This time, I ended up with four bodice pieces, three skirt pieces, and two sets of sleeves. I'm relatively happy about it, too.

For the bodice, I used Burda 2484, the fae/Lord of the Rings pattern, because it uses princess seams and ends the bodice at the waist instead of continuing the seams down through the skirt like most patterns do. I'm small enough for the smallest size (36) to slip over my head with just a tiny bit of wiggling, so I cut the back bodice piece as one, minus the seam allowance. Also, I combined the two side/underarm pieces into one piece. To do this, I traced one pattern piece onto tissue paper, overlapped it 5/8" with the other pattern piece, and traced the other half. When I cut it out, I had one pattern piece for the side. (Pictures sort of show it below.)

Once I got all of that—plus the sleeves—sewn together, I started on the skirt. No pattern for this; just draping. There wasn't enough material from my first hacking attempt to do the skirt in just two pieces, one front and one back & sides. So I ended up using two smaller pieces for the sides, overlapping them slightly in back. The left piece of material is roughly 27" x 32"; the right, 27.5" x 35.5". The piece that begins and front and wraps around to the back took the most experimenting with. It started out approximately 40" x 34". A long triangle was taken off of of one long side to help with drape, so I'm not exactly sure what size the piece of material ended up measuring. Once all of the skirt panels were sewn in place, I trimmed them, chopping off the extra folds of material, so that they approximated the look of the skirt on the action figure. I also tacked down some overlaping fabric at front and back, hidden by the wrapping panel, for modesty's sake. You can't tell by looking at it, but it's there.

Everywhere lacing went—along each princess seam of the bodice and at the neck—I applied iron-on interfacing. I just used my pair of stork scissors to punch small holes for the leather lacing to pass through. The holes at the neckline are 3/4" apart, and the Xs over the bodice seams are 1" apart.

The sleeves have about a 4" cuff that hangs down past the elastic. (To make the elastic wristband, I just made a channel wide enough for 1/8" elastic to pass through.) Once the dress is on, leather lacing is tied over the elastic.

To hide the waist seam, I tacked the top and bottom edges of the sash down around the waist, leaving a gap the width of the front panel. This makes it easier to pull the dress over my head and I can move where the knot goes, either in the middle or by the right slit.

Finally, I trimmed up the edges of the sash and the skirt hem. It's very similar to the action figure, because that was the best reference I had.