And onto the skirt...

Its hard to know exactly where to start with the skirt, it not being a typical shape. So I used this pattern as a base.

It has a long train section, a version of which I think would look lovely underneath the folded wings.

I shuffled it around a bit, I ignored the stay section of the pattern and fitted it over the bustle. I does give a nice shape, but not quite what I wanted.

So I got a large piece of calico, pinned, tucked, and nudged it around into place.

Then I cut out the shape that I wanted. And went off to analyse swan wing anatomy for a while to get the feather shapes.

And after about an hour, drawing and redrawing, I sketched it roughly onto the calico.

It looks pretty decent I think, time for the next stage of toiling.