wendydeglee - Tumblr blog

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I made a few more things for Idril Celebrindal: a lilac chiffon underdress with double layer sleeves, a silvergrey chiffon cape with leaf pins and two headdresses.

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Idril Celebrindal

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My current project: an elven dress for Idril Celebrindal made from lavender crushed velvet and silver silk dupion. I wanted to make an elven dress of one of Arwen's ancestors. So the style is recognisable from the movies, but I had a different character in mind when designing it. Also I've done a lot of burgundy red gowns lately, so I wanted to use more spring like colours. The combination of lavender and silver feels very elvish to me. And as is my usual style I added lots of embroidery, both hand- and machine embroidery. I plan to make a lavender embroidered cape as well, but I ran out of fabric.

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Various elven accessories I made in december: shrugs, gloves, hanging sleeves, embroidered waistbelt and a headdress.

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~🍁🍂November 20th🍂🍁~

It was a rare dry day and the leaves of the prune trees in our garden had turned a beautiful autumn colour. Even though my autumnal dress for Yavanna Kementari wasn't finished yet, we decided to a quick photoshoot nevertheless. And I'm so glad we did, because just a few days later after a stormy day the trees were completely barren.

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Making an autumn gown for Yavanna.

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Light of Eärendil, the Evening Star, most beloved of the Elves.

"aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!" ("hail Eärendil, brightest of stars!")

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~ Galadriel ~

"And you, Ring-bearer,' she said, turning to Frodo. 'I come to you last who are not last in my thoughts. For you I have prepared this.' She held up a small crystal phial: it glittered as she moved it, and rays of white light sprang from her hand. 'In this phial,' she said, 'is caught the light of Eärendil's star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out."

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Rivendell elves

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A Rivendell elven gown I recently made.

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Yavanna & Arwen

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Me as Yavanna Kementari at the Tolkientage

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The making of Yavanna, part 3 - accessories

Picture 1:

Making a necklace for Yavanna. I really wanted to use this gorgeous labradorite stone, so I tried wire wrapping a tree of life around it. It's my first time wire wrapping and I think it turned out okay. I've also bead embroidered around the edges.

Picture 2:

I love how the wrapped labradorite pendant looks with my Yavanna elven dress.

Picture 3:

The finished Yavanna necklace. I wanted the necklace to flow organically so I made this swirl with a few leaves. Initially I wanted to add more leaves, but they'll probably get entangled in the wig I plan to wear 🙂.

Picture 4:

Cute little earrings I made to accompany the labradorite Yavanna necklace.

Picture 5:

The last few days I've been working on Yavanna's headdress. This is my second attempt to make a kind of branches elven circlet/crown as the first one unententionally turned into Thranduil's crown. Again I made a thick wire base and started to randomly wrap wire around it. But this time instead of trying to make branches I made all kinds of swirls. I also added a few already cut out fairy wings I had lying around. This will be the base of the crown.

The upper two pictures show the crown after the basecoat. I had first covered all the wire and parts of the cut plastic in florists tape and the sprayed it all with a layer of plastidip. The second row shows the headdress after the base of dark brown mixed with dark green with a few green accents. In the third row I had added more accents with lighter green to mimic moss, but it's more difficult to see as I had just caught a rainbow 😀.

Picture 6:

The finished elven crown for Yavanna! I'm really pleased with how this turned out. After painting I added lots of moss and branches and now it really seems a fitting crown for the Queen of Nature.

Also my wig was delivered this week and the coppery red looks so good with all the greens.

Picture 7:

I made an embroidered waistbelt out of leftover silk for my Yavanna dress.

Picture 8:

Another scrap project: a cute little bag with leaf embroidery.

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The making of Yavanna, part 2

Picture 1:

These are the test embroideries I did for the velvet Yavanna overdress.

Picture 2:

Succesful embroidery of the velvet overdress!

Picture 3:

Two quick accessoires I made for my Yavanna dress: matching embroidered gloves in moss green silk dupion and loose/fake sleeves of champagne coloured chiffon.

Picture 4:

My Yavanna dress with the finished embroidered neckline, embroidered gloves and loose/fake chiffon sleeves.

Picture 5:

Details of the necklines of both the silk underdress and the velvet overdress.

Picture 6:

The finished Yavanna dress with the moss green chiffon cape.

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The making of Yavanna, part 1

Picture 1:

These are the fabrics I've chosen for Yavanna. The underdress will be made of the spring green silk dupion with long leaf like petal sleeves. Maybe I'll make a pair of "fake" sleeves out of the champagne chiffon, not sure yet. The chiffon is a bit too light at the moment. I might tea-dye it first. The overdress will be moss green velvet and the silhouette will be the classical Arwen elven gown style. The overdress will have leaves embroidery on the hemline. I also plan to make a "shoulder-shrug" with cape out off moss green chiffon and moss green silk dupion. I really love these colours together, so hopefully it will look good.

Picture 2:

The shoulder/shrug part is made from moss green silk dupion and the cape of moss green poly chiffon.

Picture 3:

Some detail pictures of the Yavanna cape.

Picture 4:

Yavanna underdress progress. As usual I made a shorter underdress to save on fabric. I also only used the dupion silk on the upper body as not much of it will be visible. The neckline still needs to be changed/made wider, but I'll do that after I've put in the sleeves. I want to see how much the dress will be pulled down by the weight of those massive sleeves. Speaking of sleeves, I've started embroidering them yesterday. In the picture you can see one of the elvencourt designs. Both sleeves will have two of these.

Picture 5:

The embroidery on both sleeves is done. The inside is now lined in moss green silk dupion. I used the leftover moss green silk to make bias tape to edge all around the sleeve.

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Picture 1:

I've bought a beautiful blue velvet for the overdress. The underdress will be made from the leftover blue damask I used for my Ophelia gown. For the big sleeves I've found this off white fabric with silver. It's a bit too flashy for our liking (see left lower picture), so I'm going to tone it down by covering it with two layers of tulle (see left upper picture).

Picture 2:

I've been working on the damask undergown and it's now halfway finished. Most of the time was taken up by hand embroidering the flowers on the upper sleeves and the decorative trims which I forgot to photograph 😄.

Picture 3:

The underdress fits! Like mine I've made it shorter to save on fabric. The hand embroidered and beaded trims for the sleeves are also done. They just need to be pressed before I can sew them on the sleeves.

Picture 4:

And we have sleeves!!! They are still quite large for my daughter, but we've decided on this length keeping in mind that she'll probably grow a lot in the coming year.

The sleeves are made of a silvery white brocade with two layers of tulle over it to tone down the flashy silver pattern. The inside of the sleeves is still quite flashy and the brocade fabric wants to curl outside. So if I have time I may line the sleeves with either an offwhite taffeta or white cotton (depending on the amount I have of either in my stash). This will hopefully decrease the curling, but will at least tone down the fabric. But first I'm going to make the blue velvet overdress.

Picture 5:

I've started working on the overdress. It's just a simple two panel dress with a train in the back. Not visible in the picture, but I've sewn two ties in the sideseams. This dress is intentionally a bit too wide and too long for my daughter (It's more my size than hers) so she can grow into it.

I'm also planning the decoration of the neckline. I have a white/silver trim that matches the sleeve fabric, but it's not easy to curve it along the neckline without lots of pleats. It's looking a bit messy with all the pleats to be honest. I may just only use the small outer silver trims and embroider swirls between those.

Picture 6:

I don't think I've shared the pictures of the finished Arwen Requim dress for my daughter yet. Here it is, beautifully lit by the evening light.

Picture 7:

Details of the Arwen Requim dress.