sharon’s costume marais

This year for Halloween, my preteen daughter wanted to dress up as a Greek goddess. Her choice led to a bit of easy creativity on my part.

I instantly knew that the Marais Knit Dress + Top would be perfect, with very few modifications needed. This pattern made it so easy. I used a woven white fabric to make this dress. I didn’t make any alterations whatsoever to the bodice. My daughter was between bust measurements so I went with the larger size. I probably could have gone up one size, but this one fit her nicely.

I did make some modifications to widen the skirt. I slashed the skirt pattern pieces vertically from the hem every 1 1/2″ and spread the slashes 1″ to add width. This created slight gathers for both the front and back skirt pieces. I also lengthened the skirt 2″.

To add the ribbon to the bodice, I first sewed the skirt piece onto the bodice as called for in the pattern. Then I pressed my ribbon into a curve to follow the pattern piece along the bottom of the bust. I lowered the temperature on my iron for this step because the ribbon was not made of cotton. [Note: Pressing in a curved shape will cause the ribbon the stretch along one side but not the other, creating a lovely curve. Then the ribbon will stretch and lay nicely for pinning and stitching.]

Next, I pinned the ribbon to the bottom of the bodice pieces (not on the skirt portion), stitching along the top and bottom of the ribbon. Then I sewed both front and back bodice pieces together. In this way, the ribbon was sewn nicely into the side seam.

This was a fun, easy sew. I really found this pattern so be so versatile! My daughter says that the woven dress is very comfortable and plans on wearing this summer as well. It is just as nice in a woven as it is in knit.