FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
Mi Encanto
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Outline the story …
For this competition, I wanted to do something fun, but still challenge myself. My daughter has recently been in love with the movie Encanto and I thought it would be fun to learn more about Colombian culture and make something bright and exciting. I read some fantastic articles about the designers taking inspiration for the female costumes from the pollera skirt which is a traditional ruffled skirt usually made from light cotton or wool. I didn’t have enough fabric to make a traditional pollera with all the ruffles, but noticed that in the movie, except for Isabella, most of the skirts appear to be circles and do not show as much gathering. I stuck to this practical concept and designed a brightly colored, fitted, circle skirt. I decorated it with some ribbon bands parallel to the hem similar to the look of Louisa’s skirt in the movie. As in the movie they do not draw in any of the clothing closures, I challenged myself to make one as invisible as possible. The skirt was paired with a white, cotton, blouse similar to that of Louisa, but with a ruffled neckline like Mirabel. I also was very fond of the pleats in Abuela's dress and incorporated those into my pattern as well. I had just enough time to finish a little bit of embroidery, which I noticed in the movie was very textured and incorporated bright colors. I included a butterfly, flowers and a design of my talent - sewing!
Outline the construction…
I drafted patterns for both of the garments for this project. The skirt is a full length, fitted circle, cut where the ribbons are attached. The size of the cotton for this project required a lot of piecing, but I was very happy with how I planned ahead and incorporated that into the design. I had a bolt of about 4-5 yards of white cotton on hand, but knew that I wanted this skirt to be brightly colored so I challenged myself to dye fabric for the first time. I did experiments with blue and green dye until I found a color ratio I was pleased with and hand dyed all the pieces, leaving some lighter and some darker to give better depth to the bands at the bottom. The skirt is one layer and is closed with invisible hooks and eyes.
The blouse is made with the leftover white cotton. I made 2 mockups and multiple ruffles before I was happy with the way the pleats and ruffle laid. Like the skirt It is also made with 1 layer of cotton, and is worn with a shift underneath. There is no closure as the pleats allow it to be slipped over the head. All the seams are hand felled. The embroidery is done with all 6 strands of embroidery floss to give lots of texture. This was my first time doing freehand embroidery that was not part of a kit. I had to set my perfectionism aside and it turned out to be a lot of fun picking different colors and stitches and trying different techniques.
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