Metallic Webs

It's time for the annual Halloween frock.

I purchased this fabric last year along with the ghost knit that I made into a DVF reproduction wrap dress for last year's dress.  When the fabric showed up, I realized that the metallic spiderwebs were printed on top of a black cotton knit that was obviously stretchy, but the printed bits were not.  That meant that once the fabric was slightly stretched, the webs were going to look a bit broken.  I wasn't sure how that was going to look, so I put it aside and went with the ghosts and forgot about the webs at the time.

But this year I thought that I should make something with that spider web fabric since it was still sitting around, so I pulled out a few patterns from the stash.  There were a few options that would work for the look I was going for, and in the end, I went with Vogue 2064.  One of the main reasons for that choice was that the pattern includes a center back zipper which I figured would minimize the amount of stretching of the spiderwebs.

The dress design has interesting seaming, although it gets a bit lost in this fabric print.

But the pattern goes together very easily.  My main issue was not quite enough yardage to get the length that I wanted, so cutting the pieces out was the most aggravating part of the process.

And I am happy to say that this sleeve is nice and fitted (unlike most knit patterns that I have used) so I am definitely going to reference this pattern piece for future projects.

I went ahead and used an invisible zipper as suggested by the pattern after fusing a strip of interfacing the the back opening edges.  Interestingly enough, the metallic spiderwebs did just fine with an iron (although I did use press cloth because I didn't want to press my luck!).

Everything really did go together quite easily.

Because I wanted to save as much length as possible, I just serged the hem edge and folded up the serged bit for a narrow hem.

As with most of my knit projects, I prefer to hand sew the hemlines (skirt & sleeves).  This avoids stretching the edge out, not to mention that I enjoy a bit of hand sewing.

The dress is quite body-con, which is not exactly what I was going for - but to be fair to the pattern, it does look fitted on the pattern envelope.  I was just thinking that a 100% cotton knit was not going to be quite so clingy as a rayon/spandex, for instance.

I was considering this to be a wearable muslin since it's a very niche print that isn't going to see a whole lot of wear, and it was the perfect excuse to try more of a contemporary silhouette than I generally choose.

I am not entirely convinced that I will be making another version in a less holiday themed print, but the dress did turn out great . . . it's just not exactly what I had in mind when I started it!