Yes I Made That Dress: Legend of Zelda Dresses

Some History:

Within the last 1-2 years Joanns and Hancock fabrics have seen an explosion of licensed fabric from the likes of Nintendo and other popular properties.  When the Legend of Zelda fabric was announced my wifey and I jumped on it and started visiting our local fabric stores on a weekly basis to see if we could find some.  When we finally did I'm pretty sure we cleaned them out, making sure to buy enough for the dresses right away, before it disappeared again.   

Now while these dresses aren't simply cosplay, we still wear them to cons and outside on a normal basis.  So we picked patterns I could easily upsize to our sizes and ones that we wanted to wear.  I love some of the retro designs coming out, so it really seemed like a great way to do both!

Making the Dresses:

Seeing as how there's really no costumes designs to duplicate here, I went full on with following the patterns' instructions, or at least the pictures.  For Briana's dress we used Simplicity 1061 because she wanted the cute over jacket too and mine was Simplicity 1155 because I wanted to try the top pleating.

For extra fun we didn't really try to match the different prints based on colors.  Instead her dress was made of the first two we found and mine was made of the other two. They match because they're all Legend of Zelda, but the colors contrast a bit more then I would normally pick so it was a bit of a fun adventure seeing it come together. 

For the bolero/jacket we actually ran out of fabric and it needed a collar.  So I took some of the fabric from mine to add an extra punch. 

For my dress, this was the part I was waiting for and dreading.  I'm not very good at pleating, but mostly because I haven't had much of a chance to practice with it.  So what better time then now?

I really love this close up shot.  I was concerned the two patterns wouldn't match or look right, as I mentioned above, but forced myself to cut out the pieces and pin them together anyway.  Upon seeing this on my dress form I was so happy I did, because I love the contrast and how pretty it looks.  I also made sure to try and line up the stained glass windows so they were all facing the same direction, something else I haven't had much time to practice with.  All in all, both dresses came out even better then I was imagining. 

Oh!  And my partner found the perfect accessory at Hot Topic to go with her dress!

Finished Product

So now we have a very punk and retro-ish set of Zelda dresses we can wear on Sundays at conventions and they're super comfortable!

And bonus!  My partner now has a neat jacket she can wear normally!

If you'd like to commission me for a dress or have any questions on how I make these pieces, please send me an email or message me through my etsy store.