DIY Candy Dress (Holy Musical B@man)

Well Hi! Want to be sugary sweet and the bright evil apple of a pink dressed man eye? Or just want to make a colourful (halloween) dress? Then stop right here and let me tell you how I did mine ;-)

- This is my first DIY also, i made the dress and then decided to make a DIY so I'm sorry if there's little photo's of the process! -

Also I'm Dutch, I tried my best to translate all...or else i give a hack of an description of the product (:

I have used:

siccors
Needle
yarn
chalk (that kind of chalk you use to draw patterns on your fabric XD)
pins (just take a lot, I didn't count them)
Baby blue lining (Shining fabric, mostly used on the inside of clothing, like coats)
Sweet pink lining
a white bra (white won't shine trough)
Thick interfacing
pattern paper
Hot glue
Glue gun
Elastic (like 1 or 1,5 inch width)
sewing machine

This picture shows the official actress with her costume.

I figure she's an EU size 36/38... so about an size 6/8, right?

Skirt
As you can see, from her waist left to right she has about 15 pleads in her skirt (so a total of 30). I would add 1 or 2 more each bigger size (depends on what you prefer and think is more beautiful).

I had about 25 pleads (mine were wider because of miscalculating) The amount of fabric was 10 meters long and 31 cm wide.
the width is equal to all dress sizes. A longer width won't stay pleaded and stay stiff.
I'll explain the measurements later to be more clearly.

For the top I used a non-stretch top to measure. I also drawn a pattern for the top as a guideline.
1. measure your waistline, divide this in 4 (because you'll get 4 parts as seen at the picture).
2. measure right underneath your breasts and also divide this in 4.

3. measure total length from top of where you want your top to start ( + inch for seam) to where you want your top to end ( I recommend your waistline + 2 inch for seaming and sewing skirt and top together

4. Do the same for your back and your side

5. Now is the tricky part. Also measure the parts for your breasts. (I actually used a bra and just pinned the fabric to it and left the bottom part open with 2 more inch so i could sew the body part and the bra part together)

6. use these measurements for your pattern

Now the skirt!

As I already explained: I used lining and interfacing. Make sure the interfacing is stiff, that will give the best results!
U can use any type of fabric, lining is really hard to work with ( it slips or gets stuck under your sewing machine a lot!), so if you're not experienced with sewing I recommend using something like cotton.

So what I actually did was I tot my total waistline measurement and decided how long the depth of the pleads would be (in my case 25 cm).

1. cut a rectangle in the length of your waistline (+ two inch for seams) and the length of how long you want your pleads to be (+ an inch on either side for the seams).

2. Take the elastic and cut it about 3 inch smaller than your waistline. (The pleads will be heavy so you'll need elastics to give you extra comfort while wearing it)

3. sew the rectangle together at the side

4. fold a bit of fabric at the top of the skirt inside like a waistband where you can put your elastic in. Sew it, but leave a hole for your elastic.

5. Then put your elastic inside it, sew both ends together and then close the hole.

7. cut your interfacing exactly the length and width of your pleads. ( in my case 31 cm, 28 width and 3 cm to use by glueing the fabric unto the underskirt).

8. For the fabrics I used a width of 33 cm.

SEWING

1. Put the good sides of the fabrics together then sew on about an inch of the fabrics along the whole length.

I recommend using a looooot of pins because the fabric might probably slip!

2. Lay the fabrics both good sides flat on your workspace then place the interfacing on the fabric which will be 'under'.
!! still use pins!!

3. sew about 1 cm in on the whole length. Do this on the side of the 'under' (in my case blue) fabric which is sewn onto the pink fabric. You might notice how it looks at the pictures.

4. put the pink fabric over the interfacing, so you'll get a sandwich with pink - interfacing - blue (see pictures).

5. Sew about 3 cm from the edge! The 3 cm is used to be glued onto the underskirt!

6. Use a extra stitch close to the edge to prevent the fabric from fraying.

--- by now you should have an underskirt and one long strap of fabric for the pleads! ---

So now it's time to take your glue gun and maybe an extra pair of hands ( you can easily do it alone... but we're talking about 10 meters of fabric you know...)

(I also heard other people who used wire to make the pleads.... you
could to that, but good wire is hard to work with/shape and other wire won't keep the shape of pleads. Besides that, there is a big risk you would damage your fabric. )

Glueing the skirt

1. In step 2 you'll see a close up of the raw edge of the fabric for the pleads. That is the side I glued unto the underskirt.

You could draw lines unto your skirt (see the picture) to take as guideline as how you want to glue your pleads.

I just went along and just glued and placed the fabric. ( It would be faster, BUT you might not be happy with the results and then you might do it again...)

!! Take your time, if you need to redo this, you will need to make another underskirt because you'll definitely see the old glue lines.

2. make sure both ends of your fabric come to the same spot. I recommend doing that in the bottom plead in stead of a top plead, because now you need to sew both ends together by hand and you'll certainly see it when it's at a top plead so to speak.

Now the skirtpart is done!

So take the measurements you had from step 1 and read the following instructions.

1. It is the easiest to start with the back. cut one half in each colour.

!! If you want to use a zipper, do it in the back which is most easily adjusted.

2. Start with the bra/breast part ( I am sorry, i don't know how to call it without making it sound naughty/gross etc.)

!! please notice in the pictures that it should not look as badly sewn and have so much fabric inside the bra. This is just for show now and I chose this to make sure you could see what you should do

So fold the fabric over the bra and start adjusting it until it looks neat. You might want to pin the fabric while doing that.

3. start by sewing the fabric at the upper part of the bra.

- you might want to double fold it at the inside to make a neat hem. If you are not that experienced, you could just hand sew it. If you chose a padded bra, you don't have to worry that you also see yarn at the outside, because you can use the padding as a layer ;-)
If you did not make a hem, make sure to cut away all the leftover fabric.

3b. you might have a bra with straps like I did. I measured the width and length of the straps, then cut fabric (double the width), sewn over the lentgh (good side inside), turned it inside out and sew the fabric straps onto the bra.
Easier way: Just fold some fabric over the straps and sew it by hand!

4. now sew the back fabric and the bra part fabric together at the side (so approximately under your armpit).

5. Sew the two colours (bra part) together and you might want to use a couple of stitches to secure it to your bra.

6. Cut two rectangles for the belly part.

7. pin about 2 inches of fabric together with the back part. You want to do this to make sure the belly and back part will be the same length while doing nr. 8.

8. Try and place the belly fabric onto the bra part. Adjust it so you get that round shape. Once you are happy with the result, you can sew it by hand.
-- I recommend doing a secure stitch --

9. sew the parts together (so the back part onto the belly part and also the two belly parts together).

Now you may want to make a seam and the bottom of your top, but you don't have to. We still have to sew the skirt and the top together!

When you look at the waistband of the skirt, you'll see that stitch which you made for the elastic. We will use that again!

1. Place the skirt over the top as high as you want your skirt to be (you have already measured that in step 1).
elastic waistband as a guideline.

2. Pin the top and skirt together.

3. Sew the skirt and top, over the stitch you have used to make the waistband.
This will make sure you don't sew over the elastics and it will look a lot more beautiful (less stitches/seams/hems is more!).

4. now the top of the waistline is still loose and that might look a little floppy. So we will sew that onto the top as well!

Make sure to do that very close to the edge, it will look a lot cleaner this way!

And now you have a very cute dress!!

Now you can also decide not to use a bra...

You can still use a basic (tank)top as a pattern, but the results by the bra part will look a lot more sloppy. I would like to see some pictures of your results!

This is my braless result (I DID WEAR A BRA but just not use one in the dress)

Have fun xxx