Gold Dust Woman

 I know, man, this is crazy. I go like six months without blogging and then I just fucking spam you. 

Anyways. So, you might know if you exist on planet Earth right now, the world sucks. Just, really sucks. Damn pandemic. So as a result, I didn't get to go to a real Halloween party this year. God I miss cons. I need to make costumes! It was the perfect year for Halloween too. It was on a Saturday, there was a full moon, and I just bought a house. Combine that with the fact that my birthday is the week before Halloween, and I desperately wanted to have a housewarming/birthday/Halloween party and actually be the host for once. But no. No parties for us. My closest friends and I did decide that we would have a little private party though, we can't just not do something. So it was just going to be me, Cari, Rachel and Sarah. And we were still going to dress up. 

Obviously I didn't want to do anything too crazy. Recently you may have noticed I've been leaning into a boho witchy hippie feel for my style, and I'd even recently made myself a cool fringed kimono that felt very Stevie Nicks. That thought made my costume plan simple. I was gonna be Stevie Nicks. It would be easy and cheap, I had most of what I would need on hand already, and the dress I made could just go into my regular wardrobe, since Stevie Nicks is my style inspiration right now anyways.

I did more shopping than I should have, I just can't resist going the extra mile for the accessories and the details. 

I wasn't trying to get an exact look, more just channel her style, but you could say I was more or less going for this:

I could spam you with a hundred pictures to show you what I was thinking, but really I was just sort of averaging out Stevie's hippie gypsy look.

To start with, I had debates on the hat. I thought about doing a floppy brimmed round hat, even bought two options from the thrift store and went to great lengths to put a supporting wire around the excessively floppy brim of one of them and get some fabric spray paint to paint it black, which was shockingly difficult to find probably due to all the fucked up supply lines for stores right now. (FUCK COVID)

In the end I decided I wanted the top hat look which I should have just gone with from the the beginning because hilariously enough I already owned a black top hat. Some time ago Rachel and Cari and I thought we were going to dress as the girls from the Lady Marmalade music video, and I was going to be P!nk, since I'm a big fan of hers. And she wears a top hat. I had bought a few supplies for the costume when our fourth person completely bailed out on us right before Halloween, leaving us stranded and me with a handful of supplies I then had no use for. (We KNEW she was a flake, we KNEW that was a risk, but we really wanted to do it, so we just hoped really hard, and in the end got nothing.) Luckily I'm a crafter and no supplies ever go to waste, so I didn't bother to return the stuff I bought, I just held onto it thinking I'd find a use for it. One of those things I bought was a black top hat. I bought some fancy feathers and dug up scraps of lace and velvet from my fabric stash, hot glued some stuff to the hat and I was good to go.

For the record, I removed the rhinestones, I decided they looked too showgirl-y, not what I was going for. And yes, that rose IS made out of scraps of my Captain Hook coat! I swear, that thrift store fabric find is just the gift that keeps on giving. 

I also had a pair of black lace gloves that I bought during my steampunk phase and literally never wore, I just cut the fingertips off of those and they were perfect. 

For jewelry, I bought several thrift store rings, nothing special just some fun big flashy pieces, and I knew I needed to layer several necklaces, most importantly was a crescent moon necklace of some form, Stevie always wears a crescent moon. I already had one pretty filigree pendant I'd bought ages ago, and I should have just gone with that, but I wanted something solid, and I love an excuse to focus too hard on details. I actually had a hard time finding a solid silver crescent moon, in the end I ended up with one made out of a cluster of pyrite crystals that was pretty cool looking. I'm also happy to have that in my jewelry collection. I also bought a gorgeous fluorite crystal to add to it. That was just cuz it was pretty, I have plenty of other crystals I could have worn. I just wanted it. I layered that with a long round stone pendant and a gold chain with a tiny opalite bead that my daughter got me for my birthday and had a nice layered necklace look. 

For shoes, Stevie usually wears massive thick platforms of some form, but as I am almost a full foot taller than her teensy little 5'1" frame, that wasn't really gonna work for me. Luckily in one of my thrift store adventures I found this absolutely gorgeous pair of black suede knee high boots with like a 1"-1.5" heel in basically new condition in my size that I would have bought even if I didn't want them for my costume, they're beautiful. And so comfy!

Now, Stevie is blonde and in the past I have had trouble with blonde wigs. I was going to just wear my old Princess Peach wig to avoid spending money I didn't have to and just deal with a kinda shitty wig, but in the end I couldn't do it. I cracked and bought myself yet another shitty cheap wig from Walmart, but weirdly enough this cheap shitty wig had a nice natural blonde color and and good looking wave and was actually surprisingly flattering on me. I think the problem with the Princess Peach wig is that it's YELLOW not blonde and turns out I look awful with yellow hair. I'm probably going to save this Stevie wig and replace my currently Princess Peach wig, it looks so much better on me. I guess I shouldn't have tried to look like cartoon Princess Peach. Y'know, cuz I'm not a cartoon. 

I didn't bother at all worrying about Stevie's eye color, this wasn't THAT intense of a costume. 

I struggled with the shawl. I had to have a shawl of course, that was so required it's not even funny. My original vision had something black with a red or pink flowery pattern and a fringe. Maybe with sequins, a little sparkle in the shawl is totally acceptable. And in chiffon or something similar, for good drapey flowy ness. I searched thrift stores for weeks. I bought three different scarves, a skirt and a dress in an attempt to at least find fabric I liked and turn it into a shawl. I even straight up bought some black chiffon and fringe trim thinking I could sew appliques on it to get the flowers. 

Right. Sew appliques onto chiffon. THAT sounds like fun. 

It was never right. 

Side note, the reason the dress didn't work:

The dress was a very nice full length halter top chiffon flowery thing that was really very pretty. It was blue, and the color wouldn't work, but I figured I could dye it.

Ignore the fact that I'm clearly wearing the wrong bra for this dress. Isn't it pretty? 

So I bought some red fabric dye specifically for artificial fibers. Hell, I bought TWO bottles because this dress is 100% polyester and I knew from experience it didn't want to be a different color. (RIT DyeMore, if you're curious, in whatever they call the red color. I don't remember.)

After a long bath in a hot pot of super strong red dye, I got this:

Looooooook at those pretty pinks and purples! I love it so much! Once I put this on and took pictures I knew I had not bought myself fabric for a shawl, I had bought myself a new dress. There was no way I could take this apart for a shawl.

Anyways. Finally I bought a scarf off of Amazon that wasn't too expensive. I really was trying to keep the cost down for this costume and I wasn't doing a great job. But when the scarf arrived it was so SMALL. Barely any wider than one of my basic winter scarves. That did not make me happy. So I returned it and in a fit of frustration just bought a nice one that finally made me happy.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C18G86J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

There were literally three other Stevie Nickses in the reviews of this shawl. So clearly this was the way to go. It's beautiful, by the way. Sparkly and flowy and gorgeous, I love it. No red flowers, but that's okay. I'm very happy with it and I'm not sad I have it now. 

So, the last and the biggest piece, the dress!

I debated for a long time whether I should do like a tiered flowy skirt and a tank top or a dress or what, but in the end I settled on dress. I tried to just buy something, but didn't find anything quite right. And then I stumbled across something that had the exact fabric look I wanted.

Is that not. Just the worst. Thing you have ever seen. God, I don't think I've ever worn a more unflattering dress, I look like I'm wearing a goddam green lace potato sack. And what the hell is that weird lace insert at the neckline? The damn thing is nearly choking me as it is, you afraid someone is gonna see my collarbone? I hate it so much. It's so bad. The horror this picture fills me with is indescribable. However. The lacy fabric is super pretty and the alternating godet panels have a nice flowy gauzy texture, the skirt is a full circle skirt and the dress. Is 100%. Rayon. Which means it will just looooooove to change colors for me. So. I throw that dress into a boiling hot pot of black dye and let it simmer to get some of the horrible out. (regular RIT dye this time, god I love a natural fiber.)

Yessssssss. Boil, you abomination.

When it was done I had this:

Okay, let's be honest here, we all knew it wasn't the green color that was the real problem.

Originally I had thought I could just remove the sleeves, but after putting it on I knew I would need to completely redo the top part of the dress. So I cut off the top of the dress an inch or two above where the godets ended and just.... just..... just fucking THREW the top part away from me. I didn't even want to look at it. 

I started on a new top, I wanted just a basic V neck tank top style top. I did consider just making this a skirt and wearing one of my black tank tops with it, but I knew I could do better than that. 

In a box of old vintage patterns Sarah had given me a while ago, I found this:

Literally a pattern from the 70s, which is wildly appropriate for my 70s singer costume. It's so old, look how yellow the paper is! But it was a very simple basic shape and that's all I needed.

For the fabric, I dug scraps out of my scrap box. The solid black lining was actually the jersey like fabric liner from the skirt I bought thinking it could be an option for my shawl. And I decided I wanted to do a layer of lace over that just to add more lacy texture to the dress. Luckily I had several large chunks of black lace in my collection from my steampunk phase.

Why, yes, that large chunk of black lace is a piece of a dress! This was a thrift store find ages ago that I had taken apart for other reasons, and luck of all lucks, this is a STRETCHY lace! Which means no zippers or buttons or anything, this can be a pull over the head dress! And I had EXACTLY enough to make the bodice. 

So I sewed that all up, I made the shoulder straps by just cutting the hem off the original sleeves of the dress, they were almost exactly the perfect length. I did have to add darts to the bust that the original pattern didn't, and I'd just like to say that those were the most perfect smooth darts I've ever done in my life. They were the same length, came to a nice smooth point that didn't create sharp points on my bust and they made a perfect fit for my chest. ON THE FIRST TRY. I didn't have to adjust them at all, I just pinned and sewed and was done. It was glorious. I've never had that happen before, and probably never will again. Really, this whole thing was going so smoothly I should have been suspicious. 

So I had the bodice done. I could have just attached it to the skirt and called it good, but I really wanted something layered and flowy and frilly. So to start with, I pulled out the black chiffon I had bought, and basically cut out a circle skirt, except I didn't round off the corner so it would be square shaped, giving me an uneven handkerchief hem. I then sewed black satin ribbon all around the hem. I put the bodice on my dress form and pinned this part of the skirt below it so I could see what I was making.

So, next I wanted to layer the original dress skirt overtop of this, but I also wanted it to have the same square handkerchief shape as the chiffon layer. So I folded the skirt into quarters and laid it out on the floor. (DAMN I need a proper cutting table.)

I marked the middle and then about 9" up on either side. It wouldn't be a perfect square, but it would have a similar shape that would echo the chiffon layer at least. I then cut from my 9" mark to the middle.

I could have gone higher up to get a perfect square but I didn't want to lose too much length. To hem this piece, I actually took a long, long piece of ruffly black lace that I believe also came from my steampunk phase, I think it was leftover from that short burgundy bustle skirt I made, and sewed it all around the hem. I had to manually gather in a few places and carefully space it out, but I managed to have EXACTLY enough lace to do the whole hem. Man alive, I cannot believe how often things worked out exactly right for this outfit. 

I pinned this to the dress form over the chiffon layer. Next I had some big chunks of a different black lace that I just sort of free form pinned overtop, creating a little hip swag on one side and just some random extra lacy layers. I wanted the whole thing to be a little hodgepodge. 

I even like the way the shades of black aren't all exactly the same.

For the waistband, I didn't have any plain black elastic, but I did have this sparkly gold 2" wide stuff. I considered using the gold side, but decided I just wanted it to be all black, so I just made a black fabric tube for it out of scraps of the black jersey that was the lining of the bodice, since it would stretch with everything else. 

Attached the skirt and the bodice to the waistband, carefully pinning and going slow on the skirt to make sure I'm getting all the layers, and in the end I had a cool goth hippy witch dress!

I'm sorry, guys, black has got to be one of the most frustrating things to try to take pictures of. It just doesn't want to show the details. 

Halloween came, and I put it all together!

Oh right, I also added this little black corset style belt overtop, I already had that and it fit in well with the outfit. 

I was super pleased with how it came out, and I had a great deal of fun swishing around in all my flowy layers. Although I did learn I need to shorten the shoulder straps, I was adjusting those all night. It was a great costume, and now I have a sweet black lacy dress!