I thought my days of making Bunny costumes were over, so imagine my surprise and pure joy to discover that her year 11 river cruise was a costume event. Happy dancing all over my house friends!!! The theme was iconic duos and trios, and Bunny is quite well known for always wearing dutch braids to school – so her friends wanted to do the Addams Family with Bunny as Wednesday. I will clarify that they were aiming to recreate the 1990’s Addams Family, so Bunny’s inspiration was Christina Ricci as Wednesday (which i hope we can all agree is the best Wednesday).
I really want to start telling you about the fabric first because it was the most amazing find. I knew that the fabric would be key to this look, and Bunny was very keen to get the white roses on black background. So imagine my delight when I found this beautiful Rose Crinkle Crepe at The Fabric Store! I immediately ordered 5m because apparently I lost all ability to think and do math. I now have a lot of crinkle crepe left over. Might need to make myself something!
I was really happy with the crinkle crepe, because Bunny wanted a dress that looked relatively fitted but she absolutely hates tight clothing. So this worked perfectly as the crinkle crepe essentially stretches, she never felt constricted. For the collar I had a small amount of some really beautiful cotton shirting I had left over from this Dove blouse. Unfortunately i kind of wish I had those offcuts now as I have since ripped that blouse and need to repair it!
The buttons are just white buttons from my stash. Bunny really couldn’t decide what buttons she wanted, so we just went with something neutral. We actually started with half as many, and it just didn’t look right so we doubled the amount of buttons and I think it looks much better now.
The hair was a pretty funny problem. Bunny’s hair is usually quite long, and as I mentioned she always wears dutch braids to school. However, she had been growing it out to donate, and just two weeks earlier she cut most of it off above the shoulder. We obviously had not thought the timing through! So in what can only be described as a hilarious twist of fate, I braided brown hair extensions into her hair to make her braids as long as they used to be so they could look more like Wednesday for the event. We couldn’t stop laughing!
Ok so for the pattern. Friends I’m sorry to say, this is a super-duper-franken-pattern. Here’s the run down for you:
- Collar – from the Matilda sewing pattern
- Collar stand – from the Matilda sewing pattern
- Bodice – actually just my bodice block with no alts
- Button placket – from the Matilda sewing pattern
- Sleeve – from the Sudley sewing pattern
- Skirt – from the Matilda sewing pattern (sans pockets)
It’s a shame it’s not a real pattern because Bunny really loves it and now wears this dress casually. So that turned out well! Since Bunny is always cold and I knew she would wear tights (most likely fleece lined) to her event, I also added a lining to the skirt to prevent the skirt clinging to her tights, which is one of my most hated things ever.
Unfortunately only after cutting the skirt and collar stand from what i thought was a black rayon in my stash, did i discover it was actually a silk crepe de chine…. so that was a bit sad. Thankfully Bunny is at an age where she really looks after her clothes so that softened the blow of accidentally using silk as a costume lining. Cry.
All in all, I couldn’t be more pleased with how this costume turned out! It was so fun and a completely different vibe than what Bunny usually goes for. She had an amazing night with her friends, and as the icing on the cake, she even won best dressed!
Okay so Bunny really tried her best to stay in character, as she wanted very “Wednesday vibes” photos – but Bunny is kind of the opposite of Wednesday, and she couldn’t help giggling each time she tried to be grumpy. So from here on in I give you, Bunny as herself:
