Dr.Crusher's 1940's Uniform - a Big Good-Bye Homage Mash Up
Introduction: Dr.Crusher's 1940's Uniform - a Big Good-Bye Homage Mash Up
I have always been a huge Star Trek fan and TNG is still my number one fav of all the many iterations. Bonus I am a redhead and I love dressing up as red haired characters, TNG certainly had one in Dr. <PERSON>. The Big Goodbye episode in Season 1 of TNG was so memorable to me, it combined my love of vintage 40's and Star Trek. In that episode Dr. <PERSON> is wearing a very pink suit, not my color but it got me thinking, what would Dr. <PERSON>'s uniform look like if it were the 1940's.Halloween was around the corner and I had an impending arm surgery too so I was on the clock if I wanted to tackle this project.
Engage!
Supplies
1. Fabric Merchants Ponte de Roma Solid Teal
2. Art Gallery Solid Rayon Challis Black
3. Invisible Zipper, https://www.joann.com/coats-andamp-clark-invisible-zipper-20in-22in/2076446.html
4. I purchased thread at Joann's, basic all purpose in black and teal.
5. I used one of my vintage black button's for the back neck closure, it's been in my stash for sometime.
6. Gold Rank Pips were left over buttons from another Start Trek group costume I worked on a few years before.
7. I combined two patterns to create this dress, one a Vintage 1940's McCall pattern the other a reproduction Sew Over It Tea Dress pattern that I picked up on my trip London a few years back.
8. Communicator pin was a gift from a friend, this one was magnetic so no pin holes to work about.
9. The stockings were already mine, they are Cuban heel back seem hose I picked up on a vintage reproduction site years ago.
10. 348
Shoes I also already had but they are from B.A.I.T. (But Another Innocent Tail) https://baitfootwear.com/collections/sale/products/betty-classic?variant=19436336283717
Step 1: Make It Sew
I had an image in my mind of what I wanted this to look like. I wanted to keep the same look of Dr. <PERSON>'s uniform but transpose it onto a 1940's dress. I knew It needed to have black at the shoulders, teal across the chest and a black skirt. I also wanted to tie in the angle cut from the uniform into the dress somehow too. I start looking into my pattern stash and I found a vintage 40's pattern that had shoulder pieces that would I could make black to get that Uniform look I was going for. So I was happy with the top of that vintage pattern but rest of the dress was very simple and didn't offer much at the waistline to help me create that angle change between the Teal and black. So I went back to my stash to see if I had a skirt or dress that offered me something and I found it in a re-print 40'd dress pattern I picked up on a trip to London. It had a waist that angled up at the center to a point, I knew I had found the skirt I wanted. So the plan was to combine two totally different patterns into one garment. What could go wrong?! I have said it before and I will do so again, I am my own worst enemy in these projects.
With patterns picked it was time to shop for fabric, this was full pandemic so I search for fabric online. Fabric.com (Amazon Company) had this lovely teal ponte de roma that I fell in love with so that was once down.
Now, I must interject here, what I should have done was also by the matching ponte de roma fabric in Black, it would have made everything that follows so much easier. But Noooooo, I wanted a light flowy fabric so the skirt would swish a bit when I walked. Shot self in foot right there!
I began looking for a black fabric that was light enough to have some good movement in the skirt, I ended up going with a black Challis. You can see in the picture it is thin fabric so I basically made the skirt and a liner out of the same fabric to get better coverage when being worn. Fabric purchased it, it was just a waiting game.
OH!, did I mention it was September 29th when I ordered my fabric and I had a surgery on October 30th, yeah I'm a planner. 348