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Addams Family, Beauty, blog, cosplay, costume, design, DIY, do it yourself, dress, Gomez and Morticia, hair color, hair color spray, hand sewing, Hard Candy, how, How-To, Lipstick, Makeup, Mascara, Morticia, Morticia Addams, performance fabric, personal, Pictures, remembering, sewing, sewing machine
Bonjour mon cheries!
Joli here with another update-this one of the nerd variety!
AnimeFest2013 has come and gone and boy howdy has it been a whirlwind event! Along with Commodore Sanders-one of my cosplay partners, I did an Addams Family cosplay! I was cosplaying Morticia and well-until early Friday morning(the first day of the convention!!!!!) I hadn’t made the outfit yet! And I needed it for Saturday!
AHHH!
But, I do some of my best work Under Pressure(one of my favorite songs too! Love Freddie and David Bowie!) so please join me as I revisit making my Morticia cosplay!
Now, I already had all of the fabric, thread, etc that I needed to put the outfit together, and I watched Ditty Dazzle or Ase0esA‘s (depending on where you find her!) video on how to make the dress-and LOVED the way it broke things down- and used that as a base for my own styling of Morticia’s dress. I had a dress that was the basic shape that I wanted for the gown, so I used that and had added some of my own modifications and the like, which I put in to my dress that she didn’t do to her’s. I’ve added a long zipper down the side seam on the right(easy out!), tied on wrist dangles and modified the V plunge of the neckline, so it has more of a curve and is off the shoulder-which is more flattering to my body type.
Honestly I feel so bad, I’ve been such a procrastinator about this-and I’m usually so good about getting cosplays done well before the start of the convention! So here’s how I broke down a costume that should have taken me all day into about 3.5 hours. Now, I have a rotary tool and board AND a sewing machine and let me tell you-that really cuts down on the time! Hand sewing can take forever-past experience believe you me!
To begin, I had five yards of black performance fabric-that’s the stuff leotards are made out of-and went ahead and cut off one full yard and set that aside for later. I used this later to make the tentacles at the bottom of my dress. Next thing I did was fold the remaining four yards in half lengthwise and then in half again width-wise. This way, when I cut out the dress “pattern” I only had to do it once. I pinned together the tops of the shoulders and the entire left side, while leaving the bottom half on the right side pinned to the zipper. Then taking my arm measurements from my shoulder to my knuckles and then again at my bicep, elbow and wrist, I used white chalk to sketch out a sleeve pattern before cutting and pinning the sides together. Start to finish with the shaping, cutting, and pinning of the fabric took about an hour and 40 minutes.
Once everything was pinned, I ran everything through the sewing machine once just getting everything together and then again taking it in places where it needed it, all of which took about a total of about 50 minutes.
The next part-which was by far the easiest thing to do was also one of the more time-consuming. I took the yard I had set aside and folded it in half width-wise and then in half again lengthwise. Using the same white chalk as before, I sketched out a series of triangles for the tentacles at the bottom of her dress. Now, my original plan for these was to have 8 to 10 all around the bottom of the dress with a wire inside to keep them out and away from my feet. But as I made this Friday morning, I didn’t have time to get the wire that I needed, so I kept them limp-more like the black and white TV series. After cutting out the tentacles, attached them and then made the adjustment to the neckline. All in all, this part took about an hour. Here’s what the top of the dress looks like on!
There you go, a Morticia Addams dress in 3.5 hours.
Here is an image of the finished dress and with my darling Gomez!
Well, that’s all for now! I’ll be uploading more pictures to my deviantART account! As I make more cosplays, I’ll be making more of these posts. Talk to y’all soon!
Hurdy Gur!
xoxo
Joli