First tall motif is done

Tonight I took advantage of the Austria-Sweden football game and managed to finish the first motif. I'm glad that I've started with the motifs in the back, since I'm definitely improving my needle skills step by step.

These are the colours that I've used:
Bottom lozenge - DMC 333
Bottom leaf - DMC 3808
Middle and top leaves - 1 strand of DMC 3808 and one 1 strand of DMC 3809
Top roundel - edge of DMC 333 and filled with DMC 327

There is still room for a roundel between the bottom and top leaves, but I can't really decide if it's there or not in the screen caps. In the concept sketch it's definitely there though. I think I'm going to finish the rest before deciding if the I should add it or not.

Starting the embroidery

Today I have started to embroider the skirt of Elsa's coronation gown. To be honest I think that painting the motifs on is probably more screen accurate, but I want to bring this costume closer to the traditional Norwegian bunad, which is so clearly the inspiration of the fashion in Frozen. One of the real distinguishing things with the bunad is the heavy embroideries, embroidery it is for me.

Bunad from Ringerike, Norway (bunads-magasinet)

Elsa's skirt isn't as heavily embroidered,but the decorations go all around the skirt,and ends just below the knee. Now I can't take credit for creating the template for the motifs, I mostly used the ones created by Andrea Schewe. I felt that they were a bit too squashed and not as sleek as the original though. What I did was to print out two copies, one on an A4 paper and one on an A3. From those two prints I took a couple of measure points and then more or less freehanded my version of the tall motif. I haven't done the rounded lower motifyet.

The two print outs, and my own version to the right.

In order to transfer the motif to the fabric I cut out all the parts of the motifs and placed them on the wrong side of the fabric. One very good thing with flatlining the outer fabric to a natural cotton is that it's easy to draw on it. I placed all the pieces of the motifon the skirt and then traced them with pencil.

The cut out motif pieces in position

The motif is drawn on the wrong side

I then marked the outer lines of the motifs with the same thread I'm going to use for the embroidery, doing simple up an down stitches.

Tracing the lines of the motif

Then when I turn to the right side of the fabric I now have a visible line that's easy to follow. I'm using DMC 3808 for the darker parts, I haven't decided on exactly which colours to use for the rest of the embroidery yet.

Now I only need to start filling in the motifs, and then there are seven more tall motifs, and all the lower ones left.

Elsa started

This week I've started seriously with my Elsa Coronation Gown.

As you can see I have gotten my wig. It's a platinum blonde, not white wig and it's lovely. It's great to have a wig with a bang, so it actually covers my hairline. I actually feel a bit bad having to style it, so I will be gentle with it so that I can get it back to its original shape.

The skirt took some time to figure out. Frost has is probably the most detailed animated Disney film when it comes to costumes, so I want to be really close to it. Looking at screencaps I started to count the number of seams in the skirt and come up with that it must be a skirt with seven panels.

It's also a fairly tight skirt, unlike Anna's fluffier and wider skirts. When it came to selecting a pattern I went back to an old favorite, McCalls 4491.

This is probably one of the most versatile patterns that I have. I've used it for at least four costumes/ball gowns by now, for example my aunt's Eowyn gown, my own Arwen dress and it was also the basis for my Maria of Habsburg gown, and at least one ballgown.  I also based the sleeves for Amidala's purple trael gown on this one.

It's basically a princess seemed gown, quite slim over the hips but then it puddles a bit on the floor., but it's so easy to adapt into different costumes. It happens to have seven pieces so I took the pattern and cut it off at the waist and then I cut out the skirt for Elsa. The pattern is too long for my very short legs, so when I cut to just floor length I lost quite a lot of the very wide circumference, which is good for this costumes.

The fabric I'm using is a silk/cotton mix that I've ordered from Bangkokthaisilk.com. The fabric is great to work with, it's fraying a bit, but otherwise it's really easy, basically combining the best of silk with the best of cotton. From some angles, and with the flash from the camera, it's really shiny, bot from other angles it's not. The same goes with the colour that photographs a bit more on the blue side, when it's greener in reality.  I would have loved to use some kind of wool, but this fabric was more in my budget, and it wasn't easy to find any wools in blue/teal/turquoise. In order to get more body and a heavier drape I have flatlined each piece to cotton, the fabric Ditte from IKEA.

The skirt is not finished, in that I haven't closed the centre back seam or added a waistband. I want the skirt to be lie flat when I'm going to trace the pattern for the embroidery, and of course do the embroidery.

This was going to be an announcement

So today I had planned to post about my big upcoming costume project that I would enter into the cosplay contest at Stockholm ComicCon. Unfortunately Stockholm ComicCon released the info about the cosplay contest today, and it's going to be on the first day of the con, a Thursday. Not only that it's on a Thursday, it starts with rehearsals in the morning. For me that would mean that I would have to take two whole days off work and go down to Stockholm on Wednesday. Since this is also the week of the autumn break in schools I have one of my busiest work weeks of the season, so there's simply not a chance that I can take both Thursday and Friday off for a cosplay contest. I'm quite disappointed right now since I was really looking forward to this and be able to enter something. It's a bit ironic that when I finally earn the money to make high quality costumes, well then the contest is on a day when most people are at work, unless you are still in school.

Anyway I can now announce that my big project for the autumn, and a project that's big enough to push back my start on the gold handmaiden is going to be Elsa's coronation gown from Frost.

Not only that I'm going to recreate the gown, in a nod to its bunad inspiration I have decided to try and incorporate quite a lot of elements from that tradition, for example I'm going to embroider the motifs on the skirt and bodice rather than painting them on. I have come far enough that I've cut out the outer fabric for the skirt and my goal is to have the skirt ready for embroidery in the weekend.

Now since I'm not going to enter the contest I might skip on the sceptre and orb and just do the fabric parts of the costume, and the tiara. I don't like working with hard materials, but for a contest I felt that they were essential, if I'm just going to walk around in the costume then that's another thing.

I guess I just have to let it go when it comes to my disappointment in not being able to take part in the contest.

Disney's Frozen

I watched Frozen yesterday with my two nieces, despite being set in Scandinavia and inspired by an HC Anderssen tale it didn't get to Sweden until now. Anyway I was totally awestruck by the costumes in the film. For the first part I just sat there gaping and thinking about how I would be able to recreate them. I definitely think Frozen is something new when it comes to attention of details on animated costumes, and I would recommend reading this interview with the costume designer Jean Gillmore. I loved the colours and how they mixed elements of the Norwegian bunad with fairytale fantasy fashion.

The bunad is broad term for Norwegian folk costume. It actually evolved in the 19th century when when national romanticist wanted to revive traditional folk customs and clothing. I'm from Sweden so I don't really know the story about the bunad, and if it's similar to the history of the Swedish folk costumes.

This is a picture from the wiki article about bunad and shows the modern wearing of it. This picture is from Trondheim, which is fitting since a lot of the inspirations for Frozen was taken from Tröndelag, the region surrounding Trondheim. Anyway you can see that the general style of bunad is very similar to Anna's dress in Frozen, the only thing missing is the apron.

There was one costume that I loved even more, probably because I felt that Anna's dress was a bit too young for me, and that was Elsa's coronation gown.

I have already gathered quite a few reference images of it, and it doesn't look too complicated. The gown itself would be a corset with a sweetheart neckline. It has two distinct seams on the side of the bodice, so I would possibly make the strength layer as a traditional corset and cover it with the outer fabric with those steams. The main thing is to decide if I should paint or embroidered the motifs on the skirt and bodice. I would love to use a proper wool, but the important thing is to get a fabric with a nice and heavy drape to it. For the cape I would be able to use the leftovers of my silk velvet from my Amidala gown. It's not enough left to make the train as long as in the original, on the other hand that will make it more practical to walk in.

The main problem as usual would be to fix the hair ad the little tiara.

As for wearing it. Well that is the problem, and I usually don't like to make costumes that I can't wear. he HSF has a challenge for alternate universe due around Halloween, and this would definitely fit that. I could also bring it to the annual sci-fi con in Stockholm in early December.