Making Rivendell in the Desert: Tolkien-Inspired Bridesmaid Dress

My sister is being a bridesmaid in her friend's wedding. Because the bride loved Lord of the Rings, I tried to make it subtly Tolkien-ish while still being a normal dress.

And I wanted to try out styles for my as yet unmaterialized Every Day Lord of the Rings Clothing plans.....so this was a lot of fun.

For the bodice of the dress I made a princess seamed bodice, with a center seam to aid in the neckline notch, with cap sleeves. For the skirt of the dress, I made a simple half-circle (mid-lower calf) skirt, plus a sash. It closes in the back with a zipper.

The Tolkien-ish elements were mostly in the embroidery being vines and flowers and leaves (elven), with a wide neck-yoke like a lot of the Elvish dresses have in the Lord of the Rings movies, and with a notch like many medieval clothes have.

As you can see, I went with B. The skirt ended up more mid-calf length than ankle length like in the picture.

I made it out of Kona Cotton "Eggplant," hand-embroidered with DMC's color 154 "very dark grape," both a warm deep purple.

Soooo...I didn't make it for me, hence the wrinkles in how it fits on me. Also, the camera is not translating the color accurately in most of them.

So here's the front.

Back

THIS is the closest to actual color. Forgive my dumb expression...

This gives the best idea of the lines, and how the embroidery is in the neck and waist

Closeup on the embroidery. I just free-handed the design on with a soap shard, and then did it all in chain stitch with DMC 154. I like how it turned out.