I was in scouting for years and was a scouts leader before I was 18. One year, for a Jamboree, the age group I was a leader for were to represent the medieval period and have costumes for some activities.        I had no medieval clothes at the time, only my Cinderella Dress, and that is renaissance. So a couple of weeks before, my mom and I started to plan costumes. As I was in my finals in Cegep and I had no time for sewing, I ended up only designing the clothes and my mom sew all of it. I also did not have her experience at modifying patterns at the time.        The Maroon Medieval Dress was inspired by some models seen at a Medieval store (I often go in, check out the models and reproduce them for 1/10 of the price). Now althought I did pre-wash and shrink the fabrics, the excess red dye did not all go with the first wash. As a result, the white fabric became staines in pink. A couple more goes in the washing machine has mixed the colours evenly so the maroon is much paler and the white is a pale pink. At least it’s not completly ruined! Fabric        The dress is all made of cotton: Maroon cotton for the dress and White cotton for the front pleat and inside of the sleeves.        An (originaly) off-white trim accents the neckline and the edge of the pleat.        Off-white cord ties the front of the dress. Pattern        As a base, my mother used McCall’s 2793. She made the bodice and the skirt one piece, modified the sleeves and hand sketched the pleat out of experience. Advice        Pre-wash your fabrics, especially cotton. And believe me, better more than not enough.

Front and Back views of the dress.

Here you can see the interoir of the sleeves.

The kneeling damsel, a medieval classic!

This picture was taken in September 2001, before I washed the dress for the first time and the colour fiasco happened. It was a very nice dress!