Red's Cloak - Ruffle Variation

We just can't get enough of our favorite cloak, can we? And no wonder. The rich red damask velvet is some of the most gorgeous fabric I have ever worked with in my life, even if it is crazy heavy and requires serging of every raw edge.

So far you have seen me do a couple of replicas of this piece from "Once Upon a Time" and all of them have been straight forwards cloaks. On the first replica I made my client and I decided not to bother with the patchwork ruffle hem of the cloak's werewolf distressing, due to added time and costs. This worked well for further replicas, until...

Somehow, I'm still not exactly sure, this one ended up too short. It was right when things were getting crazy with my wedding and Christmas and we were working with a new pattern and the end result was something I'd never had before - missing inches. 

I had a long talk with my client who was extremely gracious and understanding. We discussed several different options, and the end result was that we decided to add on the ruffle hem to get the desired length (I only charged for materials, not added time as I felt absolutely terrible about the situation).

To get the right proportions on the ruffle, I had to cut up the hem even higher. This was one of the more painful things I've done in my work.

Then it was time to create the ruffle. I wasn't able to match the fabrics from the show exactly in my limited time frame, but I did find a red velvet and a striped upholstery fabric that matched the deep jewel tones of the damask velvet. After my customer signed off on the fabrics, I started cutting them into the three tiered patchwork ruffle.

I very quickly became pretty glad that I hadn't attempted this before. It took a couple days of work and the finished ruffle was longer than my workroom.

It did look kind of amazing, though.

I was only able to snatch a few photos before sending the cloak off in the mail, where it reached my client in time for Christmas (huzzah!)

The hard work paid off and my client was very happy. I was too - although I'd have to charge a lot more for any future client who wanted this variation of the cloak.

And there we are, my very last costume created in my parents house and under my maiden name!