Steampunk Renaissance Pirate Costume - Part 3

This is part of a series! Start reading here.

I wanted to make this costume as flattering as possible for my client, so for the skirt, made a waistband of two layers of thin lining that extended down several inches before the thick purple linen was attached. I also cut the skirt pieces in a sharp A-Line shape, to minimize waist bulk while maximizing hemline. (It was a full circle hem, LOTS of pinning!)

My husband actually had to assist me to get everything done on time, since I've been struggling with muscle/joint pain. One thing he did was sew all of the vertical skirt seams.

The red overskirt is simply a skirt, gathered up along the seamlines.

The gathering was then hidden by the trim.

I set the red waist seam halfway down the black, between the top black edge and where the purple sewn in, to keep the bulk gradiated away from the waist.

As you can see, the bodice covered the rest of the black waistband, but the black didn't add any bulk under the bodice.

Time to make the shoulder caps! these were really simple triangles with rounded corners (self lined).

I used the very last of the trim to edge these!

I then finished the seams with some pleather, the same way I did the bodice, with bias strips. Above you can see the backside/underside, which I am finishing off with some fray check. Not entirely needed, as pleather doesn't fray, but I wanted to keep things as sturdy as possible.

Time for the upper arm cuffs! I wanted them to look as though they were the result of some pirate raids.

One side is red, the other is purple. They can be worn interchangably. The beads are selvaged from a necklace I decided to recycle rather than donate. Fun stuff - and free!

I stitched the embellishments down with some metallic thread.

Everything is just pinned on here, but in the next few posts you'll see how I inserted eyelet tape for lacing! Click to continue reading!