Walk Like an Egyptian I: Dress

So...  I still am alive.  I've been jumping over hurdle after hurdle the last few months.  Life has a bunch of surprising twists and turns.  I'm not quite ready to spill the beans yet, so please bear with me for the next few months.  I had planned on doing the contest again this year, but that obviously didn't pan out.  Hopefully, things will be more stable next year.

Anyway, my Halloween costume.  I chose Nefertiti (though a lot of people seemed to think I was Cleopatra, argh) because I felt it would be reasonably easy (compared to Jareth) and mostly recognizable (compared to Jareth).  Several people have actual told me that my profile bears a bit of resemblance to hear, so why not?

The first aspect here is the dress, which is Simplicity 1770, view E.  It's a simple, darted, sheath dress.  Honestly, the most accurate color to make this is in would have been white or off-white, but strictly speaking, the dress also should have been translucent or leave the breasts exposed.  I didn't want to get arrested or fired from work, and let's face it, I am not going to wear a white dress, so black it was.  And my tattoos would show through in a white dress.  I used a cotton-linen blend because it was cheaper and less wrinkle-prone than straight linen.

I forgot to shorten the upper part of the dress, so this ended up being very loose in the back.  I'll need to take this in at some point if I ever plan on wearing it again.  I was surprised at how unfitted this was in the waist.  I was going to take that in as well, but with the waist piece, I figured I could cinch it in enough that it wouldn't matter.

What I did change: this dress is cut to the upper thigh, which is more leg than I want to show, not to mention would be a bit drafty.  I reduced the slit to just above the knee.  I also lengthened the dress by three inches, which still left it shorter on me than the picture on the front, but I didn't want to be tripping over it all night, so no biggie.

This dress is pretty simple.  I threw it together in an afternoon.  I find costume patterns, especially Simplicity patterns, to be easier to sew.  My guess would be because costumes tend to be what casual sewists tend to flock to, and Simplicity is trying to appeal to them.  A beginner could tackle this as perhaps a third or fourth project.