Step One: Patterning

 This garment Fiddlesticks wears is neither a shirt nor a dress! Therefore, it’s a shirt-dress! So, it can be patterned sort of like a really long shirt without sleeves.

 However, there are a few things to keep in mind while creating the pattern:

1. The fabric that goes over the shoulders needs to take into consideration the shoulder pads with jutting straw.
2. This character is extremely lanky, so a tight fitting garment will create a better proportion. However, how will the garment be put on with a non-stretch fabric? Will there be lacing or a zipper?
3. A small petticoat under the shirt-dress may give a better illusion of a smaller frame, as well as a place to put straw under the garment.

 Above are the patterns I created for the garments. These measurements fit my body type and the shirt-dress is wide enough to be pulled over my head. The petticoat is a rectangle with a gathered waistband and the shirt-dress has extra room in the shoulders for gathering to create room for the straw shoulder pads.

Step Two: Cutting the Patterns

The texture for this garment looks like a loose weave fabric that is made of thick fibers (determined by the way the end of the garment is draping over the thighs). I chose Burlap as my fabric for this character because it has the same properties as stated previously and can easily be dyed and altered.

Things to keep in mind:

1. Always create a Muslin mock-up to make sure everything fits properly
2. Burlap is an itchy, uncomfortable fabric, so a lining will be necessary. (Maybe use the Muslin mock-up as the lining to save money ;)
3. The pattern is symmetrical, so cut on the fold to make things go faster!

This pattern is the same for the front and the back, so cut two from the Muslin and from the Burlap. The petticoat will only be cut from Muslin, and make sure your scissors are sharp, and careful not to unravel the Burlap.

Step Three: Assembling

For the shirt-dress, the seams that will be sewn together are the sides and the shoulders. Six inches down each side of the neckline will be sewn as a double-baste and be gathered down to three inches (both of the Muslin and the Burlap). Once you know your mock-up fits properly, you can place it inside the Burlap shirt-dress as the lining.

For the petticoat, fold down an inch from the top and sew with a ⅝” seam allowance in order for a ½” elastic waistband to fit inside. Weave in the piece of elastic that is ¾ the size of your waist measurement and sew down the ends.

Pro-Tip: Fray-Check the seams for all the garments and linings to make sure nothing unraveled (This is important with the Burlap.)

Step Four: Lacing

The petticoat fit perfectly! However, the shirt-dress did not give the best silhouette due to the thickness of the burlap… I look like a potato sack….

To fix this, I decided to add some lacing to the back of the garment. I figured lacing would tie nicely into the “stitching” and “patchy” type theme that Fiddlesticks has. So, I added 22 button holes into the center-back of the garment that ended at the hips. As a result, it did help the silhouette of the garment; however, it still wasn’t enough and I ended up adding 12 button holes onto each side of the garment (arm-scythe to hips). 46 buttonholes total.

Step Five: Corset?

The basic shape of this garment did take me a bit to perfect, so I still need to dye the garment dark green and add some patches, stitches, and cuts for details. Overall, I am pretty happy with the result shape, and cannot wait to see how the extra room in the shoulder area interacts with the shoulder pads.

See you next time,

-Crimsyn Cosplay