Main Dress (Butterick 4827, View A)

After many twists and turns I finished the main dress of my costume and thus finished my 2015 Renaissance festival dress.

Part 1

Part 2

The Underskirt (Butterick 4827, View B)

I have finished the underskirt for my Renaissance dress. Here's a look at how it went.

I used the brocade for the underskirt. You have to be careful with brocades because they fray very easily, I serged every seam after it was finished sewing. I used satin pins, close together, to keep it from sliding. I also used a universal needle in size 90/14, and a 2.5 stitch length.

I was surprised because I had more fabric left over than the extra 1/8th that I bought. Also I didn't even use one spool of the thread I bought, (which was 100% cotton, sew all, thread).

Also I tried to use a disappearing ink fabric marker, and it worked, but it faded within 20 minutes. That was a lot quicker than the week it took on the cotton I tested before. Not a bad thing I didn't have to worry about the ink showing.

Now on to the more difficult project. The dress part.

Happy Sewing

Renaissance Festival Dress: A Closer Look at the Envelope

Sometimes when you start on a pattern it's hard to make sense of all the information on the back. Today I take a closer look at Butterick 4827 and weed through all the information to get to the stuff that applies to me.....And then I went shopping.

The orange fabric is a crepeback satin in Autumn (it was a red tag fabric at Jo-Anns)
The blue fabric is a Brocade fabric: turquoise paisley
Pellon 910 Sew in Featherweight interfacing.
Gutterman Sew all Thread: Color 474 "Curry"
Gutterman Cotton Thread: Color 7532
5/32 Eyelet kit with tool
Black Hook and Eye

And now I'm excited to get started on this project.
Happy Sewing 

Renaissance Festival Dress: Picking a Pattern

Since Hoshicon is over the next even on my list is the Carolina Renaissance Festival, and I want to make a dress for it. I decided that I don't want to do anything overly complicated, so instead of designing my own I'm going straight from a pattern. Let me take you on the journey while I narrow down my choices.

Honorable Mentions
At this time the fall previews (2015) for both McCall's and Simplicity are available. Since I do not own any of the patterns from the fall preview yet, I did not include them in my selections. There are two that are worth mentioning though.

Simplicity 1094
McCall's M7218

The frozen fever one (Simplicity 1094), I would consider but probably not make because of the sort sleeve issue.

The peacock dress is one I could see working if I were going for enchantress or sorceress.

Runner Ups
All patterns that came close but didn't make it.

Simplicity
1137
1347(not currently available)

1487 (not currently available)

9891 (OOP)

4940

Butterick

4377

4571
McCall's
6940

Winner

Butterick 4827

Accessories:
Butterick 5371