Susan's Battle Dress

Prince Caspian

December 2007
(updated March 28, 2008)
Pictures from Prince Caspian have finally made it to the general public! And, I've chosen to do this costume for the premier in May. It started out that I just didn't care for her Purple Dress, and at the time her Night Raid outfit (though it's sort of growing on me). So, here I am.

This is going to be a 2 for 1 kinda deal - I'm making a fully wearable red velvet dress, and I'll be making the armour Su wears over the dress. Since December, there have been a couple changes to the costume, mainly cause we finally got new high-res images out a month or two ago. So, I'll have an updated sketch up here soon, which will probably be after the dress is already made, at the rate I'm going.

So dress.
I'm thinking a deep red version of Eowyn's Green Gown, with some minor changes. I am fairly positive that I'm going to construct the dress like hers, with a waist seam, though I might have to put in a dart in the bodice seaming. Backlacing, with detachable sleeves on both the underdress and the over dress. I'm going for a wonderfully full skirt, with a train in the back just cause I can. I'm still trying to puzzle out the collar though, because I want it to be able to fall away when i'm not wearing the chainmail, but I also want it to protect my neck when I do wear the chainmail. I'm also planning on having some osrt of daffodil emb. around the neckline, and possibly around the arms where the sleeves will attach. Make it look pretty and stuff. Gold emb of course all around the hem, which should also be fun. ;)

So, some differences. It's been decided that the dress is actually made of a meduim weight wool instead of velvet, but I also decided that I dont care and so I bought some anyway. (My excuse of course, is that I don't have anything of velvet yet. That and, I want it.) I'm still not sure what I'm going to make her collar out of (Su's is grey velvet backed with leather, and attached directly to the maille); it's been a nightmare to find grey velvet (and I dont want to dye it!) so I'm thinking I just might switch to a silver/gray dupuoni instead - it'll still be pretty.

I already have the red velvet, bought it off of ebay. One problem - it stretches! Gr! Wasn't listed as stretch, just 100% cotton velvet. But its ok, it's still going to work. It's also a tad too pink, so I bought some brown dye tonight and hopefully I'll be able to give it a tint of brown. Which should also help with this whole 'aging' thing. I also bought some lining material tonight (but it won't get to JoAnns for about 2/3 weeks). And I have some cotton twill that I am going to dye for the under dress, just haven't done that yet. So ... I'm really only waiting on the collar fabric. Which I'm really leaning towards some gray dupuoni. Pretty.

Armour & More.
Which brings me to chainmail. I looked around for places to buy it, but most of them were asking too much, and it wasn't really what I wanted. So, I decided to make my own. With the help of several good informative sites, I picked a ring size (14 ga & 7/16") and all that wonderful stuff, and then I ordered from the Ring Lord.

Chainmail Links
Butted Mail: A Mailmaker's Guide
Making Chainmail
Better Beading

As far as her cuirass goes, I think I'm going to go with the 1. soak felt in glue & water and then let it dry to a molded shape, or 2. make it out of felt and then paint over it with acrylic and glue and something else and then let it dry. Better explained here. I really don't know how to make those medallion things ... so I might skip them. And there are straps going every which way, so I might leave some of those off as well.

Bow, Arrows & Quiver.
I've decided that there really is no point in me making these, since they probably won't let me in the theater with them (even if the bow & arrows aren't functional), and they're only going to get in the way if I did bring them in, AND I dont really think I'll have to make a good fake. At least not for her bow and her quiver. Arrows are easy, and I could always use my Ranger quiver ... but I dont know. We shall see.

January 28, 2008
Chainmail rings arrived today! I haven't been able to work on it since I'm sort of repainting my room, but I will definitely experiment with it this coming week. Hopefully there will be progress soon!

February 5, 2008
I really should have opened this page sooner, but I'm glad that things are all caught up now. :)

There is actually quite a bit of progress! The mail-making is going very well, though it's slow going. But I'm pretty sure I have the patience for it, I did, after all, bead THE swan. I'm also glad that I ordered rings instead of making them myself. I don't think I would have come this far if I tried that. The rings I have are also probably too big, but it's ok since this is my first project - I think it looks just fine. I've also decided that I'm only going to make the chainmail for the parts that are visible; I dont know if I would have that much time to do a whole shirt, and there is so much of the mail that isn't visible. And I don't really need the extra bulkiness. Besides, in some of the high-res pics, it looks like her chainmail stops at the bust and then continues at her waist.

I wasn't sure how the mail shirt was made, but thanks to the wonderful people over at www.mailleartisans.org and the high res pics I'm making it like a big t-shirt. It also has some weird underarm leather lacing through the maiile, for some unknown reason.

One more thing - I will definitely need a good pair of boots. I also need them for other projects, and I've been meaning to get a good pair for, oh let's see, the past .... 2 years at least. So hopefully I'll be able to do something about that now.

So that's all the progress for now .... off to continue this mail maiking business ......

March 28, 2008
Well I sort of updated the whole "about me" dress section, which was long overdue. And while I don't have pics to prove it right now, I've actually had a lot of progress. The top part of the maille is like 97% done ... I just have to fix the one sleeve (make it slope to a nicer point in the back) and finish the other sleeve. And I'm going to make the neckline a little lower in the front ... it's sort of digging into my throat. But there's not that much left!!! And I think that making the "skirt" part of her maille will go a lot faster, since there's not much fitting involved in it.

And, like I said, I have just about all of the supplies for this. Hopefully within the upcoming week I will be able to work on a muslin (or at least most of one, though it won't be full length), over-dye my velvet, practice some of the embroidery, just to get a feel for what it's going to be like. And I'm going to order some dye for the under dress so I can get that done. And I'll figure out what fabric I'm going to use for the collar by next week. And (feeling ambitous, am I?) I have to experiment with some felt to see what will work best. All of course, while working on making chainmail. ;)

So that's that. Maybe on tuesday I will have more progress to post about. Or at least some pictures!

April 15, 2008
Progress, at last!

Well, right now I have the underdress done. Well, it's more like 99% done, I just have to sew on some hooks & eyes at the front of the collar so it stays closed. But it's hemmed, and everything. And yay for dresses that still touch the floor when I have them on! The pattern is very loosely based of off Simplicity 4940 (the LotR Simp. Costume Pattern). I decided to make it lace up the front cause the over dress itself will be backlaced, and I'm not about to risk skin peaking through, even though I'll end up making a placket for the back lacing. And I was too lazy to mess with the pattern pieces to make a single slit for lacing, so I just made lacing on both sides. I'm actually quite fond of it, until rather recently when I realized how strongly it resembles a candy cane ...

The collar: I ordered some silver duiponi from fabric.com, and it came surprisingly fast. It's a little lighter weight than I'd like it to be, but it works (and they describe it as being lightweight.). Again, I sort of used the collar from veiw A of Simp. 4940. I also had to put another layer of some black cotton I had around to give it more body. And it's very lovely. I'm considering ordering more, so for the finished dress, so I can line the sleeves and have the underskirt out of this. Would be lovely. Hey, I have a coupon for some more. Did I mention it's lovely? ;)

AND the chainmail is moving right along, the top portion is all done, and I'm about 50% done with the bottom skirt part. That shouldn't take too long to finish, and then I only have to join the 2 chainmail pieces with some cloth.

Hm. It seemed like more progress, not that much when it's typed up. Well, I was distracted by a very good book series ... Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer. Very good, I'd recommend them to anyone!!!!!

OH - I know why it feels like more progress - I skipped over my dyeing experience from last week! Where to start? Well, my lining for the over dress came in last week over at JoAnns, so I went to pick it up. Got back, and my dyes from DharmaTrading arrived. Perfect timing! At first I tried to give the cotton velvet a tint of brown with regular Rit Dye from the store, but that really didnt work. Took a break from that to dye the white cotton twill for her under dress, and when that was done it came out ... a pink / coral / light terracotta color. I dyed the cotton twill again, using more salt and about the same of everything else, and when it came out of the dryer it was much better. (In some pics now, it still looks a little light, but it's really a brighter, deeper red than it looks.) I still had some dye left over, so I finished it off trying to over dye the cotton velvet and the lining. After everything dried, I dont think any of it changed color, but I like to pretend that it worked a little. The lining looks closer to the shade of the velvet, and that was a poly. Weird. Anyway ... so that was my dyeing adventure.

So while I wasn't as ambitious as I said I would be, I still accomplished a lot (well for me, anyway). So things still left to do:
- Make muslin for Over Dress.
- Cut out velvet & let it hang.
- Work on her Cuirass.
- Finish chainmail completely!
- Embroider design on bottom of the Over Dress.
- Sew together Over Dress.
- Hem! (can you tell I'm avoiding this?)

Sigh. Some of those are pretty big chunks. Not looking forward to that! And I only have ... well, exactly 1 month to get it all done! Well, until next time, with hopefully more good news!

8.08.08
Once again I'v neglected updating. Big surprise there, eh? No matter. Well the good news is that the dres (and other parts) were completed to wear to the midnight showing way back in May. The bad news is, that some parts need to be redone. But that's ok, cause they were rushed and didnt turn out the wat I wanted it to. More good news, there is a possibilty that I'll be wearing this in October to the PARF, which means that by then I'll have it finished. Not sure if it will be finished as the Battle Dress, or the other more LOTRish dress that it was also going to be.

Some quick thoughts on the dress:
I love it.
I love just almost everything about it, and the parts i dont love, i'm fixing (read: cuirass). And the disaster that was trying to embroider the design around the hem. Complete nightmare - scratched the whole thing. (I'm considering other options - making decals and then sewing them on, or i might resort to paint. something just feels wrong about that though.).

Anyway, some pics down below. Hopefully soon I'll have more of a gallery - whenever I get around to updating this page.