Costume notes: River Song

What do you do with a taupe dress?

Dress up like River Song, of course!

Here's River.

And here's me.

I needed some accessories to go with the taupe dress.

I got some leather-like upholstery fabric at the fabric store and punched rows of holes in it with a knitting needle.

I used brass tacks to fasten it. Fastening 15 brass tacks around my middle took flippin' forever. Eventually I figured out that the middle column didn't all have to be fastened through both layers.

I used the remainders to sew up a a few pouches.

I do love any good excuse to add a snap, even if I had to hide it, since I didn't have a good colour.

I discovered that the fabric wouldn't feed through my sewing machine unless I used stabilzer under it, to give the feed dogs something to grip.

The pouches were all attached to a couple of thrift-store belts.

And of course I needed a screwdriver, which I received as a Christmas present. Thank you!

I have no skills with a curling iron, but gave it a shot for fun.

And we had a great time with our photo op. Hello, sweetie!

The Taupe Dress

And here it is, the Inspired-by-Zeeda dress! It's not at all an attempt at a copy, it's an homage.

Like the prototype, it's a princess-seamed pattern from Alabama Chanin, designed for knits, with alterations and embellishments to the skirt. I cut two copies of the dress from the pattern, making a lining that had the main structure of the dress, but not the extra skirt action. Here's the inside:

Let me show you the back of the dress...

And the details of the side panels:

And how it looks where side meets front meets back:

And while we're looking at that side panel, here it is, worn.

Or you can tie it around your legs for more controlled skirt action while engaging in adventures.

 See? Adventure away!