[Skip to finished costume.]

The fabric is from a shower curtain bought at Bed, Bath, and Beyond (approx. $40 retail). Going by notes from Maggie's excellent Picnic Gown recreation, I dyed the fabric with a combination of Golden Yellow and Tan RIT dyes in my bathtub. It worked surprising well, considering this is the first time I've dyed anything. Even though the curtain is 100% polyester, it still took some of the dye, which was really all that I wanted. Obviously, the cotton lace along the edge of the curtain took more of the dye than the polyester, as you can see in the pictures below. I also dyed a white camisole I already had, since the curtain is rather sheer and I'll need something to wear under the blouse for modesty's sake.

       



Left to Right: undyed, closeup, dyed; with ribbon & dyed cami
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The basic design of my blouse follows the blouse/chemise that Padme wears with her Picnic Gown. I had planned on using McCalls 3797, but the pattern is now out-of-print. However, I decided that Simplicity 9966 was close enough and tweaked the pattern to what I want. The sleeve of the first muslin (pictures #1-2) was way too big. So, I took in some of fullness and planned to leave it at that. But then, reading Maggie's notes for the ump-teenth time, I realized the top of the sleeves of Padme's blouse are actually pleated, not gathered. Hmmm. So I tried this (pictures #3-4) but didn't like how it flattened the top of the sleeve. This would be fine, if I was wearing a cape over the blouse and wanted it smooth underneath, but I thought it looked funny by itself. In these pictures, you can also see how I took in excess material from the body of the blouse to make it more fitted. Then, looking over research pictures again, I realized that the lower sleeves were actually gathered (not smooth, as in my muslin). Grr. So, I repatterned the sleeve, adding fullness at the bottom as well as a second row of elastic above the elbow (pictures #5-6). Finally happy, I laid my picked apart muslin on my fabric and... it didn't fit (picture #7). The sleeves were too big STILL. My final muslin (pictures #8-9) shows the smaller sleeve - I ended up taking out approximately 6" of fullness in order to fit the sleeves on my limited amount of fabric.

                   

       

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Instead of elastic at the top edge as the pattern suggested, I originally thought to make a drawstring casing to gather the neckline and tried this (as you can see in picture #2 below). However, I waffled a while before deciding I didn't like how I looked. Then Maggie posted a new Padme Picnic picture that made me go "D'oh!" Why not mimic the scalloped edging I did on the hem on the neckline as well? So that's what I did. To take up the extra fullness that would have been gathered with the drawstring, I used a few small pleats on the sleeve (despite what I said above, I just wanted to finish the thing!). To edge stitch the blouse, I drew scallops on the bottom and top edges with a marking pen and, using stabilizer and Sulky varigated thread in Avocado, did a tight satin stitch to look like the hem of Padme's cape. The template I created for the scallop is included below. The cream thread of the stitching turned out a little bright so I toned it down with a mixture of gold and yellow fabric paint. The sleeve hems are gathered into bands of matching fabric and then slip-stitched closed to finish it nicely. The second picture shows the actual color of the blouse the best.

               

Left to Right: inprogress blouse, with drawstring but sans hem, practice satin stitch, scallop template, finished scalloping but un-tinted
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I don't have access to the "real" headband ribbon, but I thought I could fake it well enough. I used leftover 1/2" wide green ribbon from my arm ties and stitched two lengths together to make a 1" wide strip. I then reinforced this with fusible interfacing on the back, since the ribbon was a bit flimsy. The original headband has gold stitching running down the middle and both edges. I was going to use gold trim I had in my stash, but this ended up being too bulky beneath the applique flowers. So, instead I used metallic gold paint to simulate the gold stitching of the original. Then, I carefully cut out extra flowers from my embroidered fabric and dabbed a little fray check on them to prevent further unraveling. With matching embroidery floss, I stitched the flowers onto the headband securely. My ribbon was just shy of being long enough to go completely around my head (as the original does), so I sewed two thread loops on each end, and this lets me string pins onto the headband ends to secure it under my hair. For the arm ties and hair ribbons, I didn't want to splurge on real silk satin ones, but I found some suitable (and cheaper) alternatives at Joanns. I used the 1/2" wide ribbon for the arm ties and 3/8" wide ribbon for the blouse straps.

           

Left to Right: band with gold edging, with flower appliques, finished headband, ribbon samples
[up]   [finished costume]

I didn't want to spend too much on materials for this project, so I tried to find alternative ways to get the 'look' of Padme's Picnic Dress. For the straps, I used pale yellow ribbon that I embellished with rose clusters cut from my blouse fabric. I treated the roses the same way I did the ones for my headband, fray-checking the edges and stitching them on with matching embroidery thread. We now know what the real Picnic Brooch looks like, but for a long time, costumers speculated that it was a tiny dragonfly. I found the cutest buttons at Joanns that were approximately the right size, so I decided to go with that instead of making a more accurate brooch. The buttons were silver, so I colored one with nail polish and sealed it with two clear coats before sewing it onto the blouse neckline.

       

Left to Right: testing strap length, brooch, brooch closeup
[up]   [finished costume]

Left to Right: the finished blouse (sans camisole)
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To see the reference images used to make this costume,
check out The Padawan's Guide Picnic Gown Research.