Eowyn's blue and brown dress (aka Refugee Outfit) from LotR

© Fotostyler

I could not resist attempting to copy this costume as closely as possible when, by pure chance, I stumbled upon (almost) exactly the right fabrics! It's not an exact copy nevertheless, but who cares, as I don't do cosplay ;P

Pictures of the original can be found here, the detailed description I discovered here. Both are very valuable pages for costume research.

For the underdress, I used my 6-parts-plus-sleeves pattern. I left the straight-cut sleeves unlined (the original version has lined sleeves) and embroidered them with pale golden thread in very simple lines. For the neckline, I embroidered a separate piece of the same fabric and, for lack of detailed knowledge as to the exact pattern, sewed the lower end flat to the dress, about a span from the neckline, and gathered the upper end to the neckline to join both layers into the neckband. Neckband is sewn flat with invisible stitches and decorated with larger, diagonal stitches with golden thread.

The overdress consists of three parts - two for the back to follow the curve of the backline, one for the front -, which I designed myself. As the dress should fit closely, you should pin the pieces together and try it on before you trim the edges of the side openings. The side openings as well as the neckline are just folded back and sewn down with invisible stitches - this only works if the fabric, relatively coarse linen in my case, can be stretched to lie flat and not crease around corners. The hem is frayed out for about four centimetres and there secured with zigzag stitch. For the side-lacing I used off-white cord (original is golden).