The Making of Padme's Picnic Dress - Part 2 Hair Buns Tutorial+Crochet Pattern

Today's post is going to be all about how I made the head piece for Padme's Picnic Gown. If you missed part 1, you can find it here.

When I was making this part of the costume I made sure to keep notes on how I made it so I could make a tutorial out of it, because I wasn't able to find one already. So I hope this is helpful to anyone else making this costume.

I would like to note that the crochet pattern I used was written as I went and I have not tested. Hopefully it will make sense.

To get things started, let's go over the needed supplies

Materials:

-Yarn. I was able to find the perfect color with a strand of gold tinsel spun into the yarn. You can find it at Joann's by clinking here.
-Crochet hook, 1.5mm
-Wig hair (I used some extra wefts from an old wig I re-tracked)
-2 hair nets. You can find these in the hair section at stores like Target. I found mine at Fred Meyers.
-Green ribbon
-Green embroidery thread
-Elastic

The first step is to make the buns using the pattern below.

Crochet Pattern:

Ch 8 and join with sl st
Ch 6 and sc in center of loop x6
Ch 6, sc in loop, repeat until reaching next round and increase to 8ch, then 10
On the 5th row ch 6 and sc into loop then ch 6 and sc into same loop. Repeat for entire round
Ch 8 and sc into each loop
After 2 rows, decrease to 6 ch for 1 round
On next round, decrease to 5 ch for 3 rows
Ch 4 and sc into loop for one round
Finish off and weave in ends

Cut two pieces of yarn approximately 12" long and weave into outer edge. This will be used to pull it closed later.

Assembling the Buns:

Take the hair wefts and play with them until you get a good amount/shape.

Place them inside of the hair nets and pull the excess net towards the back. If you leave the hair attached to the weft's, try to arrange the hair so that that won't be seen.

Place the hair in the bun and make any adjustments necessary to make it look nice on the outside.

Once you're satisfied, pull the yarn closed and tie it off.

Making the headband:

I made the headband from ribbon and elastic. Measure around the widest part of your head and cut the ribbon to that size. I decided the easiest way to get it on and off would be to use elastic at the back.

It took a little bit of playing with it to get the sizing right, but after playing around for a while I cut an approximate 2" piece of elastic and sewed it to the center back, cutting off a bit of the ribbon.

After it was stitched I added three rows of embroidery along the edges and the center of the band. I used a twist embroidery stitch.

When that was finished I used the same process for the flowers as I did on the bodice, cutting them out of the curtain panel I used and stitching them on the band.

To keep everything secure, I stitched the buns to the headband and while I wore them I pinned them to my hair with bobby pins to keep everything in place.

And that's it!

The Making of Padme's Picnic Dress (P-19) - Part 1

Today I'm going over how I made Padme's Picnic Dress.

This costume took a lot of time to make, largely due to the extensive embroidery. And by a lot, I mean I was working on this costume, off and on, for about a year and a half. But I'm really happy with how it turned out and I'm super excited to share how I made it with you all.

Worn at Emerald City Comic Con 2018

I want to start this post out with talking about the fabric. The fabric for this costume was really important, especially for the cape. Because even if I wanted to, I don't have the tools or knowledge to embroider that pretty floral design onto mesh fabric (yikes!).

I got lucky, like really, really lucky, and found most of the fabric for this project second hand at Goodwill. The cape fabric is a curtain panel, and they had a 5 some-odd yard piece of yellow chiffon, as well as another curtain panel that was a crinkled yellow nylon (used in the bodice and petticoat).

When I found the fabric I snatched them up and that's when I started planning to make this costume. I think I paid around $15 for all that. The only other fabric I had left to buy was canvas to use as a base for the bodice.

The fabrics

The pattern was self drafted and draped on my dress form. Below is what the bodice pattern looked like.

There were a total of 3 layers for the bodice; the base layer (canvas), the fashion fabric (crinkled nylon), and the lining (muslin). Once my base layer and fashion fabric were cut I surged them together, flat lining them.

Before stitching anything together I started working on the embroidery of the center front panel.

The layers, pinned and ready to be surged.

Because I'm not a great artist, especially when it comes to abstract designs, I traced the embroidery pattern from a close up shot in Dressing a Galaxy. The overall proportions were pretty accurate, except for the space between them, so I divided the pattern into three sections and pinned them each onto my bodice separately to get the positioning right.

I started the embroidery by outlining everything in a chain stitch using normal thread that matched my fabric. This part wasn't supposed to be obvious, and mostly add texture and an outline to work within.

When I was done with each section I tore away the tracing paper. I also did some of the green embroidery of the leaves at this point too.

 

Once the whole outline was completed I filled in the places that needed it with various shades of yellows and oranges, and eventually expanded to the sides (I guess it's worth noting that somwhere in between here I stitched the rest of the bodice together).

I would recommend looking up tutorials on how to do this part instead of trying to wing it, like I did, because I didn't do a great job. I don't have much embroidery experience, so I was pretty much making it up as I went.

Once the embroidery was finished (a year later XD ) I added the embroidered flowers. Because I didn't know how to make/didn't want to make these, what I did was cut them off of scraps from the cape fabric and stitched them on. 

They were a pain, but not nearly as much as they would have been if I had had to sew them completely by hand.

At this point pretty much all that was left for the bodice was to add boning and line it. I boned each seam except for the ones under the arms, and in the lining added three bones straight up the center to give a little extra support to the silhouette. I'm really glad I added those extra bones, they made a big difference.

The bodice closes in the back with a separating zipper. I would have preferred an invisible zipper, but I was afraid that the thickness of the canvas would have been too much.

The skirt and chemise were less intense to make, but still challenging. I hardly took any photo's of the process of making them, so I'll do the best I can to explain.

I decided to make the "chemise"/blouse a separate piece from the skirt because I didn't want it to be pulled down by the weight, as well as conserve fabric. Plus in a BTS video you can see that it's seperate and hand stitched to the lining of the bodice.

The blouse is a pretty simple design; it has a wide off the shoulder neckline with extra long sleeves, which have fitted cuffs and spaghetti straps. That's really about it. 

The skirt was also fairly simple too, it's made of several "A" line panels and is gathered into a waist band and closes in the back with an invisible zipper. I put the gathers to sides and left left the front mostly flat. The shape of the original skirt is interesting and I'm still not sure what shape it was, probably a circle skirt of some kind, so I did my best to imitate it by choosing where to place the gathering.

I made two layers for the skirt, one in chiffon, and one of the crinkled nylon to add a little bit of volume and thickness. To finish off the edges I surged both layers separately and then folded the edges of the chiffon layer under once and used a narrow hem. I left the other layer alone since it was shorter than the other and wouldn't be seen.

This wasn't my original plan, but I ended up using an extra cotton petticoat underneath. I used a light 19th century petticoat I made several years ago to add just a little bit of volume to the skirt and I'm happy with the end look.

The embroidery on the skirt is really simple. It was straight stitches with sequins sewn on every few inches. At first I attempted doing a chain stitch, but it was too bold so I went down to plain straight stitches and it looked much more subtle, which is what I wanted.

The sequins are four petal sequins and are identical to those used on the original costume. It took me a while of searching online to find them, but I was finally able to find a vendor on ebay. Unfortunately I don't have their information any longer so I can't leave a link.

Lastly, the accessories. The shoes I wore were these silver flats, which I found on Amazon. They look nice, but they weren't very comfortable for walking around for several hours.

I also made the head piece, headband and ear muffs included, which I will be writing about in a separate post with a full tutorial soon.

And that's all for todays post. Like I said, you should be seeing a tutorial on how to make the head piece soon. But for now, here's some more photo's of the finished costume at Comic Con.

Padme's Picnic Dress at ECCC

It's been a long journey, but I was finally able to wear P-19 (Padme's Picnic Dress) to Emerald City Comic Con. It's not quite finished, there's still more embroidery to be done *sigh* and I need to make a few fit adjustments, but it was wearable.

This costume was quite the experience to make. I don't really know much about embroidery, and this was an embroidery heavy costume. I kind of just made it up as I went, but I learned some new techniques along the way.

I'll be writing up some posts on the making of, which will include a tutorial for the headpiece, but for now enjoy some shots from Comic Con.

Thank you to everyone at ECCC who complimented my costume, and to my friend Lilly for the photo's.

P-19 Progress Update

I haven't been very active at blogging so far this year, but I've been busy sewing all month. Emerald City Comic Con is only 2 weeks away, which means it's time to hustle and get Padme's Picnic Dress done.

Because of the high mount of embroidery, I know I'm not going to have all of it done in time for comic con, but I plan to have enough to make it look good and will finish it afterwards.

Last week I finally (finally!) finished the bodice; embroidery, lining, and all. It's by no means perfect, but I'm quite happy with the end result.

The big piece I've been tackling this month is the skirt embroidery. It's simple, and has been going faster than I expected, but I'm still learning as I go and have a few spots I need to go back and re-do when I have the chance.

And finally, this weekend I got around to making the headband and hair pieces. The buns were crocheted, which is something I haven't done in a long time, but they turned out pretty well. I'm working on a blog post with a pattern, which you should see sometime soon.

Headpiece making supplies

The finished buns

The headband, in progress

I put it all on Trisha to see how it looks and I'm quite happy with how everything's coming together.

Project P-19 Update

In honor of The Last Jedi premier tonight, I thought I should post something Star Wars related. It's been a while (10 months, actually) since I've posted about Project P19/Padme's Picnic Dress, and I thought it was time for an update.

I'm still working on the bodice embroidery, and it's getting closer to being completed which means soon I'll be starting the next phase of embroidery: the skirt and blouse (which will be far less complex, but a larger scale).

Considering I don't actually know anything about embroidery and I'm just making it up as I go, I'm pretty happy with the result.

Since this costume has spent a bit of time in the UFO pile these past few months, I decided to give myself a deadline to finish it before Comic-Con in March. Wish me luck!

June Updates

It feels like I haven't posted in forever. I've had a lot of things going on in my life recently that unfortunately have been keeping me from doing much sewing and I've been procrastinating on writing up blog posts because, frankly, I've just been too tired and lazy to get it done.

So finally, I'm writing something up. Today's post is going to be a catch up post so I can share a few things that have been going on, some costume related, some not so much. Here we go...

Last month was Aviation Day and I premiered my 1930's aviatrix outfit. I want to do an official post about it soon, but for now here's a few details.

While I'm really with how this looks, most of the pieces are modern clothing items. The helmet and goggles are authentic WWII British, which I found at a local antique store. I made the jodhpurs myself, but the rest is all modern. I plan on replacing these with authentic pieces as I find them, but for now they fit the part.

This was a really fun and really comfortable outfit to wear and people responded really well to it. Most people thought I was dressed up as Amelia Earhart, however it's not intended to be anyone in particular but rather to represent all women pilots (known as Aviatrix at the time) from the era.


May the Fourth came and went, and I'm still not close to done with P19. I got most of the bodice embroidery done, but I got tired of all the embroidery and had to put it down. It's sitting in my UFO pile, but I want to get back to it soon.

I didn't end up having any special Star Wars day party like I usually try to do, but I did celebrate by watching a few of the movies with my siblings. We had a bit of a thunderstorm that night which made it an interesting night.

I landed my first Costume Design Internship! I'm interning for the Village Theatre's Summer Stock production of Beauty and the Beast and I'm so excited! I'll be meeting with the cast and crew at the end of this month and production goes through August.

Not costume related, but I got my wisdom teeth pulled. I was pretty much incapacitated for 4 days, but I'm back to normal now.


Well, that's about it. I'm planning on getting back to my regular blogging routine and should have the last post about the Grey Gown up soon.

Project P19 | Bodice Emrboidery

I don't have a lot to share what I've been doing for Padme's Picnic Dress, or Project P19, at the moment because most of what I've done so far is embroidery, but I wanted to post about what I have done so far.

I finished drafting the bodice on my sewing form (sorry, I forgot to take pictures of that) and patterned it a few weeks ago. It's a pretty simple design, consisting of a total of 9 panels. I cut my pattern pieces of 2 layers; canvas for the structured layer and a crinkled nylon chiffon for the top layer. I will also be cutting these same pieces out of my lining fabric, but I don't have any on hand at the moment.

Once all my pieces were cut I flatlined the top layer to the canvas by surging around the edges. This was a little tricky with the chiffon since it's so light weight, but I was able to get it done fairly well considering I've never really worked with sheer fabrics before.

The next step was figuring out the embroidery pattern. Only two of the panels have embroidery on them; the center front piece and the two on either side have just a little bit of embroidery. Figuring out the embroidery and turning it into a pattern I could use was a little bit of a challenge.

I was originally planning on drawing the pattern onto paper then somehow mirror it and transfer it to the bodice, but I quickly realized that that was going to be really difficult. I pulled out Dressing A Galaxy and some tracing paper and started tracing the main embroidery. I simplified the pattern because there's a lot going on on that bodice and was able to use that for my pattern.

Once I had my simplified version traced I cut it into 3 different sections and spread it over my bodice to get an idea of the size. Luckily the size of the photo in the book is pretty close to my bodice piece and I was able to use my tracings for my pattern.

This book. It's kind of amazing.

As soon as I knew that this would work I copied the pattern to a second piece of tracing paper and made copies that I could use to mirror the pattern, which I then pinned to the center bodice piece. And then it was time to start embroidering!

Here's the part that I'm currently still working on. I've started by working the outlining stitching. While examining reference photo's I saw that the outline stitching appeared to be very small chain stitches from a very thin thread. I opted to use normal sewing thread for this part instead of using embroidery thread and I really like the way it looks. My stitching could stand to be a little smaller (okay, maybe a lot smaller) but considering I don't know that much about embroidery I'm happy with it.

Once I was done with the first phase of embroidery on the bottom section I tore away the tracing paper and voila! Pretty embroidery! There's still a lot more to do in this section, but tearing away the tissue paper and getting a glimpse of what it will look like is really satisfying.

Then it was time to move onto the next section...

And that's pretty much where I'm at right now.