Historical Sew Fortnightly: Embellishment

Can I still count it as an historical embellishment project if it's not entirely period-accurate? I took my plain dark green shieldmaiden gown and added braided trim and a medallion belt.

I cannot for the life of me set in sleeves properly. 

The gown is loosely based on Eowyn's dark green gown from The Two Towers, which in turn is loosely based off of the medieval cotehardie or bliaut.

"A fresco depicting the story of 'the foolish virgins' from Castel d'Appiano in Trentino Alto Adige, Italy:
See the long flowing sleeves and the tight waists." [source]

Medieval women hunting. Not sure how they managed with trains and long flowy sleeves...[source]

A snowball fight in a dark green dress with gold trim, from an Italian fresco, dated to 1400-1407. [source]

As a historical project, this dress fails on a lot of counts -- like oh, the fact that it's constructed from cotton bedsheets -- but to the extent that I could, I tried to find examples to back up my choices. I took artistic license with princess seams and the slit up the middle of the bell sleeves, but kept the tight bodice, wide neckline, wide skirt with a train, and impractically huge sleeves over a tighter undersleeve.

The neck is so wide it doesn't stay on my shoulders very well. The necklace I found to go with it is just a cheap gold-colored one from Forever 21, but I thought the flowers looked vaguely like simbelmyne. 

For the trims, I kept the green and gold combination of my inspiration outfit, but did my research backwards. See, one of the first things you learn about how to study the Bible is not to go in with a preconceived idea, and then look for verses to back you up. Rather, you approach with an open mind and see what the Bible actually has to say. Well, I've got my costume hermeneutics all wrong, as I went ahead and picked out a trim, then went back to paintings that were vaguely contemporary and tried to find ones that would support my choice.

This painting of some dude from 1460 shows a black and gold braided trim that looks similar to mine. [source]

This painting of the Infanta Catalina Micaela de Austria from 1585 (I know, totally the wrong time period) shows a medallion belt of sorts. Actually, it might not even be a belt; it might just be trims at the waistline of her dress. [source]

And here's a closer look at my medallion belt:

It was really hard to photograph the medallions of the belt (okay, I wasn't really trying very hard and just snapped these pictures quickly), but they're a slightly different shade of gold than the trims, and both are slightly different from the gold in the necklace. The perfectionist in me is bothered by the three clashing shades of gold, but then I have to remind myself that nobody's going to be looking that closely, and the party won't be happening in broad daylight so the lighting will be more forgiving. 

The medallions I ordered were originally individual "antiqued brass" filigree pieces. I ended up coloring each of them with a gold metallic calligraphy pen to get them to be gold-colored, instead of a dirty gray-brown. I then used a whole lot of jump rings to put them all together into a belt. I know it hardly counts as jewelry-making, but I am so pleased with how this belt turned out. Even Mr. Cation was impressed and really liked the final product, and he's got some pretty high standards!  

Just the facts, ma'am:
The Challenge: #4 -- Embellishment
Fabric: Dark green 100% cotton king-sized flat sheet...squeezing in all my huge pattern pieces was the most mentally taxing part of the whole project! The bell-shaped oversleeves are lined with part of a light gold-green cotton sheet.
Pattern: Butterick 4571, a costume pattern if ever there was one, considering that one of the fabric recommendations is panne velvet...at least there isn't a zipper at the back.
Year: Modern
Notions: 4 yards of gold and black braided trim, 24 metal filigree medallions, lots of 1/4" brass jump rings, 26 metal eyelets for the back lacing
How historically accurate is it? Hah. Hahaha...yeeeaaahhh. I'm just going to laugh awkwardly and move on to the next question. I'm only including this as a HSF project because it's in the spirit of the challenge. Kind of.
Hours to complete: I'm still not done with the dress, as I need to hem it and sew on the lacing strips in the back. The embellishment, though, took a good five+ hours to hand-stitch the arm trim since it wouldn't fit around my machine's free arm, and I brilliantly decided that I wanted two rows of braid. The belt took another two hours, but with lots of breaks so as to avoid poisoning myself with fumes from the ink.
First worn: I'll be wearing it for the TORN party on Oscar night!
Total cost: $4 for the sheets, $3 for the eyelets, $10 for the belt materials, and the braided trim was free from Wholeport.com, as part of a prize from a contest two years ago. $17 total for a vaguely historical-flavored gown.

I know, I know, I'd make a terrible fashion historian. Hey, I'm just going to pull evidence from the wrong gender and the wrong time period, and do it all after I've already made my choices. Good thing this is just a costume!