Finally! The complete Sansa Stark dress

Well after two months of work and even learning new things I have finally finished the Sansa Stark costume. From a week long fabric search to the last few days of hand sewing it has been a great experience for me. Here she is the Sansa Stark purple dress.

In early May I got a message from a girl on Tumblr asking me if I could make her a Sansa Stark dress. After seeing which dress she wanted I decided to tell her yes even though I never made a costume like this or make one for another person. I had to figure out the best way for me to make the dress either drafting a pattern or working  with a store bought pattern. I decided to work with a store bought pattern with some modifications which cut the work in half. Before I  could get started I had to go to Atlanta to visit family so I had time to search for the fabric. 

The dress Sansa Stark wore in season 3 and 4 of Game of Thrones

After getting back from Atlanta I had fabric swatches waiting for me to test dye because I couldn't find fabric that was the color I needed. after testing and liking how well the fabric took the dye I ordered all the yards I needed. I decided to  make two dresses, an solid under dress and the printed over dress. Both fabric started off ivory and had to be dyed. In order to dye such large quantities of fabric I had to go buy a huge  plastic tub to dye the fabric in. I spent two days dyeing 14 yards of fabric. Once I had dyed and washed the fabric I worked on modifying the pattern. Not going to go into details about that because I'm  not trying to write a book here. Just going to say that I had  taken the pattern that had the bodice and skirt separate piece, and joined them together for the outer dress. I kept  the pieces separate for the under dress but did some changes to the skirt pattern. I also moved the zipper from the side to the back of the under dress.  After I finished  all the pattern work I was ready to cut out the fabric.

I started working on the under dress first. Cutting out the fabric and finishing all the edges, I was nervous about working on the bodice. I was worried about getting the fit right and making sure I got the pleats right. I spent weeks working on getting the bodice just right, even changing up the design a few times. I finally found a way that worked and stuck with it. After I completed the  bodice I sewed the skirt panels together and attached the skirt to the bodice. Once I completed the under dress(zipper, facing, and hem) I started on the outer dress.

The outer dress took less time because I had made single dress pattern pieces. The sleeves were even easy to insert, not one problem. After putting in the neck facing and hemming the outer dress I only had one thing to do. All I needed to do was sew on the  hook & eyes for the outer dress closure.

The moment I snipped the last thread after sewing on the last hook I felt a wave of ease and relief come over me. I was so happy to finish this dress. It was so much fun to make as well as improving some of my skills.

I'm still looking for a box big enough for the dress so I can ship it off. All of the boxes I have are too small and I have one that's too big. I hopefully I find a box in the next two days.

tried to get a picture of the sleeves but it was hard with just me.

Side by side comparison of both dresses. My dress photographs really bright but in person it's more muted.