Friday, March 8, 2013

Eowyn White Wool Dress SLEEVES Planning part 2






I decided to make the dress unlined (since the cotton material is fairly heavy), and princess seamed. I am not sure whether to use armhole or shoulder princess seams. The armhole ones I already have a pattern for, but the shoulder princess I think works better for me since my nursing figure changes (the shoulder princess the pieces aren't as steeply curved, which helps when sewing the convex side piece to the concave front piece) The neck is going to be a wide v neck, and the back closure will be a zipper since I am not super authentic in this anyway and I want to be able to get into it myself. For nursing access, I will put an invisible zipper in the front. I had been considering putting in some lace up over the front and make it more of a design feature. I think that would be pretty but it wouldn't be Eowyn's white dress. So maybe I'll do the lace up on the Eowyn-inspired jumpers I am planning.
Here is an awful sneak peak of my Eowyn jumper plan. The neck is all wrong here (and I don't even have it laced shut as the baby had recently been eating....) but I am planning to cut the neck much lower, so its more of a jumper and less of a dress. How I set the gores here is a bit unflattering. I will work on that. The difference of the sleeves is one has a ponytail on my arm to help push the sleeve up. I think i will sew in some elastic on the inside....


My white dress will be floor length since I want to be able to actually do cool things in it. Trains are nice, but you can't do much more then pose for pictures or get married in them, and I want something I can actually slay fell beasts in. Kind of. Ok I know she was wearing boys clothes then, but it just feels cooler to think of it that way.

Those were the easy parts.  Now, drumroll, the sleeves. This is by far the most difficult part of this dress. How to do it? I looked online at other peoples beautiful recreations of this dress. Katherine at koska-the-cat.com did a gorgeous faithful recreation from the film.
koshka-the-cat.com
I want my sleeves to be a little less dramatic then this one, though it is quite beautiful, from koshka-the-cat.com

Eowyn at cosplay also made a beautiful one here. (she also made every single one of Eowyn's dresses if you look up her cosplay id)


By Eowyn at http://new.cosplaylab.com/cosplayers/complete.asp?memberid=34153


However, I like the sleeves on the cosplay one better. I guess I don't want the sleeves to hang down q at 90 degree angles when I hold my arms out straight. In this image, you can see how Katherine cut out her sleeves (the construction of her dress with helpful tips is all on her website).
koshka-the-cat.com

While this is how its done for the movie, Eowyn mostly held her arms so that they didn't fall down staight. I like the smoother less 90 degree angle, more acute angle look of this shot here of Eowyn in her coronation dress.
I love the drape of these sleeves






I am aware that both these dresses sleeves probably are cut at 90 degrees, but that her arm position is giving them more of an acute angle look. But I want to cut them at more of an acute angle to start with.  I also think I will have them fall only a couple inches below the knee...we'll see./ I found this awesome website http://www.threadsofrohan.com/  with awesome screencaps and illustrations from 'The Art of the Two Towers' (must get this book from the library) / Eowyn has a lot of cross-lacing on the bicep of all her outfits. (I just realized it was also on her coat in TT, its on her white dress, its even on her refugee outfit. In contrast, Arwen has thick, embroidered sleeve bands.)  But what makes me happiest, is THIS Which clearly shows some lacing on the underside of the wrist, to pull the sleeve tight at the wrist, and then let if fan out to the thumb joint. I love this look, but before thought I would have to make buttons and button holes (like a cotehardie) which can be bulky and uncomfortable, if its an underdress, and you have to roll the sleeves up.

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