Hallowe'en sewing

Listening: Dark Turn of Mind/Autobiographical mix; currently playing "Across the Great Divide" by Kate Wolf.

I've been feeling bogged down in unsuccessful projects yet again, so I'm tossing my responsible to-do list and just picking whatever.  This isn't life or death, right?  There is no reason to get all bound up in shoulds.

Two things I would like to do by Hallowe'en.

One is the BurdaStyle 119 "Romance" dress (July 2013), which I blogged in August.  This is a recap:

I bought the download, probably against my better judgment since I'm pretty sure that model is six inches taller and twenty pounds lighter than I am, but, again--whatever.  I don't think I'd do it in pastels because then it would look even more like a nightgown than it does in that photo.

My friend Elizabeth gave me some oddball fabrics a few years ago.  One of them was black with crowds of dancing skeletons (think Where's Waldo: Postmortem):

There's only about a yard and a half, and it's directional so I can't turn it in different directions to optimize the cut-able surface area.  My thought, though, is to use 119, which is a super-simple shift dress, and piece out the rest in plain black, like so:

I might not do attached ties; I sort of feel like I should have the option to wear this with a big-ass black leather belt.  I might lower the waist/deepen the neckline to make that work.  If I wore it with a big leather belt, I could also wear it with either black stockings or fishnets, and boots.  Must be wearable with boots.

I might do the lower section as a semicircular flounce, too, instead of just piecing out the rest of the pattern's skirt. 

I think that effectively punches the saccharine out of that baby, don't you?

I've never used a Burda pattern before.  I've been ogling their dirndls (OMG, that sounds criminal!) for a long time but I want Burda 8448, and there aren't any affordable ones on eBay as I write this.  119 was a download.  I've got it all taped together and cut out, but I haven't traced my size and added the seam allowance yet.  I'm also not sure I think the directions make sense, but it's not a difficult pattern so that doesn't really matter.

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The other thing I want to do is a costume for Jeannie, who hasn't had any new clothes in way too long.  I have minimal experience making doll clothes and the scale of them totally intimidates me, but, well, it can't hurt to try.

My great-grandmother made insanely detailed doll clothes for pin money.  If ever I get visited by a ghost, I hope it's her coming back to give me advice.  

When we were kids, Mom made us endless animal costumes out of patterns like this:

 

Actually, that might be the same pattern.  The disturbing butt-wiggle on the rabbit looks familiar.

Baggy-jumpsuit animal costumes are nothing new; I've also got this one from around 1936:

So, this shouldn't be difficult, in theory.  She'd be a black cat.  I know: Imaginative.  I like cats (and, thus, she likes cats.  She has two pet mice and dog-sits my larger Hagen-Renakers occasionally, though)  She's an American Girl Hopscotch Hill doll, too (a skinny 16-inch doll) so she's not particularly small, which will make things easier.  

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So, Simplicity.com is having a sale or just sells stuff cheaply or something, and I found a discount code for 20% off a first-time order.  The dirndls are in the mail.  I got 8448, 7084, and 7870, to cover all my bases.  I already have 9457; it came with another pattern and it's too adorable to give up.  Maybe I'll have a niece some day.