What LotR Costumes/Clothes Have You Made?

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Sirithheruwen

I also tried to make a hobbit costume out of khaki capris and a light blue blouse, but I just looked like a teenage girl with her khaki pant rolled up so that her unusually large feet poked out.

Toss the blue blouse if you're wearing khaki breeches. ( Breeches-- get capris at Elfmart for twelve bucks.) Be careful choosing your earth-tones! Hobbits go with all earth-tones & woodsy colors. Browns, green, cream or khaki seem to send the loudest "hobbit here!" message. ( Bilbo's red vest, Frodo going to the Havens in silver and blue, are major exceptions. Frodo was in silver-and-blue because that's what the elves wear on the way to the havens.)

Be on the lookout for (brown, green, cream or khaki) shirts that lace up at the throat or that have embroidered patterns on the chest, or both. Layer over that: hobbit-colored vest. (Thrift stores.) Over that: hobbit-colored jacket. (Mine are cuorderoy, one green, one brown-- & they look fine.)

Cloak is optional (mine's brown) but it does add a lot.

My other indulgences are:
Same shirt & jacket & vest, but with long brown pants, brown socks, brown sandals-- an added cloak suddenly makes the whole thing elvish. Maybe 'cause I'm tall...? I went to RotK wearing that and got enough compliments to make my head swell.

Elvish dresses. Shop judiciously. Most of mine were under thirty dollars, some under twenty. Jewellry-- same thing. Look for celtic knotwork (I avoid the satanic ones!) but even better: look for leaves and flowers. Brooches, earrrings, rings.

After that, it's all in your head. I come to work dressed as either an elf or a hobbit three out of five days. It's just the way I dress. If I wore the cloak, it would be obvious; but if I leave the cloak at home, not many people figure it out.

ps-- I daydream about a "real Mirkwood Tunic". I may have to break down and make one.
I also daydream about making elvish clothes of green and brown and grey so heavily decorated with (very pretty) leaves and trees that they are essentially camo.
But for now, I'll make do with ranger-ish greens and browns.

[Lalwendë]

Well, as I posted recently on the Insanity Reigns thread, when I was a teenager I got my school overcoat and embroidered the White Tree of Gondor on the back, which caused my poor Mum much trauma. What is it with the White Tree when you're young? Anyway, keep up the good work!

Recently I bought a little pond thing for my garden and it had a lid, a nice round piece of MDF on top. I left it in the shed and kept looking at it, wondering how I could recycle it, and had the mad idea to turn it into a painted shield. So I did. I can only describe it as kind of a cross between Pugin and Saxon in style. Of course, it would provide no protection against arrows (not that they are a common hazard in modern day Yorkshire) so it stands on my soot-blackened hearth.

[Calathanien]

i'v never made anything (other than sords out of card bored does that count?!?!?!?) buuut my sister made a galadriel costume for her tech courswork it was really good, i wore it to a costume party aaaages ago

[Gorwingel]

I have tried to make an Eowyn dress, but right now it is just hanging in my closet in an unfinished state.

I was a person who took a ton of sewing classes when I was younger, but I am still not the best seamtress at all. I am also a perfectionist, which means I'm very hard on myself. So if I don't get it perfect, I am just not right with it.

But I could see myself buying custom ones in the future. Maybe just one or two good ones

[Elennar Starfire]

I made a nice elf-dress for Halloween last year...it's blue and pretty...I want to sew some silver beads on...then it'll be like Luthien's dress!

[Mithalwen]

I am not gifted at sewing but I bought a galadriel style dress for £20 in a GHOST factory outlet clearance but it is a "petite" and I am 5"10 so I finally admitted that I would not get the bodice to button in this lifetime and passed it on to my cousin..... But I found a quasi elf outfit in the next clearance that fitted alas no floaty sleeves ( I might just have enough skill to add them if I can find the right material) ..... but not far off.... floaty dress.... floaty long coat ..... just need the right occasion.... keep threatening a LOTR party ...... and make every one else come as orcs.... lol and I have a black rider mask for bad hair days...

[Saraphim]

I want very much to make an Eowyn dress, but I have no patterns to do so. I have a slight sewing ability, and would be capable of making one if only I knew how.

I also want to make a ranger outfit, but I still have the aforementioned difficulty.

Other than that, I just have:

~My Barrow-Downs shirt, of course.
~A baseball hat that says "Frodo Lives" (yes, I made that myself )

[ninlaith]

Saraphim, I don't know if you live near a Wal-Mart but they have a pattern for what looks like and Eowyn dress. It's not called Eowyn or anything from the LOTR collection but it's a white dress just like hers. I don't know if this helped or if anyone was even able to understand it. It's just hard to explain without a visual. The also have patterns for Tunics like Aragorn's. And Mithalwen I don't know of your sewing abilities but what you could have done to that dress that you gave to your cousin is you could have added a piece to the back of the bodice just enough to help it fit. Or you could have ripped out the seems and possible boning and let it out a little for yourself. Once again I don't know if this helped but I hope it possibly did. Just remeber nothing is a lost cause.