The dress is made from a cream poly crepe and is self lined. I used a basic three-piece pattern of my own creationloosely based on a Vogue pattern for knits. It worked just fine with the crepe though, and I put an invisible zipper in the back. I drafted my own pattern for the
I hand embroidered the neckline with grey and gold embroidery floss using the pattern on ACS as a template. For the zig zag trim below the embroidery, around the armscye and at the edge of the sleeve, I improvised and made my own. I was originally going to braid 2 strands of cream with 1 strand of gold cord, but I liked the look of it twisted in a spiral better(not to mention it was less time-consuming!). I have something like 12 yards of cord all together in the trim. That's where 40% off coupons come in handy! For the gold cord that wraps around the arms, I used a three-ply gold cord which i took apart and braided. Unfortunately I did not have enough, so there are no trailing cords hanging from the sleeves.
The inner sleeves were made from a pretty, sheer fabric with a small cream and gold scrolling vine design on it, and lined with the poly crepe. These were originally just straight sleeves, but after getting the extended Two Towers I added the lacing. I did this by making a dart on either side of the seam and stitching loops into the fold. These are laced with some of the left over cord from the dress trim. The sleeve hems are bound with cream bias tape.
I made a belt out of canvas which I covered in the dress fabric. To this I hand-sewed hundreds of gold beads in a rounded diamond pattern on the "tail" as well as on the part that goes around the waist. Finding suitable medallions was tricky. At first, I was going to make them out of sculpy, but then I decided that would be too fragile. So I kept a lookout for a decent metal belt and found a great one at Marshalls. I re-painted it a lighter silver and added some gold as well. Then I took it apart and stitched each medallion permanently to the belt. The fabric part of the belt fastens in the back with lacing.
I've worn this dress to several events, including a LOTR-themed birthday party, two Halloween parties, and to Return of the King in January(got a lot of stares at the theater, it was fun!).
