Showing posts with label craftingcon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label craftingcon. Show all posts

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!