Tightrope Walker – Disney’s Haunted Mansion

Made for: Dragon Con 2016

Background: I only did one new costume for Dragon Con 2016, and thought I’d make this to also double as my costume for MNSSHP later in the year.

Journal Entries: Read more at my Tightrope Walker tag

(Patterns Used:
Simplicity 1728 – Bodice only, and 4156 – sleeves, and S0745 – shawl.)

Bodice/Sleeves:
For the bodice, I found a nice purple velveteen for the outer section, with a cotton interior (holding the boning) and a taffeta lining. It went together really easily, and I thought it fit really great, until I’d been wearing it about 2 hours and came to realize the waist area was too large and the shoulder section too small. I also discovered, after I had finished it, that there was a small place on the center front where the velveteen had come off the backing. I think it was like that before I cut it and I just didn’t notice until it finished. Boo! All that aside, I do like how it looks.

For the sleeves, I initially wanted to do them as remove-able, but as time got down towards the end and I got lazy, I ended up sewing them in place. I would like to go back and make them remove-able in the future! I ended up using the same sleeve pattern I’d used for Edith earlier this year, which was handy because I hadn’t put it away yet LOL. I changed the shape up a bit and made them a little smaller – worked out the kinks by making mock-ups out of lining material. The actual sleeves I made out of some rose pink layered chiffon material that I thought was really neat – lined with plain pink material and stuffed with some tulle. I gathered them in places to keep the shape I wanted.

For the upper section, I decided to use a white cotton eyelet material, I made a sort of 5 petaled strip, and gathered it at the upper edge and sewed it in place on the sleeve. For the bows, I had some pink stretch taffeta and I made them out of that, and again, sewed it in place on top.

Skirt:
The skirt I made using some matte white satin, gathered and attached to a waistband. After I finished it, I decided I wanted it to be pleated instead of gathered and went back and redid it — I’m not sure it made much difference. For the flowers, I decided I wanted to go with evenly spaced flowers from earlier art instead of the staggered flowers. I created a stencil to use as a guideline, using a thin plastic “For Sale” sign, then marked the center of each flower on the skirt and used the stencil to get the basic shape in place with fabric paint. Then I went back through and beefed up each petal.

I planned to wear the skirt over my basic hooped petticoat, but I felt it was looking a little too “rough” so I ended up making a quilted petticoat to wear over the hoop. I didn’t use a pattern – just cut the quilted cotton into segments, attached it to a large white satin waistband, and put elastic through the upper hem. I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Wig:
The wig is an Arda Glinda – I’d initially planned to reuse my Leia comic wig, which was also an Arda Glinda. But when I decided I wanted to do the wig with side curls instead of buns (again, going back to the older Marc Davis art) I decided to get a new wig. I also bought two of their clip-in ponytails, the shorter version. I had to trim a bit off them still. I went through several methods of curling them and nothing was looking right, until I started curling them vertically and pressing them in place using the straight-iron. They’re a little rough looking due to how many times I had to redo them — and I desperately wanted to keep the clips in them so I could easily remove them for transporation… but the clips are making them stick out way too far, as I realized once I’ve seen photos. I’ll get to that later. The back bun I made but just pulling it all into a ponytail and rolling it all over a sock-bun.

Between Dcon and Halloween, I decided to not use the clip-on curls any more, and instead created the side curls of the wig hair, pinned and sewn into place.

Accessories:
The parasol was just my Jane parasol, it wasn’t the right shape but close to the right colour, so in an effort to save time and money I used it — but I made a new one after Dcon, see below! Gloves were also my Jane gloves.

The shawl/capelet I made using the coronation Elsa pattern – thought I had to change the shape and make it a lot smaller than I expected. I used two layers of my velveteen, and because I really didn’t want to spend the money on trim, I made the white fur trim out of some leftover Romana fur fabric. It closes with a cape closure at the neck, but the cape closure will NOT stay closed for longer than 10 minutes, I swear — so I’m going to have to hide another closure behind it. I actually ended up making two of them — after I decided the first was too big I just made a new one from scratch without the pattern.

My shoes were my Disgust shoes, and I made straps for them out of my leftover pink stretch taffeta. I put the straps on first, then the shoes – I didn’t want them permanently sewn on since I still need the flats for Disgust.

For the makeup, I was inspired by a picture of Lillian Gish in a similar hair-do. I want to push a little farther next time I wear it, especially once I fix the wig.

Parasol:
Between Dragon Con and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, I decided to go ahead and make a new parasol. I bought a cheap $10 parasol on amazon, and when it arrived, I stripped it, and then used the original fabric as a pattern for making a mock-up. Once I had the mock-up to a good point, I cut the actual pieces out of some leftover pink Belle fabric (I dyed it to get a slightly different colour closer to what I needed). I got the fabric placed on the parasol and hand-stitched in place around each spindle, and then hand-hemmed it. The lace trim was also out of my stash.

I painted the handle and the little piece that goes on the top black before I added the fabric, and I glued the little top piece in place once everything was done. I also made a handle extension out of a wooden dowel, with a silver knob glued onto the end. The extension is easily removable so it can be packed easier, or just taken apart to make it smaller when moving through crowds. It was very handy!

Progress Photos:

History: I wore this for about 5 hours at Dragon Con 2016 – probably the longest time I’ve ever worn one costume continuously at Dragon Con. It was truly a trial by fire and I realized there was a quite a bit I needed to go back and fix/redo. I’m going to try to do as much as possible before I wear it to MNSSHP – namely redo the wig and fix the closure on the shawl. Those are the two big ones. All the other fixes – parasol, bodice fit, sleeve change-up… will come later down the line.

But, I was very happy with how it turned out despite that. It was easy to wear and I look forward to wearing it again!

                       

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