| Put him on the fastest scout ship available and send him here. No flight plan is to be filed. |
| That’s against Bureau standing orders, Commissioner. |
| Who do you think wrote those orders, Borr? I did. So do as I say, and do it now. (source) |
So, what on earth, or should I say … off earth, is going on here?
Well, we are going to a Sci-fi party, and it’s been a while since I made something ridiculously glamorous so I decided to embrace my inner superbitch, and go as Supreme Commander Servalan. This requires some mega-fabulous frocking up and I get to behave like an obnoxious vamp all evening.
DOUBLE WIN! I can hardly wait! 😀
“I find unsophisticated clothes quite amusing. Like unsophisticated people. Obvious, but amusing.” (Servalan)
It’s been a while since I clapped eyes on Servalan doing her evil thang on the small screen… I checked out this video and also this one for a trip down memory lane, and to re-acquaint myself with her style. She has the most amazing and dramatic wardrobe. I chose this dress above from out of the plentiful fabulosity. It’s winter here. It’s cold. I want to be covered up!
I bought some cheap and rather temperamental silver-foiled, slightly stretchy stuff from Spotlight and two packets of crystal beads in different sizes and got drafting. I drafted the pattern myself and have provided more extensive details below, if anyone is interested in all that technical mumbo jumbo 🙂 but basically I used the idea behind the gathered hole design from Pattern Magic.
Speaking of Pattern Magic, I received an email from Anna-Brit, who is curating The Pattern Magic Index. This site is aiming to bring together makers and enthusiasts of the series with images of people’s creations and link-backs. If you have used any of the books in the Pattern Magic series to make things and would like to be included on the site, then send her an email at thepatternmagicindex(at)gmail(dot)com.
Drafting and construction details:
I started out with my custom fit Tshirt pattern and spliced it with my plain little skirt pattern, and lengthened; to get a front and back. Then cut out a portion from the side front to be the flat beaded section at the waist. The remaining portion is cut and splayed out as per the gathered hole instructions in Pattern Magic 1.
The back is quite plain and featureless, basically a fitted Tshirt dress. Like Servalan’s dress, the skirt has a long slit in one side, for walking ease. Unlike Servalan’s, which has a centre back zip, mine has enough stretch for it to be a pull-over the head affair.
The sleeves are based on my plain Tshirt sleeve, with the side seams tapered out in a gentle arc to a wide wrist, in a bell shape.
The neckband is a plain rectangle, cut to fit the neckline measurement, and sewn on using this method. It is interlined with a piece of old cotton towelling, cut from a (clean) old towel. Sounds deeply unglamorous, right?! but I didn’t have any batting on hand which, yes, would have been ideal, and didn’t want to spend money on invisible things like that in a costume and the towelling was the perfect thickness and stiffness for the job. It is securely stitched to the neckband facing around all its edges on the inside.
The beaded section is done on two layers of the fabric for stability, and then with a layer of plain woven white cotton sewn underneath, to contain all the threads and for extra strength.
Being so shiny it’s hard to tell, but the fabric is actually almost sheer! so I made a little attached slip/liner dress as well, using the same pattern pieces, shortened and the front without the gathered feature, obviously. This is attached to the shell of the dress at the armscyes and the neckline, and conceals those gathering edges and that white bead-backing fabric inside.
I didn’t hem the sleeves or the hemline. The fabric is blessedly not frayable, and anyway, it’s a costume!! I will be lucky if I get to wear it more than a handful of times, really.
I have a little anecdote about this fabric too… we have a History. About twelve years ago I put up my hand to make half of about fifty costumes for little girls, including Cassie, performing an Abba number in a dance recital, and this was the exact same fabric I was given to work with along with the breezy advice to “just run them up on the overlocker”. I didn’t have an overlocker back then, so borrowed my sister-in-law’s brand new overlocker.
Man!
That experience nearly put me off overlockers for life! There is just something about this fabric … I destroyed almost one whole costume’s worth of fabric, just trying to get the settings for this fabric right on the overlocker. Nothing seemed to work. Either the seam was too loose and looked wobbly, bobbly and like a messy nest of loose and tangled threads; or too tight and threads were snapping left, right and centre. I re-threaded that machine countless times. Luckily it was not my own machine, if it had been mine I might even have heaved it into the bin in a rage…. When I finally hit on a setting that gave me a nice neat looking seam with no bobbly bits anywhere; the seam would just pull quite wide apart when any pressure was put on it. I was tearing my hair out. Finally, I hit upon a plan of attack; I overlocked using the setting that “looked” real nice but pulled apart under pressure, which was for “looks” only, then went back over every seam with my regular sewing machine using a straight stitch, which was actually holding the seam together.
Finally, success!
Just before the dance recital, I surreptitiously checked out the costumes made by the other lady … and they all had the pulling-wide-apart seams! I was new and didn’t want to rock any boats so just kept quiet and hoped for the best. Luckily no little girls’ costumes fell apart on stage!
Obviously, I sewed this dress using the described double-sewing method 😉
How fun is that. Great outfit.
That's one of my favourite Servalan dresses, brilliant!
Fantastic! I love SyFy and you did an amazing job with this. Makes me want to figure out a new costume for myself this year. 🙂
Servalan: Oh, Tarrant. I'm just the girl next door.
Del Tarrant: If you were the girl next door, I'd move.
Servalan: Where would you move, Tarrant?
Del Tarrant: Next door?
Blake's 7 is one of my all time favourite shows!!! I think Servalan and Avon are fabulous together!! Your costume is spot on. Mind you, never watch the DVD extras of Jacqueline Pearce, : all your illusions will be shattered. I refuse to watch the last episode, It didn't ends the way I wanted it to, so I'm ignoring it!!!
I hope you had some vampiric minions.
I love Blake's 7, Servalan and Avon were my favourite characters. Awesome dress.
You have done an amazing job of designing/creating this dress. It looks perfectly constructed (and for a costume!) and very true to the character. Wonderful 🙂
Wow, that is awesome! I love that you went to all the trouble of drafting the pattern using the Pattern Magic technique. The result is so well fitting and flattering – not things usually associated with costumes. I enjoyed the story of the ABBA costumes too 🙂
What an outfit! I hope they have a prize for the best costume – you are a monty to win. I think I like yours better than the original and (almost) makes me wish one of my friends would host a sci-fi party so I could make something amazing.
That is by far the best costume I have ever seen. So so great Caroline!! Have a great time at the party and please, stay in character all night 🙂
Superb!
Dang, I love this! Now I wish I made scifi-movies/series/… and I would surely hire you for the costume design. Beautiful! You carry this so well.
wow that looks amazing! have a blast at the party!
That is a killer outfit! Enjoy your party. Jo x
Wow, you look like evil twins! It's a fabulous outfit. Enjoy the party 😀
Very cool!!
Heehee, fab costume! Enjoy your party!
I've not heard of that character, but you look gorgeous! Have a great time at the party – what is hubby going as?
Boah…… Great!!
Christine
fantastic look, you will be the best dressed for sure.
You look awesome!! Have a great time at the party!
What a fun dress! Very cool.
Wow! You have made a great costume! I love it.
So much fun! I love the costume! I think it could pass for designer evening wear. Have a great time at the party!
Wow, what a blast from the past -I used to love Blake's 7. we used to play iot in the school yard.
You are definitely going to have a ton of fun in that costume. You did a remarkable job drafting the pattern yourself. It turned out perfectly!
I've never heard of the character you are suppose to be but it's a rockin' costume! Looks EXACTLY like the real thing. I had a similar experience sewing costumes for my church Christmas pageant, only the fabric was that confetti dot stuff, and I cried all my eye makeup off in frustration.
Oh my gosh – Blake 7! How fun. I love sewing costumes that recreate something I've seen in film. Have fun wearing it. I have a very similar dance recital costume sewing story, involving taffeta dance skirts with ruffles. After I finally got the serger to the perfect setting, I stopped using it for anything else that would require resetting it. The newer sergers aren't that temperamental, thanks goodness. I was lucky that my mother bought herself a new self-threading serger and I got her old one.
Would Freemantle be a fun place to spend a month?
Thank you Beryl! There are things to do in Fremantle, but for a whole month? I highly recommend you hire a car so you can get out and check out more of the surrounding areas too. Rottnest Island and Margaret River are worthwhile tourist destinations. Further up north is Monkey Mia, the Pinnacles, Karajini National Park and Broome, all also utterly spellbindingly beautiful places to spend time, but you would have to fly. Just google things to do in the southwest of WA and a million options will come up 🙂
ha ha so close to the original – are you going to make a necklace to go with it – that looked cool too – bit of wire and some more of your beads……. Great fun enjoy wearing the dress and change of character.
I've never heard of the show/character, but you look awesome and I love the attitude you have in your pics. You're obviously having a lot of fun with your costume.
It turned out great – love the beads/gathered section at the waist. And I too have no idea about this character.
Yes! I'd never heard of this show, since at that age over here it was Star Trek and Star Wars, period. I'd be bossing people around all night in that. Stinks about all the serger trouble; I hate how they seem to eat some fabrics. Were you dancing in yours? Did your whole family go as characters?
That is an amazing costume – so inspiring that you drafted your own pattern. WOW!
Stunning! Your costume is amazing, and fits you like a glove. Very impressive!
I confess I also do the double stitch routine. My serger is my sister's MIL's, so I have learned what it does and does not do.
We salute your imperiousness, oh Supreme Commander! Though you do have a Supremes dance move going there. Double supreme?
Haha, that did not even occur to me until you pointed it out; you are right!
I LOVE THIS!! You are super fabulous!! Woo hoo! Knock 'em dead at the party, dahlink!
Absolutely marvelous, and yes, do embrace your inner superbitch (you actually have that side?).
Pure. Awesome. And such a fabulous character to go as! I guffawed out loud with delight when I saw your first picture – very appropriate. This sci-fi party is going to be awesome!
You do costumes really well. Great colour too. Good to see pattern magic has it's uses in lots more ways that most people would think too.
I hope you had a great time at the party. How could you not?
Amazing dress!
I've never seen Blake 7, but your costume is fabulous!
You are the only person I know who can wear such a shiny fabric, look great and make me consider making it! Just fab! Thanks to your explanation I hope to make a top with a similar design. You're great Carolyn!
Awesome!
Brilliant dress – and I must show this to my partner; he's a massive Blakes 7 fan!
This brought a huge smile on my face this morning! What an amazing costume!
oh wow, just nearly choked on my breakfast muesli with pure glee!! My favourite character from my favourite sci-fi series. Of course, you would know that the actress (Jacqueline Pierce) styled her. The director saw her as an intergalactic space butch.
Brilliant choice and outfit!
Heh, I reckon you could make this work at a "normal" formal function. Just saying!
Amazing costume! The gathered hole is really cool 🙂
What a fabulous costume! I love Blakes Seven and Servalan and this is magnificent!
Amazing. You made me want to make a sci-fi costume for myself!
What a fabulous dress. I hope you had a brilliant, and bitchy, party 😉
I knew I recognized that gathering technique! Nicely implemented, and I hope the party was a blast. 😀
Amazing costume! Have fun at the party.
Just found you via the Pattern Magic Index. I have been wanting to work through it, but sort of wanted moral support! Someone finally replied to my question – asked way last year – about anyone doing it and mentioned the new index thing.
Anyway, I am going to discover the ones you have done and see what pointers you might give. What I would eventually like to do with them is to create 2 1/2D textile art if you know what I mean.
This costume is stunning. well done with the see through metallic stuff. I have layered it under sheer fabric to create space themed textile art. It fuses pretty well, but is fun to bead!
Sandy in the UK
Looks amazing! And that sounds like a show I need to watch…
Best. Costume. Ever. This is blowing my mind, Carolyn!!!
How fun! I've never heard of the show, but the costume definitely has a great 70's/futuristic vibe to it. Great use of what sounds like really annoying fabric, too. 🙂
(And I just used that same double-sewing method with a regular knit shirt that I made, because I don't trust my new washing machine not to eat it!)
I alway enjoy reading your blog. Love all your stuff.
Thank you for the compliments everyone! A few have asked what Craig is wearing to the party… I should have specified that the party is not for a few more weeks so his costume is still in the works; but I wore this dress to a big sci-fi convention (Supernova) held in Perth over the weekend. I went with Cassie and she wore her Future Grrrl outfit in the previous post. We had terrific fun checking out everything, and all the fantastic costumes… WOW! Unfortunately I did not take my camera… doh!
You look amazing! What a beautiful dress. Now I want to watch this show – is it Australian?
camalamalama; thank you! It is a British show from the 70's. I included a Servalan link in this post which takes you to a wikipedia article, where you can read all about the character and the show 🙂
Whoa–an amazing dress. Can't wait to hear all about this party!