Red Pride and Prejudice Gown

 

I made this gown for me to wear to the Pride and Prejudice celebration.  I was one of the chaperons.  But by the time I got done with the others it only left me half a day to make mine.  That was just not enough time.  I almost pulled it off I had it all done except for the zipper in the back of the dress.  Yes less than two hours more and it would have been done oh well that is life.  I have at least two more Pride and Prejudice celebrations and one  more David Copperfield one before my kids graduate high school.

So it will get worn just not at this time.  The dress is made from an upholstery fabric again with an upholstery zipper.  This is fabric that I originally purchased to make a Bingly sister dress for the play with the same name.  So it is funny how things go around and don't get used then sort of do but will in the end. I hope that made since did to me referring to original purpose of fabric for the play, then  making it for the celebration and not worn but will be in the future. I plan on wearing these with black satin elbow length gloves.  Yes this dress fits me but because I made it with a draw string at the neck and under bust it can also fit most of my daughters but it is a little long in the sleeves for them.  The youngest is still a little small but not by much.  Grrr tried taking photos at night did not work well had to wait a few days to take some during the day not sure they came out well either but there they are anyway.

Baby Blue Pride and Prdjudice dress

 

This is one of the dresses that did not get worn.  It too was made for  a friend of my daughter.  I had asked her if she could ask her father to make me a special item out of wood for my husband.  A wooden tie sounds like it would be stiff but it is actually sort of hinged and pretty cool.  She did not end up wearing the dress.  I did have it done in time but I guess something happened and she was not able to change into it or something or other.   Either way I am posting it here.  My three daughters love this dress.  They wish it had been one made for them.  They all love the color blue and they love the fringe details I placed on the dress.   It also has a double set of sleeves which does make it a little warmer for winters in Utah.  Which tends to be when these types of celebrations happen.  It was raining outside the day we did The Pride and Prejudice celebration  good thing we did it inside.

This is a fully lined dress.  It also has draw strings at the neck and waist as do the others.  So that you can make the dress tighter or raise up the neckline.   The fabric is a tone on tone blue also an upholstery fabric.  I used an upholstery zipper with this one too but this one has a real long zipper to make it weasier to change in and out of.  The fringe makes it so that this dress has to be dry cleaned as it will get destroyed in  a normal washing machine.  I did fray check every tassel on this dress at the top of the tassel and at the band that wraps around the tassel in the hopes of stopping that.  The fringe was a gift to me from another friend.  She gave me a lot at one time it has been a blessing to say the least.  An easy way to make something look fancier is to add trims.

Golden Pride and Predjudice dress

 

My oldest daughters class just finished reading Pride and Prejudice as a class.  To celebrate this they had a formal dinner with the students doing the after dinner entertainment by singing, playing instruments and so on.  There was also games if they wanted to do that.  I actually made four dresses for this even but only one actually got worn to the event.

I made this one for my oldest daughter so I will start here since this one actually got worn.


The fabric since I was asked about it a lot was a upholstery type fabric I use that a lot when sewing costumes.  But this is a light weight one.The gloves we already had from school plays in the past.  The cameo is a real nice very old one I was given as a gift from my children's piano teacher.  I sewed it to the velvet ribbon as I did not want the clasp coming open as that part is weak and I did not want to loose it.  The trims on the dress are just little scraps I had lying around form other projects.  I also used an upholstery zipper I do that often because costume tend to get worse use than normal clothes.  It is and to tell in these photos but the under skirt has a pattern in the fabric too a little dot pattern adds a nice contrast when worn.  Originally I bought this fabric to help costume the play Pride and Prejudice a few years back. They ended up renting costumes instead so I never made them.  Which made it supper easy to make these costumes when my daughter wanted one as I had thought the costumes out over 1 1/2 years ago and had all the supplies already.  The school does rotate through the plays so they will probably be doing this play again.  Which means these will probably be used in the future for a play since I already have them made.  This would be a Bingly sister dress as it is too fancy in fabric for the other family.  This dress was actually made for the middle daughter to wear at the David Copperfield celebration but that daughter decided to wear the aunt March costume instead.  So when the oldest needed i figured oh hey i made one for the other sister yesterday so do not not have to make another.  Not thinking that my middle daughter is taller by a few inches than the older.  So the day of the celebration we realized I had not fixed the hem.  Good thing my daughter owned a nice pair of chocolate brown satin high heels with velvet trim to wear with this.  Which I had just happened to buy 3 days prior because they were on sale for 6 dollars and they were a perfect match.  She also ware a red cape I had made for the play little women that the character Jo wore.

The girl in the bottom right of the above photo had one of the other dresses I had actually made for her sister for a David Copperfield celebration but she forgot she could wear a costume thus she did not wear it.   This family has done all kinds of nice things for my family so this dress was a sort of thank you for that. I was sort of sad as there should have been four costumes there I made but there was only one I wanted photos of all four on the girls together.
Here are the only photos I have of it of her sister wearing the dress. Sorry I took these with my phone and they are not good images.  It is hard to see in the photo but it was a blue on blue brocade with a light blue overlay.  Mother of pearl buttons on the back and a white gross grain ribbon around the empire waist.