and not the red at this point.)

Then instead of just doing one straight stitch along the bottom hem, I actually did two rows of stitches. I found that this actually made my bottom hem sit flatter.

And it's just as simple as that! Yay for not having to wear skirts that are so short that every passerby gets a free show... 

So don't be surprised if I make about a thousand more of these because *spoiler alert* I bought a lot of suiting fabric (and other fabric, to be fair) when I was home on black Friday. Get psyched!

(Pssssst. Also.Those shoes are a DIY. Just saying.)

Linkin' up:

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