The feathers I want to use - the "Natural Cream & Ginger" Schlappen from LamplightFeather.com - are $8/foot, so I've attempted to do some preliminary math to make an educated guess at how much the feathers for this gown will cost me.
The pattern of the robe, which I have not begun, will determine this number much more accurately, and it will be an excersize in draping the pattern to use as little yardage as necessary and still maintain the look I want.
My estime, however, is that I will need approximately 26 feet of feathers, to overlap in 3" rows all the way down the skirt, which I estimate will be 28" long, with a 10" deep hemguard. The skirt flares, from approximately 1 foot at the waist (really guessing there! - waist/2 is 14") to possibly 4 feet at the bottom, though I will try to make this width as little as possible.
I'm not the best at math, but I've come up with $208 as the amount I will need to buy the feathers. I'm, obviously, hoping that this number will be smaller, but I have the suspicion that I will need more feathers than I think! This price is if I decide to use the Schleppen all the way down the skirt. I was unable to run a row of feathers through my sewing machine recently, so the idea of stringing my own feathers with that method is out. I'd still like to use the Rock feathers, but I'm not sure how to attach them at this point - gluing to a ribbon seems like a lot of work with the high probability of shedding feathers throughout the night.
So Schleppen it is. I've decided to start "The Feather Fund" to set money aside just for this project. The plan is to save $20 per week (or $40 every two week pay period), for 10.5 weeks. This will put us in mid-May before I can think about purchasing the feathers, still a good 5 months before Halloween. Given that I can't run the feathers through my machine (darn!), I will need to hand sew each row on, and that, my friends, may very well take 5 months!
