Presenting: Amber Moon

I've mentioned in various posts over the last few months that I was taking a burlesque course leading up to a performance. In mid-April, that performance was a reality. Amber Moon got up on stage in a proper professional cabaret venue, wiggled her bum and took her clothes off in front of a roomful of friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. And I'm going to tell you all about it. 

Here she is. This is my second Anna dress, and my first stage costume. I'd wanted to make a full-length Anna since I knew the pattern existed, and when I saw this faux silk up for sale on the Sew Over It website, I knew what I wanted my costume to be. I stressed for weeks about whether it was going to work, but I wore it on stage and it came off when it was supposed to, which is about all you can ask of it. I thought I might have static problems because it's polyester, but it's fine. 

I was stressing about this performance for about a month beforehand, and I started stressing about it again almost as soon as it was over, but when the lights went down on the night? I was Amber Moon, and Amber Moon did not give a shit. Amber Moon was the second-to-last act of the whole night (which I was terrified about beforehand) and spent the whole show prior to going to stage drinking pink champagne and yelling, "They have to cheer and applaud no matter WHAT I do!" at everyone that walked past me. By the time I got on stage I, a chronic anxiety sufferer, wasn't even nervous. Forty per cent of my choreography went out the window but Amber Moon knew it didn't matter. Three and a half minutes my glitter-encrusted self walked off stage in octopus-tentacle pasties, all "yeah. Yeah you all cheered my boobs."

I got this dress out of two and a half metres of fabric, but I had to do quite a lot of weird folding to get there. I'm pleased that I managed it, because buying three and a half metres of fabric always feels like too much of an extravagance. I hadn't used this kind of fabric before so some of my seams are puckery, but I was on stage so by virtue of the five foot rule it's fine. 

 I realise the slit is actually knicker-revealingly high, but it's a burlesque costume. When I made the dress I put the slit where the pattern instructed, but it didn't look right for what I was doing so I unpicked several inches of it. When I decide to wear this for a non-burlesque occasion I will sew the slit up to a less indecent point.

Also you will notice that the fabric hump at the neckline is much less of a thing in this version than in my coral one, so I think that was just a victim of heavier material and bias binding. On this one I just turned and stitched the neckline hem so I'd have as little bulk up there are possible.

I should have made the back a V-neck, but I didn't. Since it is literally impossible to get out of a high-backed dress in an elegant and attractive way, for the performance I pinned the top edges inward so that the zip would be at a height I could reach.

You're getting a ton of photos and I'm not apologising. Amber Moon must be appreciated, even without all the glitter and shiny things she had on the night (that I definitely didn't panic-buy in Accessorise a few hours before the show, nope). 

APPRECIATE, DAMMIT.

This pattern is still awesome. I was looking at By Hand London's sewalong posts and they have a tutorial for giving the Anna dress three-quarter length sleeves, so I'm going to be trying that. I'd really like to have a couple of these for daywear. 

And finally, for your amusement, an action shot of Amber Moon's triumphant debut, courtesy of http://www.lovaphotography.com: