How To Make A Daenerys Qarth Gown

This post has been a long time coming! I will make you wait no more :) For the purposes of showing you how I made this costume, I made a second dress in the dark blue fabric. (The original dress was made in the same fabric as used by Michelle Clapton in the actual show.)

How to make a Daenerys Qartheen Gown

(but not the filigree parts!)

You will need:

Approximately 6 metres of fabric

Approximately 25cms of 1"in wide elastic

Needle for hand sewing

Sewing Machine

Spool of thread to match

Optional:

Dress form

Roller hem foot** (highly recommended! Practice first if you've never used one before)

See how I painted the golden pattern on the fabric learn and why I did my pleating why I did.

Contact me or leave a comment if you want to know who I commissioned the filigree pieces from.

My dress is made from four rectangles of fabric. The fabric widths that I am going to share with you are what worked for my dress. I am happy to share with you the sizes of the rectangles, however the good news is that it is not necessary for yours to be identical!

My measurements are as follows:

And that is my pattern! Easy as, 1-2-3-4! The dark blue fabric that you see in this tutorial is a polyester chiffon, and as such it was very easy to put the fabric to size. Just a small snip and then tearing and it did not warp the fabric and remained on the grain. 

The silk chiffon fabric I used in my original dress (the same fabric as used in the show) was the devil to cut, and I hope to not have to go through those terrors again!

Once I had the pieces at the sizes I wanted, that is when I printed the fabric with the gold paint and sea sponges.

For the sewing the edges of the fabric, I cannot recommend highly enough investing in a rolled hem sewing foot. This gives the fabric a professional edge (think hems of white business shirts or sheets!)

Rolled hem as it is being sewn

I was fully expecting to pay $25+ dollars and was pleasantly surprised when it only cost approx $12 from my local Janome sewing centre (the former price was one I saw on eBay... It does pay to shop local!).

All of my exposed edges of fabric have had the selvedge's trimmed away and then sewn with the rolled hem foot. The side seams of the dress were sewn as french seams.

Onto piecing the dress together...!

The front two panels were sewn together approximately 34cms from the top of the dress. I sewed then a 2cm seam allowance to the hem of the dress. The larger seam allowance allows the rolled hem to be unseen when wearing the dress. I can elaborate on this further if need be, but I hope it makes sense.

Note the centre front seam as discussed above.

Next I pleated the fabric at the shoulders. I did this first by determining the width of the shoulder pieces and then pinning the pleats in place before securing them with a 1.5cm long stitch.

As you can see from the pictures above, I wasn't overly concerned that the pleats did not all line up at the top edge (I put it down to it being a lot of fabric to pleat and that I don't think it is that big of a deal). For the dark blue dress, I was working with a very narrow strap; but for the faithful reproduction of the dress had a wider width so it was not as difficult to get the pleats to look decent.

Next some hand sewing is in order!

Preparing to hand sew...

As above, the seam allowance was folded once over and then hand sewn to the shoulder pieces.

... and hand sewing all finished!

Now the back of the dress happened a little differently. Because I didn't want too much bulk at the back of the dress for the cape, I used only one width of the fabric, and created a split. What made the decision easy was that I only had 6 meters of fabric to work with. I might have completed this the same as the front way if I'd had an extra two meters!

So you can chose to do it the same way as the front if you wish. And so if you do wish, repeat the above for the back!

If you are like me and had to use the one piece, read on...

First I carefully* (*read: cheated a bit) cut down the centre of the fabric to the depth I wanted and used the roller hem on the raw edges.

Then I pinned the wrong sides of the fabric together and sewed a dart, catching the raw edges from the split. I also trimmed it back a bit. Next I pinned the right sides of the fabric together and sewed a 2nd dart being carefully to fully enclose the first one. This is what it looked like when finished:

This is hopefully how the back of the cape will look when done

Now you can sew the shoulder pieces to the back of the dress. I thought I was being really careful until this happened:

I know. I can't even.

I had to unpick and try again. Luckily this did not happen with the first dress! This is what the dress looks like at this stage from the side:

A little revealing if you stopped here!!

Next, a think casing was made in the piece that would become the skirt or back of the dress. In my version of this dress, the back of the skirt is attached to the front of the dress at a height where it will cover your backside - creating the actual dress. The cape is then sewn into the seams of the dress. I will talk again on this shortly...

I chose to use a nice thick elastic for this waistband. A length of elastic was then cut (approx 25cm) and threaded through the casing. I secured it with machine stitches at the sides to ensure it was not going to slip out.

The below picture shows the back of the dress being pinned to the front. in order to line things up to my liking, I first sewed these two seams before going back to sew the cape into the sides of the dress with a second seam atop of the original stitching.

But Sonia, will you please tell me what a French Seam is?

If you are not familiar with a French seam, you might be wondering why the wrong sides of the fabric are being sewn together. It's because a French seam is sewn in two steps. The first is at approximately 1cm, then you trim the raw edges to approx 5mm. You then turn your garment inside out (don't forget to press!), and sew a second seam that captures your raw edge. 

What you need to be very wary of is making sure you do not capture any of the first seam's raw edge in your new seam. Because if you do it will stick out the sides of your dress once you've turned it back the right way and trust me that this will not look very pretty!

With that in mind, you might like to do a 6mm second seam. Give yourself a larger seam allowance if you are concerned with the finer details.

French seams are recommended on fine fabrics that will fray if not finished or to avoid using an overlocker which doesn't always suit your fabric choice.

Back to the dress.

When sewing the cape's seam, I wanted to make sure that it joined into the dress a few cms below the top of the back of the skirt. I hope this illustration from an earlier post can better show you what I mean:

See how it joins in below where the belt actually sits?

From here - eyes on the prize! You're not far off the finish line!

Once the side seams are finished, try on your dress - preferably with your belt, so it cinches in and will sit on your body like the finished garment. From here, determine the length the dress will be. As I used my dress makers dummy set to my height, I didn't need to do this to get the garment length. (But I did try it on and grin like a champion! haha)

From here, make any necessary adjustments to your hem length. I then sewed the hem of the dress with the rolled hem foot. With the cape, I left the ends square (ie: no rounding into a curve or anything) and sewed the edges again with the rolled hem foot. The train drapes out behind the dress approx 35cms. You can opt for this to be shorter, or even the same length as the dress itself if you don't want to worry about it dragging on the ground (I was constantly carrying mine and let it down for photos).

And there you have it; this is how I made my dress! Are there things I would do differently? Yes, I think so. At this stage I have made 3 versions of this dress, so I've changed things up slightly along the way with all the new things I learnt along the way. 

I hope I have been nice and clear for you... But if you have any questions at all... Please do not hesitate to ask and I will do my best to answer for you!

Finally... Some photo spam! ;)

Because I would like to know if this tutorial has helped you at all, I would love it if you leave a comment! Please be kind to this old girl (hey... I just turned 21 29.)

PS... WINTER IS COMING!!! (Woo, 6 more days and counting :D)

Rainbow Buttefly Cake DIY & Tutorial

So, mid last year I got married! The theme I worked with was 'Rainbow Butterfly Garden', and I had my heart set on a cake with cascading rainbow butterflies!

I believe of course that a picture speaks a thousand words, and the photo below is my husband and I cutting our butterfly wedding cake.

My determination was to have this style of wedding cake, which the Internet told me sky-rocketed to fame thanks to Martha Stewart. The thing that got me was why pay the price tag when I could DIY the cake decorations myself with the help of my family? This post is the result of those lofty dreams!

Read on if you want to find out how you can make your own, with a FREE DOWNLOAD (made by me) of the butterflies I used!

You will need:

• Butterfly transparency sheets (Download the files here! They were created as A4 page size)
• Scissors
• Clear sticky tape
• Wire (best to use cake-decorating wire, but out of desperation I used florist wire)
• Wire cutters

Background Info about Tutorial:

My first step was to source freeware butterfly outlines online. It took a bit of searching to ensure the ones used were not copyrighted and available to use, but it was important to me that this was so.

I used Photoshop to colour the butterflies in tones that I felt were complimentary to my wedding colours and to one another. Basically each sheet is comprised of 11 butterflies in the colour of choice, as illustrated below. In my downloadable I have included, all of the butterflies are are the colours below and have the black outlines but the rest of the page (ie not the butterlies) is transparent, not solid black (I'm not sure why but Blogger does not seem to like .PNG image files).

Save the file to a USB, and take it to your local Office Works (or similar outlet) and have the images printed on transparent film, which is basically the overhead projection sheets.

How to Proceed:

This is where the fun begins! Each butterfly will need to be cut out by hand, as neatly as possible. If you can recruit as many family members as possible that would be great! Luckily for me, my mother rose to the occasion and cut them all out herself! (Thanks Mum ;-))

Each butterfly will then need wire attached to it. I used florist wire because the cake wire I ordered online never arrived in time :( It worked though! Mine was green, but white would have blended in more beautifully with a white cake. The wire was about 7" long, and each one was cut in half.

Make an 'L' shape with the wire (approximately 1/2"), and attach it with a piece of invisible sticky tape to your butterfly. Of course, use the 1/2" to attach to the butterfly, so hopefully you should not see it when looking at the butterfly.

My mother stuck each wire as she completed it into a styrofoam cube, for easy and safe transportation.

The next challenge is then to decorate the cake! Because everything was crazy leading into the ceremony, I had no idea who in the end decorated the cake; but I found out it was in the staff in the kitchen of our wedding venue. How great was that?! I had this silly idea that I would be able to decorate the cake myself... But honestly this was a tad unrealistic.

Because I was trying to keep costs down, the cake that we chose from the bakery was not decorated. It was a chocolate and white chocolate layer cake from The Cheesecake Shop, with double icing. They could have added ribbon or flowers at an additional cost but it was much cheaper without... And they were not able to decorate any cakes with items that were not apart of their inventory.

Trust your instincts with how to decorate with the butterflies, but to prepare I printed an inspiration picture from online and made sure it was kept with the butterflies so that the lucky decorator of the cake would understand my vision!

The trick would be to ensure they are spaced out appropriately for the size of your cake, and inserted into the cake at various depths. There is actually a really great YouTube tutorial that shows you how to decorate, so I'd highly recommend that if you're planning this cake.

So sorry that I don't have any pictures of the process, but I wasn't running around with a camera on the day, as I'm sure you would understand! I hesitate to use the pictures of others, because many online images are from stores that are selling their wares. There are some really great ones out there for those who would love the butterflies, but are not as interested in completing the above process! But any Google Images Search will give you such wonderful inspiration!

Here is a picture though of the Martha Stewart magazine cover that seemed to start it all!

I hope that these instructions help you, and there is no doubt that there is many opportunities to brighten up a cake with these butterflies, not just a wedding! If you have any questions at all about the process, please don't hesitate to ask!

I would really love to hear what you think of this post, so I would love it if you could leave a comment! I worked very diligently on these butterflies for my own use, and am excited to share my files with you!

And of course I would LOVE to know if you use my download for your cakes, so please be sure and let me know if you do...

Anthro Knock-Off Bali Style

So previously on She Said Whaaat?! I've mentioned that my Mum went to Bali. She and I love to go together, but unfortunately I'd recently started a new job and there was no way I could join her.

What I love about visiting the friendly island is the amazing value and craftsmanship that is available.

So whenever we (or she!) travel across, I always get an item or two made. This time this blouse was one of them! It is a copy of the Anthropologie Blue Book Blouse which I stalked on eBay for a short while. It took me a while, but I finally got one! The trouble was though it was slightly too big. Luckily though, we requested this one be made a size smaller and it fits sooo much better!

I love it, especially the crisp-ness of the front ruffles. It got quite a few compliments too, yay! The fabric was a bit heavy, but that was probably because I'd initially chosen the fabric for a skirt. As long as it's not too hot, I'll be just fine ;)

The key around my neck is also a purchase from eBay, a solid silver copy of a skeleton key. The style is kissing dolphins, which is very swell to me!

I totally recommend my friends at the Bali Dynasty, let me know if you ever head that way and want a quality tailor! ;)

Cue: The Knock-Off

Recently, I started a new job. Not the job I coveted, but maybe things have worked out for the best. At least for now. One of the best things is the ability to have no restrictions on what I can wear (besides thongs and shorts!). A downside of this is gives me the challenge of what to wear each day!

I purchased a dress from one of my favourite shops, Cue. The hardest thing about buying from my favourite shop is the prices. Ouch to the $229 that the dress cost me! Given my sewing mind, I realised I could do my own version of the dress for a fraction of the cost! And so my challenge was set.

The original dress has salmon pink for the bodice, and chocolate brown for the skirt. I was excited to chose my own colours for the dress, and chose a deep purple and an amazing Japanese fan print for the skirt. 

My skirt features a different style of pleating and a lower neckline. The original neckline cause irritation to my collarbone area. Spotlight, where I purchased my fabric and other bits and pieces didn't have the colour purple I wanted for the zip, so I went with pink instead for a fun detail.

When I wore the dress to work, it was with a brown skinny belt and matching kitten heels. 

Would you like to see some of the building stages? Read on!

The toile was draped on my dressmakers dummy, Bumble Bee. She is padded to my dimensions, and was purchased from the fashion school at the end of my course. Although the term 'draping' conjures images of folding and draping fabric onto the dummy to create a garment, it is not the only meaning of the term. Its a means to make patterns utilising the curves of the body that is not the same when drafting a flat pattern.

One thing that really excites me about this dress is the finishing techniques used. Thanks so the two tutorials from The Slapdash Sewist, and on from The Musings of the Dedicated Housefiancee, I made a dress with fully sewn arm holes and enclosed lining around the seam around the zip and where the bodice meets the skirt.

This is what the lining looks like on the inside. I love how it looks so much that it will feature in my next dress. It will be made from suiting material in purple and grey.

Well, that's it for now. I'm off to watch Spongebob Squarepants and Ren & Stimpy as I cut out the pieces for my next dress. 

Until next time!

Update!: The dress in Action. I wore it today, and it also happened to be a day that a Police License Plate competition I entered had their press release. I was invited along as 4 of my suggestions were chosen, and the biggest vehicle on the fleet was one of them! Woohoo! :D

Read the article on the NT Police Facebook Page here. How cool right? (the green highway patrol vehicle to the side reads: PATROLN which was one of the other 3 ;) The two not pictured are BSAFE and YDUI which will go on motorcycles (so I'm told!)