How to Make a Cupcake Dress of DOOM ... AKA the Kaylee Shindig Dress from Firefly

So, I'm insane. Why do you say that, you ask? (Do you know me?) I say that because when my wife announced that she wanted to wear the ruffled ballgown that the character Kaylee wears in the Shindig episode of Firefly, I replied, "Sure, I can do that!" Oh my gosh ... what did I get myself into?!

We bought a 150 inch Southern Belle style hoop skirt and went to work!

The dress is constructed very similar to the prayer dress worn by Scarlett Ohara in Gone with the Wind. It has 8 chiffon ruffles (three pink, three peach, and two white) topped off with a fitted bodice that features a flared peplum forming the very top ruffle. The first change we made was to go with cotton rather than chiffon. It easier to both dye and sew. She was planning to wear it to an outdoor wedding reception during late June, so we wanted the fabrics to be as breathable and natural as possible. My wife also does not at all care for peach as a color, so we changed the color scheme so that it would be dark pink ruffles on the bottom, light pink ruffles in the middle where the peach would have been, and white ruffles on the top.

I decided (in my lunacy) to buy a bolt of white cotton and then dye the appropriate amounts fuchsia and petal pink. I used RIT dye for this because it was the most widely available and because I had read a few posts that from people who used the same brand when making this dress. Can I say hugely uneven dye job? I ended up dying the strips for the ruffles three separate times to finally get the color mostly even. The first time it came out looking tie-dyed. Not at all what I was going for. If I had it to do over I would have just calculated and bought broadcloth in the colors I wanted each fabric to be rather than dying it myself. It would have saved money in the long run because dye isn't cheap. 

Next came applying all of the ruffles to the underskirt. I gathered these by hand because I don't have a ruffler foot for my machine. It went surprisingly fast considering the yards and yards of ruffles to be gathered. I think what helped the most was the decision to do it in halves (front half and back half) and then sew the two halves together on the sides. With all the ruffles, the seam wasn't very visible anyway, and it made it so much easier to work with. The skirt construction went by pretty quickly. There are some tweaks that I need to make before she wears it a second time to Gencon, but it wasn't bad. I blame the few uneven ruffles on the fact that many nights I was working on it up until three or four in the morning. It looked straight at the time.

The shirt portion was the biggest challenge for me. I have made many many chemises and flowing style shirts, but I'm not that comfortable making fitted, button down shirts. So, to make me feel a little more comfortable, I found a cheap shirt at the local thrift store that had the Mandarin collar that I was looking for and used it as a building foundation. To go with that I found a white specialty cotton that featured some floral embroidery in the same dark pink as the ruffles. I used this for the chest and back of the shirt that in the original was ruched. We thought the design kept with the Asian feel of the top. I made the puffed sleeves and the waist accent out of the same dark pink fabric and the peplum out of solid white. To finish off, I embroidered a small decorative trim along the edge of the peplum in the dark pink as well. The top fit pretty well, but once the corset was on underneath it was a bit large and short. I will be taking it in and adding a zipper in the back before Gencon to make it easier to get into and more fitted. 

All in all for my first full on ballgown, I didn't do badly considering how rushed I was to get it done. I let things go that I normally wouldn't have because of time constraints. If I'd had an extra three weeks to work on it meticulously, I admit the product of my work would have been better. But, saying that, the next time around I will know what I'm doing and it will all fall into place easier. 

After one more wear as the Kaylee shindig dress, we have plans to shorten it and make it into a cute lolita style dress for Steffie to wear to other events. I will post additional pictures of it when we do that.

Costume Basics: Go to Outfit for When You Feel Like Playing Dress-Up

So, just in time to get those Halloween costumes started, I thought I'd share my recent costuming work as well as some that I did last summer as well. A lot of people look at elaborate costumes and get overwhelmed, but it's really not that difficult. You have to remember to take it one piece or element at a time. Whether you use a basic store bought pattern, draft your own pattern, or wing it by tossing together different clothing items and accessories you already have, it can be easy, fun, and creative to create your own costumes.

The first one that I will talk is a recent chemise/skirt ensemble that I made. My original idea was to make a traditional french maid dress for an event that Jean Bardot was hosting at the Varsity Theatre in Minneapolis. A maid was the first thing that came to mind because what else are you going to make with a whole bolt of bubblegum pink pvc? But really, how many opportunities do you get to go somewhere as a french maid? Probably not that many (if you asked yourself the question and answered every other day, clue me in to where you are going because I want to come along!).

So, with that in mind, I decided to make the outfit a little more versatile. Instead of making it a one piece dress, I opted for separates that later I can mix and match. I ended up using a McCalls shirt pattern that I had in my pattern box. This pattern is super generous in cut, so it fits a lot of different sizes and shapes in plus size. I chose option A for the shirt, but instead of making the ruffle around the neckline out of the shirt material, I used a by the yard trim that I picked up at the fabric store. It was a white satin ruffle with the binding tap built into the trim already. Using it instead of making my own binding or gathering my own ruffle saved a lot of time and frustration. I put this same trim around the edge of the capped sleeves too.

For the skirt I made a basic circle skirt using one of our favorite skirts as a pattern for making a new one. If you don't have a skirt that you really love to use as a starting point, there are a ton of sites online that will give detailed instructions on how to make your own custom circle skirt pattern. I knew from the start that I wanted a ruffled petticoat under my skirt, so I made it longer to accommodate the petticoat. If you don't do this it can very quickly become too short. I put the same white satin trim around the hem of the skirt as well.

I took some white pvc fabric that we had left over from making nurse outfits (see next post) and whipped together a freehand apron, which I trimmed with the same satin ruffle.

As a finishing touch I made a tube with some scrap pink pvc and applied the white satin trim to each side edge of the tube to make an accessory. I made it this way because it gives three different ways to wear it. You can slide the tube onto a basic plastic headband to creat the cute Japanese Lolita look. Another way to do the same thing is to thread a wide, ribbon through it  that you tie at the nape of your neck. I'm not a huge fan of this method because I have a hard time keeping these types of headbands on. The benefit to choosing the ribbon option thought is that it can also be used as a choker around the neck if you aren't feeling like a headband that day.

Now I have this cute outfit that I can wear as the originally intended maid outfit without a problem, but that I can also wear as other things as well. I can use it as a base for several cosplay outfits, as a base for a Lolita outfit, or as an adult baby / little girl outfit. While the adult baby option isn't really my thing, I know a lot of people are into it. I'm working on different diapers, diaper covers, ruffled bloomers, etc to list on my Etsy site in this genre currently and plan on selling one of these chemise/skirt ensembles as well.

I paired it with my pink brocade corset and my pink pvc boots for Jean's event, and I thought I thought it turned out really cute. I also made Steffie's dress in this picture as well and will talk about it in the next post. This outfit took me about 6 hours total to make including cutting the pieces out. I probably could have done it in 4 hours, but I wanted to be very precise on how it was put together.  Not bad for a last minute idea and a half a day's work.

If you like it and want to make one, now is definitely the time to do it. With Halloween coming up, the fabric stores are fully stocked with a wide range of pvc colors and textures.