Serafina Doll’s Winter Gown

I’m bringing more wonderful photo’s of one my daughters and I’s favorite book characters, Serafina.  We have fallen in love with this character from Robert Beatty’s books, Serafina and the Black Cloak and Serafina and the Twisted Staff.  I have previously done posts on how I created their beloved book character into an 18 inch doll.  To make Christmas 2016 special, I decided they needed a little something for their Serafina doll.  I couldn’t think of anything better than Serafina’s winter gown that is from the first book, Serafina and the Black Cloak.  Once again, I reached out to Carol, of Sew Sew Carol, to create this custom dress.  Carol is one of the most fantastic seamstresses I have ever worked with.  She pays extreme attention to detail and is very efficient.   You can contact Carol at her Etsy shop for custom requests here:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/SewSewCarol?ref=pr_faveshops .

Inspiration pictures were found on google searches and from reviewing the book trailer which you can find here:  https://youtu.be/uFZvSzfnm6I.  Inspiration also came from our own ideas of what we perceived the character would look like from the author’s description in the book.

From the book the dress is described as ” a beautiful dark maroon winter gown.  It had long sleeves of dark maroon velvet and a corset of richly patterned charcoal-and-black velour, all trimmed in lynx-gray piping, its silver thread shimmering…”  The dress is “soft and warm.”  Serafina felt that the dress was the most beautiful that she had ever seen in her life.  This AMAZING real life dress worn by Robert Beatty’s daughter for the book trailer was designed by his talented wife, Jennifer Beatty, the costume manager and dress maker.

The book and the book trailer dress differ slightly.  The book describes the dress as velvet where the dress in the trailer is taffeta.  We love how the taffeta shimmers!  Also, the taffeta works really well for doll dresses, velvet can get a bit bulky when working with fullness and layers.

The book also described the dress to have  an “intricate black brocade corset” and the long skirt “hung heavily around her legs.”  This dress would have been Serafina’s very first dress and it made her feel “like a real girl”…”feminine and soft.”

Carol blew us away with this GORGEOUS gown!  Thank you so much Miss Carol!  You rock!  Above is a picture with more lighting so you can see the beautiful rich color of the dress.

We adore how the top layer of the gown layers over the bottom layer.

The puffed sleeves are almost an exact match to the real thing!

Perfect details!

In the book, Serafina took the red bow from the packaging and tied back her hair.  Carol didn’t miss a thing!

For more information on this Serafina doll please see these posts: http://brandyshappyhome.com/serafina-and-the-black-cloak-doll/  and http://brandyshappyhome.com/serafina-and-the-twisted-staff-doll/ .

Stay tuned for an upcoming post on what we think Serafina’s sleepwear would be like.

Craft on !