Lucy Gray Baird | 2023

Lucy Gray Baird | The Hunger Games – A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Made for : Fun

Background : I saw the film in the theatre and decided I needed to have her dress immediately. Three weeks later, I did.

Things used :

Shirt : I used a vintage 90s sewing pattern – McCall’s 6530 as the starting point for the blouse. The first thing I did was eliminate the button up front by instead cutting the pattern piece on a fold. I then altered the sleeve pattern so that I could smock the wrist cuffs instead of using elastic like the pattern called for. I did this by extending the pattern from the center outward, giving me lots of excess fabric to smock at the wrist. The smocking I did is called a wave stitch and I followed this tutorial here.

The fabric I used for the blouse was a 100% cotton Swiss dot from Ribbon Rose. It was a stark white and I dyed it a gentle lavender shade using a mix of Rit Dye in the colours petal pink and hyacinth.

I finished all the edges of the blouse using a rolled hem done on my overlocker.

Bloomers : Made using Simplicity 1139. I really do love when I get to sew a pattern and not have to alter a single thing about it, that being the case here. I chose calico for the fabric

Corset: You’ll find my write up about the corset construction over here.

Skirt: I used Simplicity S9123 as the base pattern. I liked it because it was a three quarter circle skirt. I started by cutting out the base layer of a champagne satin and then an overlay of a beige polka dot tulle. Before sewing commenced, I had to figure out how/where the rainbow ruffles would sit on the polka dot layer. I did some maths to figure out where I wanted the point of each ruffle to sit along on each of the rows. I drew this directly on to the pattern piece and used a color coordinating pen for each rainbow color so I didn’t get confused. I then transferred this template on to the polka tulle by laying it over top of the pattern and tracing the markings using a pencil.

To make the ruffles, I used a soft bridal tulle. Some of the colors I had to dye to get the right shade. I cut them in to strips starting at 4 inches wide along the bottom row and gradually getting smaller toward the top. Then using the gathering foot on my machine, a long stitch and a loose tension I pent three hours gathering all nine rows of the coloured tulle. I then sewed them along the pencil marked rows I had drawn on the polka dot tulle.

After all the ruffles were sewn on it was time to assemble the skirt! I decided to add pockets after reading a passage in the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes book that mentioned that Lucy Gray’s dress had deep pockets. This was a little more challenging than usual because of the tulle overlay and the side zip. I placed the invisible zip in the side and as I was attaching the tulle overlay, I made sure to leave gaps in the side seams matching where the pockets openings were in the satin layer beneath.

Finally, I finished the hem of the satin layer using horsehair braid to give it a little bit of body.

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