Lady Sewalot: My Halloween Costume!

Every halloween I invite a bunch of friends over for some good food and a couple of films (We watched The Birds and Dark Shadows). This year after a lot of humming and harr-ing and about a thousand different ideas I decided that I was going to be a vampire. This was what I came up with.

The pattern I used for the bodice was Style 3794. It consists of an elasticated neck and huge puff sleeves which are also elasticated. A zip is supposed to go in the back but that was omitted due to the fact that I am much smaller than a size 10 so it wasn't needed. I also omitted the bust darts because I didn't have time to fit them properly and the bodice was going to be tucked in anyway. I held the front pattern piece to the mannequin so see how much to take out of the centre fold. This ended up being about 2 inches. My skirt fabric wasn't wide enough for the pattern pieces of this pattern so I used the pattern that I used for the skirt of my prom dress instead.

Fabricwise I used taffeta for both the main bodice, sleeves and skirt. The wine coloured taffeta I found in a remnant bin for 2 pounds! Bargain! I didn't have enough of that for the skirt as well so I found some black/blue taffeta at Leicester market which was also a bargain at 15 pounds for 3 metres. I used some black lace also found at Leicester market. Sadly there was only enough for the neck ruffle and not the sleeve ruffle but luckily there was enough left for a belt.

This is what it looks like untucked. I didn't have time to hem it or the ruffle actually but they're both okay because the top is tucked in anyway, and the lace won't fray so IT'S FINE.