Its all done, Reflection on the costumes

 After the photo shoot issue I decided to use a mannequin to take final photos of the two finished costumes. 

The March Hares costume has been both a joy and a complication in some respects.The shirt was my biggest challenge as I had to adapt the pattern to fit the needs of the actress. As well as this it is now a female playing the character instead of the male which was originally designed for. To keep this in mind the bow tie has been removed and the shirt shall now be open at the neck. I feel this shall be a better option for the actress as she shall be running around the field a lot during the day. The waistcoat is effective and resembles the design well. I had to create a new stitch to make the edging by making a quadruple treble stitch. Out of the garments this was the piece I enjoyed making the most.  If I were to do this again I would try and complete the shirt first and change my time plan around to accommodate the extra time needed on the garments I am not as certain over.

The White Queen dress was quite time consuming but the effect of the dress was worth the extra time dedicated to making all the roses. At the finish point the dress had just over 160m of ribbon tied into little roses. These each took a minuet each, however once on the roll could be created a lot quicker. The pleating was the hard part on the dress as I needed to fit 7m of fabric into the skirt. Each of my pleats were quite precise and flat, however what was needed was for the pleats to overlap to take in more of the fabric. I was also shown how to place the box pleat in the side of the dress to hide the seams. Due to the fabric being quite bulky the seams looked quite ugly so this prevented them from being seen. If I were to do this again I would maybe request a change of fabric and buy the roses. The fabric chosen  puckers quite a lot under the smallest of needles so sewing the roses was quite a delicate procedure. the roses though beautiful took a lot of time to make. If there was a team working on these or if they were brought in from a manufacturer it would save both time and effort which could be dedicated to other areas.

The piece I enjoyed working on the most was the Hat. This was due to the crochet work involved and the challenge of creating the various cups. The entire piece it quite an attraction in itself and shows off the characteristics of the March Hare well. The buttons were an issue as they kept dragging the green ribbon down due to the weight, however I found that a dab of hot glue stuck both the button and the ribbon to the hat and increased the bond to the hat. The ears are made out of a used milk bottle, washed out and fake fur. This really has kept the structure needed without being harmful to anyone and there not sharp around the edges meaning less risk over all. The fur has bonded with contact glue and thankfully has held the ears to the hat as well.  In the future now I have got confidence within my textural skills I shall keep the tea cup patterns and just increase/ decrease stitches to save time. I have had a request for a hat with tea cups on so the pattern can be kept and the wool changed.