Princess Leia's Ceremonial Dress

Here's a few pictures of the Princess Leia Ceremonial Dress from Star Wars Episode IV, that I made for my sister in law last October.

It's simply an empire-waisted dress of white cotton, fully lined. The bodice is darted, with a thin 'waistband' that joins to a rather full A line skirt. The sleeves are removable, as they are sewn onto a separate cotton underbodice she can wear with the dress or not. The sleeves are made of polyester (non shiny!) chiffon. It closes with an invisible zipper in the back. All materials were from Hobby Lobby.

 Here you get a better idea of the sleeves. Large triangle folded, with seam along underarm, sewn together until the elbow, then left open. Hemmed with baby hems using extremely thin strips of sew on interfacing, all straight seams.

 I sewed the sleeves onto a removable bodice she could wear underneath the dress, here you see it slipping out a little, I'm going to put stay straps in place.

She's so pretty. She made the necklace herself, from jump rings and home-made baked dough, painted with metallic model paint. She also made the belt herself, from painted fabric, cardboard, and buttons.

UPDATE: Jenny's R2D2 DRESS!

A Refashioned Dress: Moving Out to the Suburbs of Dorkville

So, in the time honored blogger tradition of taking a frumpy thrift store find and upcycling it into a cute little Mod-cloth-esque dress, I present:

MOVING FROM THE HEART OF DORKVILLE TO THE 'BURBS

I took this

And turned it into this

So basically I took it from the heart of Dorkville to the 'burbs of Dorkville. Or in other words in went from homeschooling mom to homeschooling mom. But I think its dorky with class in its reincarnation. There is an art to being a dork, after all.

It was a straight shirtwaist dress, floral print, with a collar. It took a little over an hour to

1.  Remove the collar (with a stitch ripper) and simply iron and fold the edges of the neckline and sew them back together sans collar.
2. cut the T-shirt sleeves to cap sleeves (I just chopped some off, and bound the edges with a long thin strip from the collar.)
3. Sew a strip of fabric to the inside back as a casing for elastic to gather it there and to give the bodice a tiny bit more shape
4. Hack off the dress a couple inches above the natural waist, and sew on a half-circle skirt from a thrifted sheet. Thankfully, the dress was loose enough that she can pull it on over her head, since the bodice extends a little past her waist, and its actually quite loose, the hint of fittedness actually comes from that bit of elastic at waist level in back. So I didn't have to extend the opening/closure into the skirt. Which was nice.

It's still definitely in the homeschooling mom camp, but I think its cute in its own dorky way.

A few more shots of the dress in action. And in case you are wondering, I didn't suddenly become photogenic, that's my twin, who is photogenic.