Sunday, October 30, 2016

Bringing home the Spirited away dress



Besides posting on my own blog, in the previous months, I have also been posting on the Craftingcon blog. Today, I am bringing one of those posts home, one that fits the halloween theme. The Craftingcon blog has a different theme every month, and the dress that I am showing today, was sewn for the "anime" theme. I picked one of the most well known Japanese animation movies (and one I have actually seen), Spirited Away to base the look on.



The movie is about a little girl who ends up in a world with ghosts. Those ghosts were the inspiration for this outfit. The ghosts are black and have a white mask for a face. Somehow the Groove dress by Made it patterns immediate came to mind as the base for this garment. The pattern cover shows a super cool black dress, so it might not be hard to imagine where my pattern inspiration came from.



For a while I was doubting how to incorporate the face. For long I was planning to do a flex print on the front, but then I got the idea to do it at the back of the hood. I choose the high low hem version, so that meant the back was going to be extra long. Perfect ghost material. Then I decided to just use a mask for the shoot and keep the dress black. I started cutting the dress from black summer sweat (bought at Joyfits) and realized there was no way to cut a full hood from the fabric. I had one meter and had been a bit optimistic (who ever reads fabric requirements).



No problem, enter my original plan. I pieced a hood together from black leftovers and some silver sparkling sweat (also from Joyfits). I considered using some white fabric, but I feared that that would result in an unwashable garment. This silver sparkle fabric is kind a grey, so totally fine to wash with black. I cut some flex by hand (which was actually a left over from somebody else, that I snatched with permission on a gathering, because I could not stand it going into the bin)



My girl, who is usually into colorful clothes, loved this addition to her wardrobe. It was a bit warm when I sewed it, but it is perfect for this weather. My daughter was very willing to play a little ghost for the shoot. Especially because I allowed her to put it on backwards as well. How cool would it have been if I actually made holes for the eyes!


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