Refugee Dress

I wanted a dress to wear for a Halloween costume party and I really wanted to wear an Eowyn dress. So, I decided on her Refugee Dress. Made entirely out of dollar-a-yard fabric, this dress cost me a total of $8. You can see from the pictures that I didn’t do the first overdress exactly accurate (the side slit all the way down) but I was very pleased with this dress.

I also wanted to wear this dress to the Return of the King midnight premiere and make the Traveling Coat that she wears with it. So, I made a totally new brown overdress that was more accurate. I really like the improved version. It was so much fun to wear this outfit to the movie. We got lots of stares from the “cool” jock people but we didn’t care because there was about seven of us dressed up.

The blue underdress is the same for both versions. It is made out of Wal-Mart dollar-a-yard fabric in this awesome blue color that I think looks close to hers (at least before the digital grading). First I made a muslin out from a “New Look” pattern (number 6352). It is a simple dress pattern with only side seams and no darts or princess seams. I modified the muslin to fit me and then snipped the threads so I just had a cloth “pattern” to cut the real thing out of. I now refer to that cloth muslin as “The Pattern” because I use it on almost every Lord of the Rings dress I make. Anyway, I used “The Pattern” to make the underdress. I embroidered the wrist seams and all the way around the floor edge with the same blue color thread. You can’t see it from far away but up close it looks awesome! I made this underdress before The Two Towers Special DVD came out so I didn’t have the really good pictures of it. So, my dress is not split down the front but you don’t see that anyway. I think that the original has an invisible zipper in the back but mine fit so well that I really didn’t need one. The sleeves are split from about the elbow to the wrist. They are then hemmed and then I had to hand sew the eyelets. The eyelets were really bad and ugly at first because I had never done eyelets before. However, they continually got better and the last ones look great! They lace up with a light blue cord that I got at Wal-Mart. The pattern of the sleeves is not quite right and they puff out when left down and the eyelets were laced. So, I just kept them rolled up and the light blue cord just tied around my upper arm. I thought it looked fine.

The first overdress was hard to figure out and even harder to find fabric to make it out of. I couldn’t find a brown that was deep and dark enough for me. I didn’t want 100% cotton because that just looked cheap. And there was no other dark brown material in my small town. About a week before Halloween, out of desperation, I went to our local Providence Ministries Thrift Store. There, in the tiny fabric section, was the perfect fabric! I quickly bought it and paid $2 for the 2 yards. I bought a pattern for $.99 to use for the overdress. Bad idea. The pattern I chose was McCall’s 3653 view B. The front was too narrow so I tried to widen it when I was cutting it out. While it did get wider, it just didn’t get wide enough. So I wasn’t able to connect the sides at the hips. That’s what I get for not doing a muslin. Anyway, I hand sewed the eyelets on the overdress as well (thankfully there were less eyelets to sew than the sleeves). I bought some light brown cord at Hobby Lobby and used that to lace up the sides. The neckline of the overdress isn’t even hemmed because I was in such a hurry.

My second overdress was much better because I had so much more time to work on it. I found some dark brown fabric at Wal-Mart for a dollar-a-yard (I know, it only shows up when I don’t really need it). So, I got 4 yards of the material. I then went home and cut out a dress using “The Pattern”, the exact same pattern that I had used for the underdress. Once the overdress was cut out, I sewed from the hips down and then just started chopping off excess fabric on the upper sides. It actually turned out very nice. I put an invisible zipper in the back of the overdress so I could get in and out very easily and still leave the sides laced up (a very good idea). So, in the end, both dresses looked wonderful!

All pictures with borders will enlarge if you click on them.

Her dress...

And my dress...

This is Eowyn and her guardian elf Isilwen...

Colossians 3:23 - Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than people.

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