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are photos from the actual proposal which happened to be the only pictures I got of the costume. There is a video floating around somewhere I will try to post also if I can find it!
Oct 2012: So for a 1960's Halloween party we were invited to, Steven and I decided it would be fun to be Jenny and Forrest from Forrest Gump. I had to get creative, but overall I am very thrilled with the results!
The look I was going for...
First I started on the fur coat. Unfortunately the fabric store I went to had limited resources so I had to get crafty. They didn't have enough of the brown color, and the pink had more fabric but not enough to do sleeves like in the picture. However, as was common to the 1960's time,they did wear vests (which she also has on in the mall water scene) so I sewed this:
My amazing boyfriend went home to visit his parents and came back with an actual brown vest from the 1960's that his stepmom wore! What an awesome surprise! Now my outfit is perfect.
Next I worked on the dress. I was going to sew one but without a pattern I quickly realized that wasn't going to work. I gave up on the Jenny idea and decided to go to Good Will to find a 60's dress of some sort when I found the absolute perfect dress! It was the right style and shape and even had pretty embroidary. The only obvious problem was the dress was a dark forest green and I needed it to be white. I bought it anyway figuring I could try to bleach it. (This picture below was the only picture I took and this was about halfway through the process, it was actually several shades darker).
Bleaching wasn't so easy. I googled instructions for the washer, put a cup of bleach in the washer with water on the soak cycle, 2 rounds of 20 minutes each did absolutely nothing. I took it out and put it in a bucket and poured 3-4 cups of bleach which barely dropped it a shade in an hour. Finally I got frustrated and dumped the entire gallon into the water which in the next hour dropped it slightly lighter and made it streaky. At this point I gave up and just left it in the bucket overnight fully expecting it to be in shreds in the morning, but I didn't care, I didn't want to deal with it anymore. Thought I wasn't going to have a costume...and then I woke up the next morning and it had worked! I couldn't believe it, it was white! And even more miraculously, the embroidered design down the sleeves didn't bleach so it left this beautiful stitching. My biggest regret was not taking a before photo to compare. Basically the color you see in the background tile was the color before, and here you can see it clearly worked! I am so excited, I get to be Jenny after all!
Oct 2012: So for a 1960's Halloween party we were invited to, Steven and I decided it would be fun to be Jenny and Forrest from Forrest Gump. I had to get creative, but overall I am very thrilled with the results!
The look I was going for...
First I started on the fur coat. Unfortunately the fabric store I went to had limited resources so I had to get crafty. They didn't have enough of the brown color, and the pink had more fabric but not enough to do sleeves like in the picture. However, as was common to the 1960's time,they did wear vests (which she also has on in the mall water scene) so I sewed this:
My amazing boyfriend went home to visit his parents and came back with an actual brown vest from the 1960's that his stepmom wore! What an awesome surprise! Now my outfit is perfect.
Next I worked on the dress. I was going to sew one but without a pattern I quickly realized that wasn't going to work. I gave up on the Jenny idea and decided to go to Good Will to find a 60's dress of some sort when I found the absolute perfect dress! It was the right style and shape and even had pretty embroidary. The only obvious problem was the dress was a dark forest green and I needed it to be white. I bought it anyway figuring I could try to bleach it. (This picture below was the only picture I took and this was about halfway through the process, it was actually several shades darker).
Bleaching wasn't so easy. I googled instructions for the washer, put a cup of bleach in the washer with water on the soak cycle, 2 rounds of 20 minutes each did absolutely nothing. I took it out and put it in a bucket and poured 3-4 cups of bleach which barely dropped it a shade in an hour. Finally I got frustrated and dumped the entire gallon into the water which in the next hour dropped it slightly lighter and made it streaky. At this point I gave up and just left it in the bucket overnight fully expecting it to be in shreds in the morning, but I didn't care, I didn't want to deal with it anymore. Thought I wasn't going to have a costume...and then I woke up the next morning and it had worked! I couldn't believe it, it was white! And even more miraculously, the embroidered design down the sleeves didn't bleach so it left this beautiful stitching. My biggest regret was not taking a before photo to compare. Basically the color you see in the background tile was the color before, and here you can see it clearly worked! I am so excited, I get to be Jenny after all!
