Project Registration: Romanov-Inspired Hime

[lafarat]

Project Title: Romanov Dress + Matching Kokoshnik + Matching shoe clips
Project description: Okay so, if I end up posting blithering gibberish about the world ending or needles embedded in my fingers, you can blame this project. This will be far, far worse than anything I've ever taken on before, and you can bet your ruffly butt that I'm intimidated by this dress. That V-shaped bodice alone terrifies me. I have a pretty solid idea as to the rest of it (Those sleeves are going to be a piece of cake), but that bodice frightens me like a 4 year old with a nervous bladder faced with his first night alone in a dark basement.
Project background: I went with blue and red as a combo because the imperial family reserved certain colors for themselves. Court colors were very, very rigidly ranked. No greens, no silver, no gold, no red; so blue was a safe color. I had to go with red sash, for both historical safety-zones as well as needing a punch of color to off-set all the blue and egg-shell white. The Order of St. Catherine was thrown out to all young noble ladies at their Christening, as opposed to the baby blue Order of St. Andrew. It would be really friggin' presumptuous of me to assume that I could strut around brandishing Imperial Russian's highest honor, as opposed to a sash that was tossed at foreign noble girls that Russia just so happened to like a lot.

'Oh yeah? You're turning 18? That's great. Here you go, happy birthday-'



That kokoshnik is going to have what lace I have left looped up and down to create spires, and trimmed with pearls. Attached to it will be a light cream chiffon veil, trimmed in some of the same gold lace that will trim the rest of the OP, as well as having individual seed pearls sewn into it at random. No matter how intimidated it makes me to wear all this glitz and glitter, I've to go for hard-core opulent here, because if there was something the Russian Imperial Court was good at, it was flaunting their wealth for everyone to see. Jokes on them though, everything in the coord was bought either vintage, scavenged off of things thrift-stores were about to throw out, or heavily discounted, down to the pearl accents and the accessories/shoes.

Supplies:

1. 5 yards of 60" royal blue 100% cotton cloth
2. 2 yards egg-shell bridal satin
3. 2 yards crimson red cotton
4. 3-4 yards polyester lining
5. 34 yards gold venise lace
6. 10 yards of vintage scalloped gold embroidered bridal lace in cream
7. 2 yards of cream chiffon
8. 1 yard of beaded ribbon with glass pearls
9. 50+ seed pearls
10. Peel-and-stick Craft Foam (5 sheets)
11. 16 gauge copper wire
12. 9 vintage gold buttons
13. 2 yards royal blue ribbon
14. 2 gold-tone filigree buttons

Time frame: Before Sakura-con 2014, April 16th
Amount of prayers needed: LOTS.
Blood already drawn by project: (Y) / N , and possibly more. ...Make that a most definitely more. I guess it can't be an authentic historical piece without a little blood being spilled.
Possible problems: ...WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN. To imitate the complex embroidery, I'm going to be taking quarter-inch lengths of lace and stitching them in such a way that it looks like a raw applique, but that alone is going to take weeks. I've actually simplified the absolutely crazy embroidery patterns that were usually found on court dresses of the time, because I can't exactly go to a shop and pick out the hand-made ones I want like they could. I've never done a V-shaped bodice before, so I don't know where the stress points are. I was considering boning this beastie, but I have no idea how to do boning. I don't know how to put in a zipper, so shirring the back's the only way to go, but with the dramatic shape of the bodice, I'm going to have to be REALLY careful in my placement of it. To say I've bitten off more than I can chew is an understatement.

...that said, I'm more than a little excited to start.