When I offered my cousins a costume gift at the end of last year the youngest requested Lucy’s outfit from
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) . The outfit consists of a shirt, a tunic and pants. I must confess to having not seen the movie (partly because I'm a book purist, but mostly because I'm too attached to the old BBC series) so I did most of my research at
this website.
The tunic and pants are decorated with painted gold curlicues. To get this effect I used stamps and gold fabric paint.
Because I only needed to use small sections of the stamps, I used a brush to get the paint on to the parts of the stamp I wanted to use. The straight lines I did freehand. I am very proud of myself for being satisfied with designs that are not exactly the same as those in the film. They still have the same effect on the outfit – and really no-one would notice unless they were closely comparing the two… which I invite you to do below:
The tunic pattern I drafted from my cousin’s measurements and, to my delight, it didn’t need any fitting alterations. Having now seen the whole outfit on, I do think it would be better if the tunic was a little longer, but it’s too late now and probably I’m the only person who will notice.
Mum helped me make the pants pattern from a generic pants pattern that she had used for me when I was young. And by ‘mum helped me’ I mean mum did it while I sat nearby and hand-hemmed the tunic. The pants went together easily and fitted properly, so I suppose I‘m a step closer to being not-terrified of making pants.
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| The pants had to have pleats that could be clipped in place and could open out. |
The shirt for this outfit is made completely out of rectangles of fabric – no pattern pieces required. The collar and cuffs are knife pleated.
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| The tie is sewn on to the cuff, then loops around to tie on the outside of the cuff. |
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| The collar pleating is decorated with cording on both sides. |
I made
Dorset buttons which I have never made before. The first one took me a little over an hour, but by the time I finished I had got the process down to 40 minutes.
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| The buttons are made with thick sewing thread and a jewellery-making ring. |
The collar doesn’t quite sit right, but I’m not sure what I could have done differently. Possibly it would have been better in a less stiff material. Overall, if I made this again there are a few things I would do differently but I am still very happy with how it turned out and so was my cousin.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader images owned by Disney and Walden Media.
