craftgrrl | Showing off my first attempt at costume sewing (Reply)

I'm on a huge Pirates of the Caribbean kick, and I really wanted to start getting an Elizabeth costume ready for Halloween. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything at all appropriate for sale, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I don't sew clothing, I don't understand patterns, I don't have anyone to go to for advice and I don't even have a sewing machine, but I decided to try making the 'Rum Island shift dress', as it's called.

From early yesterday evening, after I screwed up the neck line (you can see the totally random, stupid, gaping hole through which you see a couple inches of my bra) and before I figured out how to more or less fix that.

Last night after I laced up the neckline (I later redid the lacing, but that's a very minor issue).

And these are all of the finished product. Not perfect and definitely not an exact match, but, considering that I had no plan and no nothing when I started, I'm amazed it turned out as well as it did.

Let's all ignore how fat I look in that picture. My cat looks cute, though. <333

I'm really proud of myself. It's not perfect, it's a bit crooked/uneven in places, and the sleeves are way too frayed and too billowy, but I'm still happy. I've also become ambitious - I'm planning on trying my hand at the plum gown as soon as I can buy some fabric for it.

Which brings me to my last point - any tips on how I can do a cheap, relatively fast, not-exact-but-passable version of the plum gown?