Polgara the Sorceress

So I did the worse possible thing I could do when supposed to be focusing on a task: I opened a book. All right, in my defense I started going through it for cosplay research- but I was quickly distracted.

Polgara the Sorceress, written by David and Leigh Eddings, is one of my absolute favorite books ever. It's safe to say that the title character, Polgara, has had more influence on my life than any other fictional character- barring a couple from Lord of the Rings, mainly because I was aware of LotR since the age of three. The first time I read Eddings' books I was about fifteen years old, and read them out of order. Polgara is a companion book to The Belgariad and The Malloreon, and technically should be read after them. I read her first, and it was supremely easy in my adolescent years, to identify with the young Polgara. A decade later and nothing has changed.

But still, the book is over 700 pages long and I spent several evenings, when I ought to have been sewing, with my nose buried amongst words. On the positive, accomplished side, I did spend a day cleaning my house from top to bottom. Not that it was dreadful, but it was worth the hours I spent paying attention to it.

Polgara the Sorceress describes in detail less than a handful of Polgara's outfits and I think it's safe to assume that she did not wear the same three or four ensembles for 3000 years. This gave me some room to work with things as I would and design something I found fitting. I pulled up all the official images I could find (that is, pictures used for cover art and/or commissioned by the Eddingses) for inspiration, but most of what I chose rests firmly on what I wanted. It's a simple enough, Medieval-style gown, but I feel it is in character. My brother, (who lists The Belgariad and accompanying stories as his favorite series), and I discussed at some length what we thought she should wear. Our visions coincided in that we believed one of her dresses would be elegant, but not flamboyant; that she would not be prone to wearing much jewelry; and that "The white lock doesn't need any help to make [her] pretty" (to "quote" her mother). He approved of this design when I sent it to him, so I can now proceed.

I have most of the fabric needed for this dress already, and it won't take much to manipulate a few patterns. And princess seam dresses are a snap to put together. Barring any major unforeseen events (or the picking up of more books), it shouldn't take me long to whip her out.

Epiphanies

The dress, a bit more loose fitting than Odette's

This strikes me as absolutely hilarious!

I began working on this dress ages ago. By ages, I mean probably three years. Something about it irritated me (I think it was the collar), so I hung it up in my closet and went on to something else. A few weeks ago I pulled it out, thinking it might be a decent dress to wear beneath my new purple renaissance dress. I went out and purchased some trim for it and was all kinds of excited for it- until yesterday.

I decided to watch "The Swan Princess" while I edited the new photos for my portfolio, and took screen shots every now and then so I would have decent images to work with when planning her cosplay. Nest was not very consistent with the coloring of the main dress. Sometimes (primarily when it's dark) it appears to be white or a very pale green, with darker green accents. At other times it looks to be a light blue, with darker aqua accents. Make up your mind! ;D

(By the way, I took screen shots because it was so hard to find good images of Odette online. I've put them all in a album here for everyone to be able to use. All rights belong to Nest Productions, of course.)

All of these, expect the first, are from the same part of the movie. See what I mean about the different colors?

You know, it's funny...

...for being so sugary sweet...

...she sure can be disdainful-

and I love this expression!

The white/light green/green combination is generally accepted as the standard though, so I decided to ignore the occasional blue tinged moments, but decided I wanted the very light green, instead of white, as the primary color. Then it struck: I already had a nearly perfect dress! Darting quickly to my sewing room, I threw it on my dress form and surveyed. I will have to adjust the neckline, which is no big deal since it needs the green edging anyway; I'll probably take the bodice in a little bit; and I'll probably have to make new sleeves, which are the only part I'm really concerned with. At this moment I am not at all convinced that the current sleeves will be full enough for Odette's, and I have used all the fabric I had. The skirt is full enough though that, if necessary, I think I can get away with cutting out new sleeves from it without much damage.

One green brocade- thankfully not satin!

The fabric of this dress I found during one of my regular clearance scouring ventures. I purchased some five yards or so, then tucked it away until I had a pattern I wanted to use for it. Later on I  bought McCall's pattern #4492, which is one of the movie-mimicking ones from LotR (I own many of these, for some odd reason...), and decided to use it. I didn't have enough fabric to make the dress with the sleeves on the pattern, so I made some others.

For the sleeves and accents I have a brocade I bought sometime ago. I think I wanted to make a jacket out of it, but never got around to doing so. Better to use it than let it sit in a box doing nothing, and the colors match well.

Portfolio Photos

Yesterday I had several free hours before I went to work, so instead of sewing, I set up an impromptu photo-shoot on the balcony of my apartment.

I meant to take photos of the actual set up, and then forgot. The picture of Julia I have here is the best demonstration. I removed the screen door from it's track, wrapped it in a sheet and a set of sheers, then put it back in the window. With a few more sheers on the patio floor I set up my dress form and began taking photos. I've said it before, and it still is true, my dress-form is about one size bigger than me, and when we're dealing with form fitting garments, it's pretty much impossible to get them on the form without breaking something. That dampened the activity a bit, because I was unable to take pictures of Aurora, Belle, Sailor Moon, my Renaissance Garb, or my strawberry dress.

My mom laughed when I told her my predicament. She was heartily sympathetic, but terribly amused. And I have to admit, it is sort of funny. I need to look into getting a children's dress form (I would assume someone makes such a thing). The average misses size form being to small, a typical 14/16 sized girls form would be about right.

We decided that it would probably would be best for me to take my stuff up to her place and take photos one afternoon. It's a good plan, but I'm worried about ti's implementation. The next time I'll be going home is for my brother's reception/open house.  Granted, he and his wife won't be sticking around on the day after, but I'm not sure we'll get around to photos anyway. I guess we'll play it by ear.

I was able to photograph some outfits though, and now that they have been formatted properly, I've uploaded them to the Cosplay Conspiracy Portfolio.