When my coworker insisted at the beginning of October that we all dress up for Halloween, I knew I had to do something royally awesome. Having never actively sewn anything worthy before (aside from some minor mending and fixing velcro on my husband's motorcycle gloves), I started early to give myself time, or fix my backup costume (Kaylee from
Firefly) just in case this easy dress didn't pan out.
Easy, or so I thought at the time. What could be harder? I knew I needed to do a mock-up of the dress to ensure I didn't waste my good fabric when I screwed up. What I didn't anticipate was all the other stuff I learnt while trying to make this silly thing.
I knew I wanted the dress to be blue. Can't be a red shirt! Plus I think I look better in blue, and I just wanted to be a general Sciences officer. I searched all over online trying to find some kind of pattern to indicate how the dress was pieced together. Google sorely disappointed me. Absolutely nothing in the realm of patterns for this new dress. So I went to option #2: making my own pattern after studying the dress extensively in various pictures. The most helpful was the actual replica sold on
Avonos, with 360˚ pictures of the dress. I also spotted a small (albeit helpful) picture of a pattern that
this girl created for her own dress. It was my spring-board for a pattern.
Sharing all this with my mother-in-law (who sews, or did a while ago), she had some pattern-making books that she gave me. I couldn't make any sense out of them. So I threw them aside and just started with a t-shirt from my closet and traced it onto some newspaper from my recycling bin. Using my own body measurements, I set to work attempting to make something workable. I had an old sheet in the closet that I didn't plan on using at all in the near or late future, so that was the fabric I used for my mock-up.
What didn't work out I re-drew with a pen (while still wearing the thing). Then I took all the pieces apart and traced them onto another set of newspaper for a new pattern. These I then used to cut out the actual fabric.
Now, I've never attempted anything like this before, so I was flying by the seat of my pants here. I really don't know the proper way to go about it! But everything seemed to work out, so don't judge me. It's not like I have my mother or grandmother around to teach me these things (mom lives out of town, grandmother passed).
I spent forever at my local fabric warehouse trying to find the closest fabric I could for the dress in the color blue I wanted. In my research, people used dye and screen-printing to get the little chevrons all over the fabric, but I really don't have the money for all that. I had the pattern down, and as long as I could get a decent Badge Pin to wear, I was going to be proud of my creation (provided the thing looked halfway decent on me).
Research indicated that a stretchy/knit fabric (which was what I ended up going with, due to its flowing abilities) would require special stitching and a ball point needle on my sewing machine. The needles were Schmetz Jersey/Ball Point Needles and definitely worked better on my fabric. A standard needle had a much harder time going through the fabric, and also skipped some stitches occasionally. These improved things a lot. Since I don't have a serger, I read that a zig-zag stitch on the seam of knit material helps the material be able to stretch along the seam if/when needed. I sewed the entire dress this way (except the collar, but I'll get there).
Somewhere along the line, the pattern got a bit skewed, so I had to fix those mistakes. Thankfully, I was able to without them being visible - you'll never know they're there, unless you know what to look for. They look intentional!
I'd already purchased some tall black boots to wear with leggings a few years back, so I knew those would be perfect to wear with the dress. All I needed were some tights (cheap Hanes from Target) and that famous Badge!
My husband is a mechanical engineer, and part of his job entails creating parts on Pro-E and printing them using a 3D printer. You can see where I'm going with this... He created the badge for me and printed it out. We spray painted it silver, and it looks fantastic.
Regular silver fabric paint didn't stick very well, so we had to spray paint it. Because this kind of plastic is very porous, we couldn't Sharpie the Science inlay. Better to spray-paint it first. We used Krylon Fusion for Plastics spray paint to make sure it stuck to the badge. Worked like a charm!
We super-glued a safety pin to the back of the badge and called it good. (There were better pins to have used, but this was the first day of our Halloween contest, so I had to finish soon.)
A friend helped me hem the dress, since I very well couldn't do it myself and have it turn out straight. (Here's where a body double dress form would come in VERY handy! Next project...) I had to top-stitch the detail on the collar, because I couldn't figure out how to do it otherwise :/ But I think it turned out well! Only I know that it's not supposed to be that way (and now you too).
Due to the nature of this dress - aka its shortness - I had to wear additional shorts underneath. I've not yet made the black collar or the unitard to wear underneath the dress, but those will indeed be done later. Definitely had to be careful bending over, shorts or no. I get to wear the dress again tomorrow, 9-5, and then do my grocery shopping. I'm a nerd and so excited to do this!
Live long and prosper!
