Esmeralda-One piece at a time

So I started off with a picture... or 10
This one is a bit blurry but I decided to break it down into each piece.

• The hair
• The shirt
• The corset
• The scarf
• The skirt
• The accessories

So far I've started everything except the scarf.... So everything is in different stages of completeness. 
I guess this is a good place to say what I've already done and we can see exactly how far down the rabbit hole I've traveled....

The Accessories

So far I've bought an entire package of large gold looking hoop earrings from the beauty supply store (only $1!) Granted I only need one but now I have an extra 5. I need to acquire an anklet, bracelet and some sort of wrist cuff all in gold.

The Skirt

This part is a bit silly but I'm still happy about the concept.  So I used a simple gourd skirt pattern on and to make it I just need to know the circumference of my waist and of the bottom.  So to find this I first measured my waist.... (which will hopefully go down by halloween...) Then after watching the movie I noticed that in one of the scenes she has a very large stance :

So because of how the skirt looks like it's just stretching around her legs I took that to be the diameter of the circle.  So I got myself into a similar position and measured between my feet. Then used this to calculate the circumference of the bottom of the skirt :) Next i cut out 6 gourds from the muslin and sewed them together leaving a little opening for some sort of fastening so i can get into and out of it. Even simple math can be a lot of fun in unexpected places! So the next step I'm going to take is to put a bit of elastic in the waist but not all the way around just on 3 sides. I saw this elastic "string" stuff in the store a while back that I've been wanting to try out. So that way it'll lie evenly under the corset. I also want to hem it so it'll fall right above my ankle (notice the anklet you can see in the picture I want that to show) I also am thinking of ways to weight it down at the hem because skirts flow a bit better with some weight in it and muslin is relatively thin.

The Scarf

This part I haven't started at all. I plan on making it out of muslin then dye it the right color. Also am trying to find large coinlike objects to sew onto it... there's a gypsy type store around here that I'm going to look in as well as the hardware store...

The Corset

So for this part I'm almost done with the pattern. I took a corset pattern I had lying around (yes i went a bit crazy with a joann pattern sale) and cut out one layer of it in muslin (I finally bought 25 yrds of it!). Then i tacked it to my mannequin and marked off where it actually should be and then sewed it so that it matched my markings.  The next steps are to mark it and cut it apart to use as a pattern and then to buy fabric, interfacing, boning and bias tape to construct the real one. I plan to glance at the instructions in the original pattern but what fun is it following the directions the whole time...

The Shirt

For this I've bought about 3 yards of white fabric at $2 per yard from walmart (Yeah this town is lacking in choices in fabric stores).  So I just cut 4 rectangles out 2 for the front and back and two for the sleeves. Then I just used my serger to sew the sleeves to the front and back and then stitch the seam all the way from the bottom of the sleeve to the bottom of the shirt. Then I put it on my mannequin (that's a whole other story)  and cut out a modest neckline. Then I serged a slot in each arm hole and added elastic so it can stay on my upper arm and fall over like her shirt appears to do. The next step is to add a collar and the little v in the front.

The Hair

For the hair... so you would think maybe style my hair... no way is it that long... alright maybe get a wig... well that would work but I couldn't find anything I liked (and definitely not for the price). So I decided to go with a half wig... these looked like that would work. But just look at her hair:

It has a few large bouncy curls in it and it is a bit on the poofy side. The way the draw it it almost stands out from her head. Well apparently that's not in style for the normal every day half wig wearing consumer. So do I settle? NO! I decided to make my own. Ok  so far i've only slipped a bit.. maybe the better part of a leg is down the hole.. now I have to figure out how to make a half wig. So i figure just look at them it's basically just a wig cap with a few combs attached. So i buy some nifty circular combs cut them up and sew them to the wig cap. No big deal right? So in theory I just buy some wefts (this is hair attached to tracks that people use for weaves)  and in theory I can just treat it like a sew on weave (granted I've never done one before but there's a first time for everything).  Now I just have to buy some tracks right? Apparently people looking to put a weave in also don't want puffy hair that almost stands out from the head. Hmm what to do.... I know let me make my own tracks!! (yup there I go down the rabbit hole) And thus how I came to re-invent the wheel. So far it's not that bad. I found a nifty video on how to sew your own tracks with a machine right here on youtube. So i manged to buy 3 packs of braiding hair(which is more poofy) and work my way through figuring out exactly how to do this. Next I attached the altered wig cap to a head with thumb tacks and started weaving. Remember how I said I've never done it before... well thanks to this youtube video I was able to figure it out. So now I have about a third of the wig done. I need to go to the store and most likely buy maybe 2 or 4 more packs of hair to weft then sew onto the wig cap. Then I can add a head band! 

So this is where I am now.. more posts and pictures to come of the actual work once I figure out how to get them off the camera and onto the laptop! :)