how i made my halloween costume in 48 hours ♡

    

helloooo everyone and happy halloweek! at fsu, halloween is a week long event, but i've been kept pretty busy with my classes. i'm trying to grind all my work tonight because my friends are coming to town tomorrow evening!! but more importantly, i just finished my padme costume eekkkkkkk and guys it turned out so great (dw i've included pictures)!

if you haven't read my earlier blog post (which you totally should), i'm being padme in lake como and my boyf is going to be anakin!! my mom made this dress a while back in its full length version, but tally is soooo gross at the bars i had to make a mini version! it was a bit easier because it was way less fabric, but there weren't many instructions for a dress of half the length.

                     

pics for reference of the original!!

 

okay so first thing was first: i had to make the underdress. naturally, i headed to the thrift and got a $5 white bed sheet (even though the real underdress is some sort of satin, my mom said it was really heavy and hard to sew so i was like meh, no one's gonna see it anyway). then, i literally wrapped it around my body and started cutting. in this moment, i realized how badly i need a dress form!! anyways, i messed up the first version but the second one fit good enough. i've never made anything with a high neck and low back, so it was a challenge. i was going to make the "how to lose a guy in 10 days" dress for prom senior year, but the fabric didn't come in on time (i'll make it soon for weddings don't worry).

 

 
the last time i wore a star wars costume

after that was everyone's most dreaded part: dyeing the fabric. i ordered 5 yards of chiffon on amazon for $15 (such a good deal) and it was perfect! i had to cut it in half to make it a mini dress, and then i got a $3 plastic tub from the thrift to dye. i got four colors of the synthetic rit dye at walmart ($4 each, $16 total). i can comment the exact ones if you want to make this yourself, but they were yellow, pink, blue, and purple. i also got a thing of satin bias tape at walmart that was probably ~$3. 

 

my biggest issue: where was i going to hang 15 feet of fabric to dry? i'm in college, so my dorm room is literally the size of a shoebox. none of my friends have a yard and i'm so far from home i can't just make a pit stop for the weekend. i went to dollar tree and got a clothesline and clothespins (~$10) and tied it to the fire sprinkler thing on my roof and my closet door (my boyfriend's genius idea, and a fire hazard i know i know). magically, it was the perfect length for all my fabric!!
 

i then just read a bunch of old blogs of people making this and watched a couple videos until i felt confident enough to start dyeing (if anyone wants the links just lmk)! i just used hot water from the shower instead of a pot of boiling water like the instructions said was absolutely necessary, and it turned out just fine.

the dyeing process in my dorm bathroom

 

it has to be a sort of sunset like gradient for the chiffon, which i just eyeballed and used the shower rod to help section it out (and my boyfriend, although he was quite useless). it honestly wasn't as hard as i thought it would be! i then hung it to dry until the next day, just to be safe. i also dyed the underdress in a simple ombre, as well as the bias tape (which was just yellow for the top edge, because i didn't grab enough to line the bottom edge, but it looks okay anyway!). 

the precarious drying situation

 

when i came back, it looked perfect! i worried it would be too light after drying, since everyone said polyester is super hard to dye and it doesn't hold it well, but i loved the pastel of it and it was exactly what i was going for. then came the actual creation of the dress. i surprisingly did this all in about five hours with my boyfriend spectating (which honestly stresses me out like eeekkk no one can see my mistakes until it's all done) and i only had oneeeee mental breakdown at the end.

 

so first i had to make the arm sleeves that the gathered chiffon attaches to, which i just made out of extra scrap fabric from my collection. i then gathered the front at the neck by hand, which was pretty easy, and attached it to the underdress (also by hand, just because i don't trust my sewing machine). it was pretty hard for me to pinpoint where i wanted the arm gathers, so i just made my boyfriend hold the dress at the neck while i messed around until i liked it. they are still uneven, but i don't really mind!

 

then, i gathered each arm section of the chiffon and attached it to the arm sleeve by hand. then for the back, i just eyeballed the drape that i liked and just sewed randomly honestly (by hand). it still looks kind of wonky and when i look at my mom's version i am soooo jealous how effortlessly amazing hers looks, but it's okayyyyyyy. 

 

  
my mom's insaneeee perfect version

then, i had to sew on the satin ribbon to the chiffon and neckline which made me crash out. satin and chiffon are like the two hardest things to sew ever, so it kept puckering at the neckline and i was like wow i hate it i cannot go on and my boyfriend was like "girl put the iron down you are crazy just take a break and come back tomorrow," so that's exactly what i did! 

 

the final product!!

with fresh eyes, i was like okay i did an awesome job and from there i just had to attach the hook closure ($3) around the neck. it's kind of on the side because i cut the ribbon at a bad spot but i don't really care, and i sewed that by hand too! after putting it on and sending a pic to everyone i know, i was like okay wait i did eat.

 

so yeah that's how i made it! i hope no one looks this up and thinks it's a tutorial in ten years, but if you want to know more to make it yourself please comment and i'll help as best as i can! i'm a pretty amateur sewer (even though i've done it forever), so nothing's perfect but i loveeeee how it turned out and i can't wait to wear it out! comment what you're being for halloween i'm so curious <33