21st July 2012: insignia making the insignia, layers - red fabric, gold fabric,tracing paper.

21st July 2012: insignia ok the embroidery was taking forever so for speed I painted in the outlining with black acrylic paint. Then cut around the badge shape and sewed it on.

Black collar fabric is cut from a pair of black velvet trousers I picked up from charity shop - (the dress is seen lying on top of the remainder). Inside the collar for stiffening is a layer of thick linen. After sewing the collar onto the dress it looked deep compared to picture ref so I turned it over and steam ironed.

This is how it looks with the finished insignia and collar

20th July 2012: progress so far One whole day left to work on this. Im pretty pleased with the shape but it is really short! The hem is going to have to be literally just rolled over and sewd. Dont quite understand why it came out quite so short as the pattern shows 2 inches off this length should be available for the hem! I can live with it tho, just have to keep hitching it down. The matching red knicker parts are not included in the pattern. Still left to make are the black collar piece and the insignia badge.

19th July 2012: more adjustments The dress is all back together now with corrected pattern pieces. Test wear results - length is better but omg this dress is SHORT! Im gonna try to give myself a bit more length by inserting some extra fabric at the top shoulder seams. Also arms are still way too narrow, so I am adding some insert strips in the underarm seams. Although I have to say overall I am really loving how this dress is starting to look. More work tommorow...

18th July 2012: Fault identified After seam ripping through all the seams and getting back to the paper pattern I found why my dress wasnt working out. It's not wrong sizing. The fault was.. I had originally traced the pattern lines first onto some seethrough fabric and then pinned that onto the red fabric to cut - it turns out the seethrough fabric is too stretchy and has been distorting so my fabric sections are out quite a lot. Fix - So, I am now half way through editing all the fabric sections to make them match the paper pattern. I might be able to rescue this dress. By tommorow I will know...
Front half of corrected dress is now sewed back together.

5th July 2012: Sizing error! :( After sewing all the pieces together, and seeing this dress wouldnt even fit a 12 year old!..I realised the sizing of USA is completely different to UK. (you have been warned)

So here is the stage at the mo..dress is being unpicked carefully so I can either cut some new sections from my remaining fabric, or patch together some extension panels to increase the size. Darn! I wont make that mistake twice.

Pic shows back of dress, also my accessories - phaser, compact size communicator ^^ and trusty away bag. Phaser is the Franklin Mint, which weighs a Ton! so I wont be carrying that around. I will either just take the small removeable black hand held type I phaser, or I might try to scratch build a lightweight phaser pistol.

5th July 2012: cutting pattern pieces I bought the proper Star Trek dress pattern for season I type dress - these are the ones with triangular looking sections. from USA. Pic shows the pattern pieces all cut out.