The Margaery Tyrell Costume

Thursday, November 27, 2014

This semester's masterpiece: I recreated one of Lady Margaery Tyrell's costumes from Game of Thrones.
She wears this ensemble in the episode "Valar Morghulis" and repeats the vest and skirt with a different scarf and no sleeves in a following episode. She also wears a similar vest made of a different fabric in a previous episode. So, generally a fairly representative Margaery costume!

Here was my main reference image:

And my version of it!

This costume was a labor of love, let me tell you! Here is some info about the different pieces of it.

Skirt: I dyed six yards of 55" white rayon challis, using Evening Blue, Teal, and Taupe RIT dyes. I cut two almost half-circles (I was conserving fabric so I could make the blue scarf for another time) with a waist circumference slightly bigger than mine. I added a thin waistband and even thinner ties, let it hang overnight, and hemmed. This skirt is based on the one from a different one of her dresses, but I wanted to make them interchangeable so I can do other Margaery costumes in the future. 

It's soooo twirly!

Bodice: Again, dyed with those three RIT colors after much swatching. This started out as a white denim. I draped the pattern based on the photo and it underwent MANY alterations. I also draped an interlining pattern (which also served as the lining pattern) and cut the interlining out of a hideous polka-dot denim. There is zip-tie boning in the interlining. The embroidery is all by hand, sketched out based on the photo. I made up the back embroidery based on the front! It fastens at the center with a skirt hook and bar, with a tie to cover it. All the edges are hand-finished. 

Here's a picture of what I did on the back in case that helps anyone out:

Scarf: I already had this fabric (it was an old curtain) which is one reason I ended up making this costume. It was a sign! It's just two thin rectangles, French-seamed in the middle and hemmed on all sides.

Sleeves: I'm not happy with them, honestly! I wanted to use brown elastic cord to "lace" them up but I couldn't find any in time, so they are just tapered bias tubes with elastic at the top. They fall down all the time and I kind of hate them. But they serve their purpose, I suppose.  

I wear it with a rose necklace that was an heirloom (another sign that I needed to make a Margaery costume) and silver ballet flats. In that scene where Margaery visits the orphanage, we see one of her handmaidens lift up her skirt to step over a puddle, and the maid is wearing a ballet-flat kind of shoe, so I figured that was plausible. I've never seen Margaery's shoes.

Probably one of my favorite pictures:

And, finally, I had the camera on continuous shot so I made a GIF of me twirling: 

-Madame Taylor

Late-Summer Shorts

Thursday, September 11, 2014

I say late summer, but in reality today was the first that felt like fall. 

I've been back at school for nearly three weeks now, and this is what I've made so far!

 I bought the pattern (Simplicity 1464) with the intention of making the pants, because I bought some palazzo pants and adore them and I wanted to make some more. However, I wanted a nice swingy rayon challis for that and I didn't find any I loved. So, I got some slightly stretchy printed cotton to make the shorts version. They only took just over a yard, so pretty inexpensive. Plus, the fabric was on sale for $3/yd. Pretty good deal. 

This was my first foray into inset pockets, and I will admit that the actual pocket is way too small to hold much at all! A chapstick and some keys, perhaps. But it was more for looks anyway, and practice. I considered putting white piping along the edge but I didn't have any, so I did this feather stitch embroidery, which I quite like. (I basted two guidelines before I started.) It also serves as topstitching to keep the (contrasting) pocket lining from peeking out.

(Note: the pattern doesn't have pockets; I added them, which is why they were too small.)

The size 14 fit me perfectly, although I discovered halfway through that my needle had been to the right and I'd been sewing 1/2" seams the whole time! I might do that on purpose for the pants when I make them, because otherwise they might end up too small. 

Stats:

Time: 5-51/2 hours (under 4 for the shorts, the rest for the embroidery.)

Cost: $6 for the pattern on eBay, just over $3 for fabric, plus a stash zipper, interfacing, and thread.

Pattern: Simplicity 1464

Frustration: None with the actual pattern, just silly mistakes of my own!

First worn: Not yet!

I can only hope there will be another day warm enough to wear these, otherwise I'll probably just throw on some tights underneath because they're too cute to wait until next spring! 

-Madame Taylor

This machine is amazing

Friday, June 21, 2013

Well, I'm in Vermont for the summer, and I'll be doing my usual sewing and mending for money thing, just in a new location. I don't really have much to post, but I wanted to show off the machine that I'm borrowing for the summer. It's crazy.

It's an Elna 7000, which according to the foot pressing the pedal in the manual, appears to be from the Eighties. I did a Google and found someone who'd bought one new in 1988, so there you go. It's computerized. See that black rectangle? It lights up with the number of stitch you choose, the width and length, and which foot you should use for it. It does buttonholes really simply. Also, all those crazy stitches on the top? That's only half of them. They rotate to display more, including all the letters of the alphabet. It's great.

So here are some samples of the stitches it does.

Also, you can get it to memorize a sequence of stitch types. That's how I did the "HUEHUEHUE" and the "TROLOLOL" parts. Oh yeah, and you can do ducks.

I really like the feathery stitch, and the herringbone kind of one. 

Anyway, so that's the current excitement. Someone might be commissioning a reenactment costume, which would be amazing. 

-Madame T