Melisandre's Glowing Necklace--For Those Who Know Nothing, A Tutorial

I think half the reason I wanted to make a Melisandre cosplay was to make her necklace. Once my friend Loren of the Costumer's Closet--who's done a lot of interesting work with props--suggested that the necklace light up, I knew I had to make it work. I found a few other necklaces online that lit up, but none of the ideas quite worked for my necklace, so I had to come up with my own way of doing it. This is an entirely new area for me! I know nothing about electronics--especially making them so small!

And about the post title--clearly, my subconscious was at work. I didn't really mean to make the reference, but since I do know nothing about this, it was a logical title, which obviously needed to be kept. More details about my trials and false starts at the bottom of this post.

A Game of Thrones King's Landing/Handmaiden Dress

One of my favorite style dresses from Game of Thrones is the drapey, robe a la francaise/piemontaise type dresses popular in King's Landing--worn by women in town, handmaidens, Shae, and more. It's the perfect dress for the last day of Costume College (or any other convention) when you want to wear something, but be a little more relaxed!

Construction information for this dress, including a diagram, can be found here. The dress is very simple though--it's just a tube of washed silk taffeta from Renaissance Fabrics with drawstrings at the center back and center front, fastened at the center back with ribbons, and worn with a belt. Some construction can be seen on Instagram.

Making A Game of Thrones King's Landing/Handmaiden Dress

Since first seeing them, I loved the gowns that Cersei's handmaidens, women in King's Landing, and later Shae wore. Looking at them, I realized that they were really quite simple--a giant tube with drawstrings at center front and back and belted at the waist. Mine is made from about five yards of silk taffeta from Renaissance Fabrics which I washed to change the drape of. My belt is made of Worbla based on this tutorial by Jak Cosplay. I learned the hard way that you should read the description carefully on your chainmail rings and make sure they're not for jewelry.

After figuring out my dress, I did a search to see how others had done them. I found a sketch that someone who had come to the same conclusion had done, but haven't been able to find it again. I also found a post on the Game of Thrones Costuming Facebook group with a similar technique.

More pictures of the dress can be found here

Being me, I hand embroidered the front panel, used fingerloop braiding for the ties (using the videos seen here. I used 5 loop flat for the drawstring and 5 loop square for the tie. I finished the ends with gold rings from Fire Mountain Gems by sewing them to the ends and wrapping the join with thread), and hand sewed the seams. However, this can be a very quick project! You can see some progress pictures using the hashtag got_handmaiden_k on Instagram.

But onto the dress! First, a video of putting it on. I also have pictures at the bottom of the post, but the video shows it more clearly. And obviously I don't wear a camisole or underskirt when I'm wearing it, but it was necessary to do something for pictures!

A Summery Game of Thrones King's Landing Dress

I have a history of not wearing faire period costumes to faire--see the cotehardie, 1950s, and Regency fairy, so, not surprisingly, I wanted to wear my Game of Thrones dress. However, I thought of last year's faire and its 90 degree weather, and didn't really want to wear my silk dress. Expecting similar weather, I decided to make a dress in lightweight linen and line it with cotton voile. Predictably, the weather was gorgeous--in the 60s and overcast--and my silk dress would've been fine! Oh well, I'm quite happy to have a new dress!

I wanted a dress that was summery and light, and I think I achieved that. Working on it though, I could only imagine Cersei smirking at its sweetness, and that it was probably a dress best suited to Lollys Stokeworth.


The construction is mostly the same as my first Game of Thrones dress, with the only differences being the neckline is piped, the sleeves are unlined, I didn't cover the armscye seam allowances with the lining, and the center back seam is done with this 18th century stitch. Like my first dress, I made this one entirely by hand.

I'm wearing the same hairpieces I wore with my first dress.


The dress is made of linen from Farmhouse Fabrics, lined with cotton voile from Dharma Trading, and cotton lawn side panels stenciled with Shiva Paintstiks, also from Dharma Trading. The stencil I used is from Amazon. It ties shut with 1/2 inch loosely woven cotton ribbon (I folded it in half to make 1/4 inch tubes) from Angela Ligouri.


I'm wearing it over a sleeveless linen dress from the same pattern that ties in the opposite direction, the Elizabethan lace stockings from Sock Dreams, my Valar Morghulis/Valar Dohaeris garters, and Robert Land Regency boots.


The dress is embroidered with 1 mm Italian wire mesh ribbon from Mimi's Gems, jump rings from Fire Mountain Gems and Mill Hill beads from my local embroidery shop. I sewed the jump rings into place with very fine silk filament thread.

I decided to wear a fox pendant from WC Goods on Etsy after a friend pointed out that the dress was Sweet Briar colors, and as a women's college graduate (Agnes Scott), I decided to take it a step further as a gesture towards Saving Sweet Briar.


Though the fox is the sigil of House Florent, I still went with my own House Caron of Nightsong bag, of course!


I decided to make the underdress from the same pattern as a dress without a waist seam is more comfortable in the heat. It's unlined linen from Burnley and Trowbridge and ties with their silk ribbon.


The underdress is mostly the same pattern as the dress. The back is cut as one piece instead of with a center back seam, and the bodice and skirt portions of the side panels are cut as one. The neckline is about an inch lower, and both it and the armscyes are bound with self bias.


The side panel and sleeve trim are both edged with Italian wire mesh. The sleeves have the 1mm, and the skirt panels the 3mm. To trim the sleeves, I stenciled a straight strip of the cotton lawn, folded it down the center, and bound the sleeve edge with it.


To stencil the fabric, I first traced the pattern shape. I then measured where the center bottom, and stenciled from there. I rubbed the paint stick onto it, then rubbed it into the fabric like finger paint. Messy, but successful!

For the embroidery, first I sewed the long vine, then the stems. I used a bodkin to bury the ends of the wire mesh in back. The jump rings are just sewn down in a few places and the bead is sewn with a backstitch.


And with my friends, Loren of the Costumer's Closet and Llyra of Creative Chaos. You can't take us anywhere, apparently!

Game of Thrones Garters--Again!

In a few short weeks, I'll be going to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire and wearing a new, linen Game of Thrones dress (same pattern as my last dress only more suited to the temperature). Of course, I needed new garters! My dress is a little on the sweet side--peachy pink with green stenciled contrasting panels--so the obvious phrases were Valar Morghulis (all men must die) and the response Valar Dohaeris (all men must serve). I made them the same way as my Not Today garters. My stockings (which don't need garters to stay up, but what's the fun in that?) are the Elizbethan lace from Sock Dreams.


The garters are made of the same linen as my dress (from Farmhouse Fabrics), bleached to a light pink. They're embroidered with Au Ver au Soie Soie d'Alger, and the ribbons are from Silky Way on eBay.

As a side note, I've been horribly bad about updating lately! I do have several projects that need attention. I hope that this short post gives me a little motivation :)

Game of Thrones King's Landing Dress--Done!

I've practically written a novel about my Game of Thrones dress--the ten posts I've written are linked below! It has been such an enjoyable project though! I very much want to make another--I'm thinking one in the style Cersei wears to the purple wedding. What I enjoyed so much though, was they've truly created fashion on the show--clothes for different climates, different levels of society, different everything, yet they remain consistent in fashionable details. It was almost like discovering a new historical period. The style dress I made, for example, is heavily embroidered for Cersei, has a little embroidery for Sansa, and is trimmed with contrasting fabric for Ros, yet the lines remain the same. (Three samples are on my small GoT Pinterest board.) I wanted my dress to be between Sansa's and Cersei's, as would fit an adult member of a noble house. In my case, House Caron of Nightsong.

My hair is done with two hairpieces, a roll mounted on a band, and twists attached to a braid. A tutorial is linked below. I styled my hair a little differently this time though. Instead of pulling it all back, I did a center part, waved it with a triple barrel curling iron, and twisted those parts and pinned them under the band. This hid a little of my very high forehead.

I made my own pattern for the dress and underskirt. I plan on tracing my pattern and adding a scaled copy to the construction posts. Hopefully this week! I'll edit this post when I do that :)


My dress is made of green silk taffeta (that I washed with baby shampoo), cotton/silk metallic brocade, crinkled metallic silk, and yellow/gold plain silk from Pure Silks. The bodice is interlined with lightweight linen from Dharma Trading. It's embroidered with beads, beetle wings, and gold thread--all these are linked in the beetle wing embroidery post below. It's edged along the neckline and side panels with 3mm Italian tubular mesh from Mimi's Gems that Michele Carragher used on her embroidery for the show. If you haven't seen her site--do visit. It's beyond amazing! The underskirt is purple silk from Thaimpex on Etsy. It's a softer silk taffeta than most, which was perfect for my purpose.


To get the dress to drape the way I wanted it to, I washed the silk taffeta. The texture of the silk in this picture of Cersei's aqua dress reminded me of silk taffeta that had been washed. I suspect they dyed their own fabrics for the show, which would give the same texture as washing. Though a little scary to do, I was very pleased with the texture of the washed silk.


I decided on dark purple for the underskirt as it would be an unexpected pop of color with the muted green. Sansa's contrasting underskirt can be seem here. The wrap on the dress is quite shallow, so it does show when you walk or sit.


I couldn't resist showing some close ups of the embroidery! The beetle wings are just so wonderful in sunlight. For most of the wings, I used the bottom half of the wing. In the picture of the sleeve cuff on the right, you can see some slightly bulkier wings. These are the top half of the wing.


Instead of embroidering first, I did basic construction and then embroidered. This meant the embroidery lined up with no worries. A description of how I transferred the embroidery pattern to the almost finished dress is linked below.


My locket is the House Caron sigil--a nightingale. I bought the locket on Etsy. I also have an embroidered bag, linked below, with the house words--No Song So Sweet--but I forgot to take the bag to take pictures.


The dress closes with functional ties. I suspect the dresses on the show have internal closures. In some shots, it looks like they're held together at the very top of the crossover. I just used three ties on the outside, and one on the inside waist.


It's a little hard to see, but on the underlap side, I added two small darts to the neckline. I stretched the neckline while embroidering, and it didn't sit quite right. I also ran a few gathering stitches in the lining to pull it up a bit. Interestingly, Cersei's aqua dress does the same thing mine did. I think I may be on to something!


Both Cersei and Sansa wear strapless, front lacing 18th century style corsets under their dresses. The outline of Sansa's corset can be seen here. They're also visible in some of the less, uh, pleasant scenes. I had intended to wear my almost finished stays under the dress, but I didn't like the way they looked underneath--I love the figure they'll give me for the 1780s, but it was too smooth for this dress. In the spirit of 18th century stays though, I wore an 18th century waistcoat that I made for a lounging outfit. It's just my basic 18c pattern lengthened with tabs, and tied at the front and shoulders.



My stockings are the Phoebe Over The Knee from Sockdreams chosen because they're quite pretty and my house colors, and my shoes are the Juliet Garden Shoe from Revival.us that I use for early Renaissance and Medieval costumes.


And my Not Today garters. These are inspired by historic garters with phrases such as Stop or Do Not Pass. A short tutorial is linked below!


And just a few pictures to show how the dress moves.


More movement, and the dress shown open. It was very warm out--about 100 degrees.

So I seem to have written another novel about this dress! I really couldn't be happier with it though, and hope to get to wear it many times!




Construction, Part One
Construction, Part Two
Construction, Part Three
King's Landing Hairpieces
Not Today Garters
Oops! Alterations
Beetle Wing Embroidery and Beading
Transferring Embroidery to a Finished Dress
Transferring Embroidery When You're Out of Ink
A Lined Bag

Game of Thrones King's Landing Dress--Construction, Part Three, Sleeves!

And now, to finish the dress started here and continued here. When last seen, this was a sleeveless dress; therefore, this post is about the sleeves!

Because this is a wrap dress, I wanted the sleeves put in smoothly, without a visible seam allowance. To do this, I turned to the method used in my original 1790s bodice. The sleeve in that is sewn to the outer fabric only, not the lining, pressed towards the bodice, and then the lining covers the seam allowance. In the previous construction posts for this dress, the lining was left free for about an inch at the top of the sleeve seams to make this possible. This, of course, is only possible with hand sewing, but if you sew the lining in completely separately, it would work too. I like this method because it covers the armscye seam allowance like bag lining, but unlike bag lining, it's stable and not wiggly.


The sleeve is made of two layers--the green silk and a lining with the sleeve cap made of yellow silk (which unfortunately photographed white with the flash I had to use in several of these pictures), and the hanging part of the lining made of crinkled silk metallic blend. This is a one piece sleeve. The sleeve is based on the sleeve from my 1920s Lily Pad Lanvin dress. This may sound a little strange, but it's my only sleeve pattern with an underarm seam, which this dress needed, and it's always easier to start with a pattern that fits. I just extended it so it went just past the middle of my hand and curved it just above the elbow to create the drape. The finished shape can be seen in the pictures, and I do plan on including a scaled copy of my pattern as well.

To cut the lining pieces, I marked a line on my pattern where I wanted the yellow silk to stop and the metallic silk to start, added a seam allowance, and cut there.

To make sure my pieces lined up as closely as possible, I laid out the green sleeve, laid the metallic silk over it, folded the seam allowance of the yellow sleeve cap over, and pinned it to the metallic silk. I then topstitched this into place. Although on the surface this may seem a sort of fiddly way to do it, it guarantees that the sleeve lining and sleeve will match. The metallic silk shifted quite a bit because of the crinkliness, and I was afraid that sewing this right sides together without lining it up would warp the sleeve.