Queen Gown Costume Sewing Tutorial

I went to a few shops during my lunchtime the next day and quickly got some materials for the gown, like red linen and black satin (I changed to white in the later stage), ribbons, pre-pleated ribbons, laces, buttons, zipper and also a pair of open-finger long hand glove… basically anything I came across that I might need. I ended up buying more than I needed :p

The cutting began after the kids went to bed and there was no one to disturb me. I was excited and started to cut the fabric, made a few mistakes and wasted some fabrics though. Well, at least I learned something through-out the process.

I made the blacktop (right) on the first sewing night and let my daughter try on it to check if the measurement was correct, and her first reaction was “Mummy, why did you use black, I don’t like it!”…. mmmm… I had the same opinion too, so I wasn’t surprised when she made that comment. Without a second thought, I trashed the first night effort and replaced the black satin with white satin, resulting in a white-red-gold combination (left). And, I also extended the V-waist a little as the first pattern was too short and the V is not noticeable… problem with a self-design pattern… lol!!!

Next, on to the sleeves. That was a pair of puffed sleeves where I embellished it with 3 stripes of ribbons.
I called up my mum to ask for some help in drawing the puff sleeve as I never sewed one before. It is not difficult, just split the sleeve into 6 equal vertical parts, glue them onto another paper with double the spacing in between them (if you want it puffier, add more space in between), and extend the curve on the top of the sleeve with the same spacing. Redraw the sleeve with correct curvature, that’s it! I later found a website with detailed photos for the “puffing”, but it is only “puffing” the top and not the arm hem.

Phew, luckily the sleeves came out PUFFY. I got it right 🙂
The red centerpiece on the top is a combination of gold powdered lace with red fabric. I later found out that it is non-washable… dry cleaning may work but not water.

The top was finished and I needed to get on to the bottom skirt fast. I was running out of time and the bottom needs more time to finish as it was heavily embellished.
Basically, the bottom was made up of 4 pcs. of rectangles and 4 pcs. of triangles (curved bottom).
I sew lots of pre-pleated ribbons onto the white satin triangles. At first, I sew them slightly overlapping each layer, I later added another layer in between to make them look “full”.

Sewing them up took up a lot of time as there were 22 layers of pre-pleated ribbons in each triangle. Took me a night to finish it.

I added 3 stripes of ribbons on 3 pcs. of the red rectangle fabric, otherwise, it will be too plain for that part. The centerpiece is a combination of golden lace and red fabric exactly like the top.

Had all of them sewn up. Sent to the craft store nearby for serging services as I don’t have a serger machine.
Gathered on the top side of the dress and joined up with the top to make up into gown. Went for another serging service again. There was an interlude for this trip, the lady who did it for me gave me a big eye and said “You made this?”, I said, “Yes, it is for my daughter’s stage performance”. Their customers (mainly seamstress) all hovered around it showering compliments on it… I was like “oh my goodness!!!” blush… I am not a pro by the way and this is my first gown sewing 🙂

Back to the details of the gown. I later sewed in the long open-finger hand glove onto the puff sleeve and added a ring of pleated ribbon at the wrist.
I also put in a line of small pleated ribbon on the waist to make it looks more “ROYAL” 🙂

Also, another line of pleated ribbon for the end hem of the queen gown costume with the same purpose… ROYALTY LOOK!!!

Side view of it.

Finally finished the whole gown. This gown is displayed with crinoline in it. I need it to make the gown look inflated and domed. I am saving this for my next post on how to make a crinoline, quite easy compared to sewing this 🙂