This dress is driving me insaneeeee!!

So I was asked to winter formal by a buddy of mine. At the moment I don't have the money for a new dress, I can't find anything I like anyways, and I'm sure as hell not wearing **gasp** something I already wore once! O_O

Sooooo I'm making it. And i'm going crazy. This is what I decided I want and yes, it's the Helena dress from the MCR video.





All the black parts are going to be satin leopard print and the red is going to be black satin. I have the bodice all figured out but I can;t figure ot the skirt for the life in me!

How the hell do I go about making a skirty like that?

im so no help but omg you'll look stunning!

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-the-Helena-Dress

lol i tried google >.< ill go back to my corner!

If I remember correctly, to make some it look all ruffly/scrunchy you kinda sew bits together. I don't remember how to make them all poofy though.. Hm. Some of those plastic things they use for corsets?

I suppose you'd have to create tucks all along the waist band underneath the sash. Like quick small ones? and the skirt to make it puffy you could try a few layers of net between the black and red material?

I'm no expert at this but that's how i THINK you might be able to do it =)

What about a separate bodice, and just a really simple gathered skirt, with the front tucked up somehow, with the red added underneath?

I find that SOOO easy, and it'll give you the look you want.

Omg I adore this dress...I can't wait to see you in it! It's so pretty...i wanna get married in it

Right to me it looks like 3 main layers (From the pics, I'll check the video later too though)

1. The tulle stuff
2. The red stuff
3. The black stuff

They all follow the same sort of shape, short at the front, long at the back (apart from the red in the second pic..).
The black layer is not sewn together at the front, only at the top.

The red and tulle layer just look gathered. Easy enough,

But then the black layer looks more like.. less even gathers, some massive ones some small ones.

And since it's quite poofy, probably a few more layers of tulle underneath.

Sorry if that was all obvious and you already knew it.. That's all I can get from the pics haha, its sorta hard cus both those pics are different. I like it better on the second one though!

My friend dressed as her last halloween. I laughed lots. mostly cause i hate MCR and nobody knew who she was..but she bought her dress..so I'm not much use..

to sew the gathered part, do 2 lines of stitching about 1/4 inch apart all the way along the top edge at stitch length 4 or 5 and leave really long tails and don't backstitch. then grab two o the tails, one layer only and gently pull. It will gather the top easier and more evenly.
As for the pattern, okay....

-the top layer looks like a circle skirt kinda tucked up, make the waist twice as big as you need it i you want it to be pretty poufy, one third if you want it a little less poufy

-the under layers look to me like they kinda go into points, if thats the case you can do the same kinda circle skirt thing but make it a square instead and you'll get the points, for this I would just make the waist the right size (with seam allowance too) gathered underskirt will just give you way too much bulk in that area. i would make two or the dierent layers

-if at all possible sew up all the layers, them try the whole shebang on a manequin (or person) to igure out how the under skirts will sit and pin all the waists together.

Hope this helps!

p.s. sorry for any missing letters, my keyboard is kinda sticking

oops, just noticed one of the underlayers is longer, so do the same thing but just make one of them a foot longer