The Tale of Rose Red, Part 1

Tonight is the season finale for Once Upon a Time. I'm so excited! I invited a couple of friends over. We're going to have a little Finale get-together. I even bought an apple pie for the occasion!

In the meantime, I have officially gotten started on my Red Riding Hood costume, and thought I'd better get started on some progress blog entries too, before I get too far ahead of myself and don't feel like going back. I really want to be a good sewing blogger for the benefit of those looking for reference on my chosen projects!

Today's post will be simple: Just some snapshots and discussions about the fabrics and the pattern I've chosen to use.

This is my main reference photo:

 

I decided to take the approach of "close enough" with this project. That is, I'm not killing myself looking for exact fabrics or anything of the kind, most especially in the case of the brocade on her vest. I'm organizing the pieces of the ensemble as follows, roughly in order of hardest to easiest:

I. Blouse

II. Vest

III. Skirt

IV. Cape

V. Petticoat

VI. Boots, Gloves

VII. Hair, Basket, etc.

The pattern I've chosen to use is Butterick 6196, since the corset/vest has the rounded neckline, front closure, and pointed waistline of Red's. The peasant blouse and skirt are also suitable, with a few slight tweaks.

 

For the blouse I bought a buttery-colored crinkle chiffon. It's a wee bit more yellow than Red's, but they didn't have the perfect shade of off-white available.  I also bought 1/2 a yard of decorative tulle in the same shade for the lace layers on her sleeves. This detail on the sleeves, as well as some trim techniques on the neckline are the two reasons that the blouse, for all its simplicity in basic construction, is #1 on my difficulty level list. It's going to require the most patience to get it just right.

The vest fabric was where I really splurged. As I suggested to myself in the original introductory post to this project, I combed up and down the aisles in the home decor fabrics section at JoAnn's until I found the black/brown/grey paisley tapestry fabric shown below. Since that dept of fabrics was 50% off (and I had a coupon above and beyond that), the price of the splurge was significantly less than what it could have been, but I'd still better make darn sure that I get everything right on the vest the first time around. I also bought some brown satin lining and boning as called for by the pattern. (Oh, and black ribbon for the edging, not pictured).

 

The skirt fabric was an double dose of the "close enough" stance. Studying the picture above, it's clear to see, that the material for Red's skirt is super shiny and crinkly. I actually did find some bolts in the special occasion fabrics very like this, but the red they had was full on 100% red, not the wine/ cranberry/Christmasy kind of red I would consider that skirt to be. More than that, I really just don't want one quite that shiny. Although it's not easy to tell in the photo below, the fabric I found has its own luster, but subtler, and I prefer the color for myself. (Also, it was on clearance!)

And that's all I have for now! I'm going to wait until all of these elements are finished before I proceed to buying fabric and materials for the cape. I've already made a test garment for the blouse and conducted one failed (but enlightening) attempt at constructing the sleeves with those lace layers.