This tutorial will be a little different than my others, as it won't give any patterns. Instead I will document my creative process in making a specific outfit, and share how I figured out and did things. I'm still working on finishing the costume, so updates will be added as I go.
 

To fine-tune the patterns, I lay corresponding pieces of pattern on top of each other (1+8, 2+7, 3+6, 4+5) and drew a new pattern halfway between any difference in the two pieces.

Next step is to make a 'test bodice' in order to  check the fit and make any final adjustments 
- including drawing the top edge of the bodice. 
The test bodice is fit on inside-out and any adjustments drawn on and then re-sewn.

The top edge of the bodice was beaded using picot-stitch with gold and red beads. Two strips of gold trim were cut, their edges heavily saturated with Fray-Check, folded under and hand-stitched into place. Tiny gold beads were sewn on, and larger beads with sequin backings sewn on.

Then almost 100 strips of ribbon, in shades of red, green and black, were cut and individually hand-sewn onto the bottom of the velvet bodice. Machine stitched, then lining sewn into place.

I decided I didn't care for the way the gold 'belt' went up in the front of the real slave girl costumes. It also would make for a more complicated fitting of the over skirt. In the stage production the over skirt goes up to the waist and actually has the red and green velvet panels from the hip up to the waist, which match up to the red and green velvet panels of the slave girl costume underneath. 

I wanted a less bulky fit, so decided to make the gold trim go straight across the top of the 'ribbon skirt'  and embellished it with hand-beading. (and, by the way, I am working on two)

Then it was time to insert the eyelets. I use a large darning needle to start a hole where I want the 
eyelet, then make the hole bigger with an even larger dull 'smyrna' needle. I insert the eyelet, squirt 
some Fray-Check around the eyelet, and use the eyelet-setting tool and a hammer to set the eyelet. 

Sometimes the eyelet doesn't go totally flat and smooth in the back, so I roll up a paper towel and 
put it on top of the right side of the eyelet to protect it, then squeeze hard with a pair of pliers.

Inside of finished slave-girl costume

The costume is put on Rosy and laced up with narrow black ribbon. The off-the-shoulder 
beading is done next. I make sure to count and write down the number of beads in 
each row so it's easier to duplicate on the second side.

The basket full of trims to embellish the skirt

Working on the skirt. I measure where each row of trim will go and mark it with pins. 
Some trim can be sewn on by machine, while others need to be sewn by hand.

The trim needs enhancing with beads in order to match the scale of the bodice embellishment. I use larger red and green seed beads and back each one with a gold sequin in order to give the bead some extra sparkle. The gold tassels are rather fragile - the threads catch and pull too easily - so I saturate the tops of each tassel with Fray-Check. That should help keep the tassels neat.

The main overskirt pinned on. It's nice and slender-looking and close-fitting at the waist, 
which is good because it still needs to be built up quite a bit.

At this point I'm finding the bottom fringe a little too blue. The doll I dressed many years ago had this same blue and red fringe along the bottom of the overskirt, but it looks like I used black velvet instead of green on that bodice, so the blue was not an issue. Well, it's too late to do anything about it now. I have already added an extra row of red and gold fringe to help break up the blue. If all else fails I can always claim the overskirt doesn't match the bodice perfectly because it's part of Carlotta's costume and was given to Christine at the last minute.  It's going to be my excuse - er, "artistic decision" - and I'm sticking by it!

I drew up a pattern for the pointed panels and traced it onto iron-on interfacing. I looked through my fabric stash to find a suitable fabric for the panels. I found a red and a green metallic brocade. The red looked better with the costume so far. The interfacing panels were ironed onto the back of the red brocade, and  linings were cut out of black cotton. The panels were sewn, turned right side out, and pressed.

After stitching on the motif, I painted over the stitching with red sparkle paint. I then applied green paint 
to the petal edges of the blue flower. When the paint dried, I added green glitter paint to the blue flower and a bit to the gold flower as well.  The gold trim was hand-stitched around the outside.

I wanted longer hair with soft curly bangs for Christine, and didn't have enough long brown mohair
 to make an entirely new wig, so I decided to add extensions to the existing wig. I found a bag of 
10" long brown mohair which was almost the exact same colour and amount of curl to match the 
existing wig. I combed the mohair and sewed it into wefts.

It was very important that the new bangs be the exact same colour and texture as the main wig, 
so I cut lengths of hair from the nape of the neck area of the wig. With my glue-gun, I glued the
 longer wefts between toe back rows of wefting on the existing wig, and glued the bangs wefting 
along the inside of the wig-cap around the face area.

I wet the wig, and gently combed it out. I set the bangs in small curlers. Then the wig went onto a heating duct to dry overnight. Next morning I removed the curlers. I covered Rosy with plastic wrap, and put the wig on her. Some parts of her curly bangs were sticking out in odd directions, and needed taming. I saturated the bangs with hairspray and very gently worked the curls with my fingers until they were where I wanted them, I also sprayed the top of the wig to help keep the hair down.

The wig was still sticking out a bit too much at the sides, so I took another small piece of 
plastic wrap and positioned it along the front of the hairline, and held it down with a strip 
of fabric which I pinned onto the bottom of her bodice.

Rosy with her new hair extensions and 'soft' curls around her face.

Time to sew the overskirt together. I first zig-zagged the individual back skirt edges to control 
the ends of the trims and keep them from unravelling. Then I trimmed off the extra.

I pinned the skirt with right sides together, and proceeded to slowly sew the back seam. 
I broke one needle on the very thick trim section.

There was no way I was ever going to be able to press the seam flat....

...so I hand-stitched the seams down flat on the inside. Then the last beads around 
the back seam needed to be sewn on. I had left off the beads closest to the 
back edge so they wouldn't interfere when sewing the back seam together.

The overskirt was going to be held in place with strong snap fasteners, so I measured where they needed to go, and sewed snaps on the top inside edge of the skirt, and on the bodice in the middle of the golden trim where it looks more or less like part of the embellishment.

The pointed panels were sewn on, and then it was time to draft patterns for the upper drape. I pinned a piece of paper towel in place and drew the seam lines onto it. I also drew a close-fitting lining piece. 

The draping fabric was sewn onto the lining, and I checked it for fit... 
then the front gathers were stitched into place

Time to embellish the drapery. I hand-stitched two rows of metallic trim along the bottom edge, and beaded a star-burst design in the front, and glued a tapered jewel over the gold metal finding.

What I really wanted was a gold-coloured cotton Indian scarf with the metallic threads woven in, but I didn't have one in a suitable colour. Out of desperation, I took an olive green scarf and washed it with bleach, letting it soak until it turned a light canary yellow. I then mixed acrylic paint into fabric medium and painted the red and green stripes onto the scarf. I'd already painted on a few stripes before I realized I'd wanted the metallic threads to go across the scarf parallel to the stripes. Too late!

When the paint had dried, I heat-set the colour with an iron and pressing cloth. I immediately washed it, but too much colour washed out, and it was very dull. I should have waited a few days before washing.

My second option was a red, green and yellow batik Indian scarf. It was nice and bright, the perfect colours, but the stripes were huge, and very far apart. So I mixed up some green and red paint with fabric medium and carefully added more stripes in between the red and green existing stripes being careful to go around the batik designs. I heat set it with my iron, and added gold glitter stripes. This time I let the scarf lay around a week before washing.

I knotted red and green embroidery floss fringe to both ends of the scarf.

Of all the parts of the costume, the tiara was the one I was most uncertain about. I don't solder or do metal-work, so another approach was needed. I found some tiara-shaped metal pieces in my stash, but they were a bit too small. So I though I'd enlarge it a bit by wiring beads into points to add onto the back.

After wiring the first half, I traced it onto a piece of paper to use as a pattern for the second half. I made extensions on both sides for ribbon ties, then carefully wrapped the extra wire around and through the fancy metal pice. I filled in the back spaces between the wire and metal with hot glue.