I was asked the other day how I sewed our ancient costumes. These are the basic steps I used for costumes for dd and I.

First I measured each of us, from the neck down to however far we wanted the garment to fall. DD and I wanted them to go to our feet so I measured to our feet. I multiplied that by 2. That is how much fabric I need. Then we went to the fabric store and purchased their cheapest white fabric. Now when fabric comes off the bolt, it is folded like this:

The selvage is the factory finished edge. The cut sides have obviously been cut with scissors. When we got home, I refolded the fabric to lay like this:

I smoothed out all the wrinkles. Then I cut a semicircle in the top for the neck opening and sewed up the sides almost all the way...like this:

The solid line shows where I cut the neck opening. If I estimated that too small, I can always cut it bigger. The dashed lines show my seam lines. The arms go through the opening above the seam lines. I did not do any hemming or finish work. After all, these are ancient costumes! I tucked in the sleeves so the raveled edges wouldn't show. If the raggy edges showed on the hem, I told the dc to say that came from miles of walking! We were ancients after all! LOL
Since the Egyptians liked to wear gold, Dd and I wore gold belts. I took out some gold lame fabric from my fabric stash and tied them around our waists. Done!
I bought some cheap gold jewelry for me to wear. DD made her own out of Sculpey clay. She just followed directions in some of the craft books we had.
For ds, I just got a smaller piece of white fabric, wrapped it around his waist and used a safety pin to hold it in place. Then I got a strip of white fabric to wrap around his waist for a belt. I had found a web site with some color sheets for Egyptian collars. I forget where this was found, but that is the neck ornament ds is wearing. He made a band for his arm too.
Then we all put on dark brown eyeshadow for Kohl. I think that's how simple our costumes were. Oh, we did go barefoot too!
I used to do costumes for the children's choir at church and I learned tons about making the most of the biggies for the greatest impact and not sweating the small stuff! Really!! So for Egypt, the key elements are white fabric and gold accents.
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• Jul. 23, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Blessings,
Dawn