This time around I didn't have a specific cosplay in mind I wanted to make, but while doing my usual window shopping on the website, I found the perfect blue and white gingham shirting fabric and knew what I had to make! I wanted something a little extra with it, so I opted to get in addition to the gingham, this novelty weave suiting in yellow and finally got to use one of the colorways of the large floral voiles that reminded me of the poppies in Wizard of Oz, as well as the orange poppies in my home state of California.
Since I was making this more for my wardrobe than a cosplay, I opted to make two pieces that could work independently or together. The poppy fabric got cut into three panels to be a knee length skirt for me, and since I was just pleating the width into a skirt, I had no excess to use for pockets, so for now this skirt has no pockets, but would be easy enough to add them at a later date since I was able to use the selvedge for the seams making this an easy to assemble skirt with just some twill tape for a waistband. I will say I think I sewed my best zipper into this skirt, and I need you to be proud of me, as zippers are my worst enemy!
For the dress itself, I opted to make a bodice by having a straight center front panel, but the rest of the bodice was one continuous piece of fabric with just some bust shapes on either end where they would connect to the center front panel. Once I had that I went in and shaped it more to me with darts and matched the dart adjustments to the lining layer.
Unfortunately for me, I had a miscalculation somewhere along the way and ended up having to take in at the sides after the bodice was assembled, but it luckily just looks like a normal side seam. This project actually found me making a lot of silly little mistakes, like I initially cut out the main bodice piece without seam allowance and sharpie marks on the wrong side, but I was able to reuse that fabric into some large pockets. Pockets that I also messed up sewing so the wrong side of the fabric shows when the pocket is open!
But once I had the bodice mostly assembled, I hand gathered my assembled two skirt panels to the waistband, sewed them down and sewed on the yellow ruffles to the hem. Normally when I see something to a hem, I might add a facing, but I decided to try out doing a French seam for the hem and it kinda worked? There were some areas I had to redo because it caught excess fabric it shouldn't have, but by the end of sewing it, I had noticeably improved!
The last bit to do were to make and attach the straps, I centered the back of the straps over the darts on the back of the dress and had them in place when I sewed the skirt to the bodice to encapsulate the raw edges, then pulled the straps forward to map out the placement of how I wanted them to lay, at this time I only tacked down the straps at high point of the bust and where the straps touch the top of the back of the bodice, but I plan to go back and fully tack down the straps and maybe add some trim under the edge while I'm there!
The final touch was making two large decorative buttons and I had a wearable Dorothy dress! Despite the MANY hiccups, I did enjoy making this dress, and got so many compliments when I wore it out the day I got photos. People seemed to love the extra secret reveal of the poppy field hidden under the skirt that was not supposed to be as long as it is, but I love it too much to change that now.
I look forward to the many times I'll wear it in the future, it's a perfect traveling dress for when I go to various cons or when I'm off to see the wizard!
MINA | @cosplaytology
It's so adorable, and very nicely fitted! How great to be able to bring your vision to life, and wear it. There’s nothing quite like a good gingham. Plus ruffles. Plus poppies! 😊
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