SALLY COSPLAY & Pattern

Hope you've seen Tim Burton's stop-motion, animated musical, dark fantasy, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" from 1993.

Sally, was a long time, an inspiration for a desired cosplay.

The idea was to create an outfit that will be comfortably to wear on a cold night. So, a cozy thick fabric will be used for this project.

| 8 COLORS OF FABRIC | MUSLIN | PINS | THIN PAPER | DRESS FORM OR THE PATTERN | SEWING MACHINE | THICK TREAD | NEEDLES | SCISSORS | FABRIC MARKER | MASKING TAPE |

Print screens from the movie or any other sources.

The aim is the dress, so images from all the sides. That, will help with the patch placement. It was hard to get a clear shot of the dress back side, but since this side will be mostly covered by the long hair, it is of less importance.

A thin paper was crinkled and pinned onto a dress form. Crinkled paper is nicer to work with.
This, 3D canvas of the dress shape, made it possibility to draw the patches straight on it.

Now the muslin can be shaped and pinned to onto the crinkled paper and the dummy.
There are plenty of tutorials on how to draft a pattern from scratch, or you can get creative. For example: use an existing dress that you like and drape on it. If you can cut some old dress, even better, just make sure that you draw the intersection lines of the patches.

Add notches and naming for easier assembly.

CLO is a pattern making software that was downloaded just for this project.

The pattern was made for specific measurements which are added in an image as a reference. So, you can print it and make the changes for your measurements.

The pattern was never tested, and it was created as a guide. There are 15 pages of a big A3 format paper.

IMPORTANT: The pattern is without seam allowances.

Pick up eight colors of the same material type.

Here are the picked swatches of a merino blend fabric. It is soft and nice to skin, with beautiful drape.

Colors:
Two light pinks (smoky and baby)
Two light neutrals (sand and warm gray)
Two dark blue/green pallet (turquoise and smoky, grayish-green)
One dark Purple (dark plum)
One dark Bordeaux (red wine)
Thick thread of some dark color.

Only after you'll pick the colors of your choice and after a tested muslin version of the dress, you'll be able to know how much fabric you'll need to buy.

Before cutting the pattern, a stitching swatch test was made. Here it was understood that a traditional seam sewing will be very bulky with this material.

The fabric thickness and fluffiness, makes it perfect for a stitching seam without any allowances. It means that both of the parts are laying next to each other while joining them. The needle travels, precisely, between the fabric parts that were previously joined and pinned.

Two types of stitch were considered, a blanket and a zigzag. The zigzag made a nicer and smoother stitching line. Then, on top of the machine seam, was added a decorative, hand sewn stitch with a very thick thread.

So now we can cut the pattern without the seam allowances and joint them together.

The pattern was cut with only two places for the seam allowance - the zipper and the sleeves.

Just make sure to place a zipper if you are sewing a snug fit.

Floral elements and lines were drawn with a fabric marker.
Hand stitches were added with a big needle.
Fabric edges were cut & distorted by chaotic cuts.
Circles and small patches were sewn onto the dress.

Burning the edges of the dress is much nicer on a natural fabric. Synthetic ones will leave a plastic residue that can be scratchy.

That's All Folks!
Have Fun :P

by Irena Tsibulka