Exploring 17th Century Dress: Halloween Witch

I’m alive! And late 🙁 I wanted to get this posted before Halloween but sadly this post is now tragically out of season. However, I did get the project completed in time to go trick or treating with my niece and nephew, which was a lot of fun. My last historical dress adventure was exploring the 18th century, and this time we are traveling a century earlier to the 1600’s! I thought it would be fitting to make a Salem trial-era 17th century witch costume for Halloween.

Materials

I used a mix of old and new material for this project. The pieces that needed the most amount of fabric were constructed out of an old cotton bed sheet set which I dyed (or attempted to dye) black. I used Rit Dye and Fixative. However, in retrospect, I should have purchased a better quality black dye to achieve the deep color I wanted. Lesson learned! I started with a faded, light teal set of sheets and ended up with multiple greys. Here are the results next to a black lens cap. I tried to salvage at least the top sheet by re-dying it with a “Back to Black” set which was good enough for my purposes.

I purchased a remnant piece of silk taffeta from Renaissance Fabrics for the stays and sleeve embellishments. In addition, I sourced matching silk thread, cording, ribbon, and a busk from a few other places such as Burnley and Trowbridge and Corset Making Supplies. I also bought some plain white linen for the chemise. In terms of patterns, I used Reconstructing History patterns for the stays and petticoat, and Daisy Victoria’s chemise pattern.

Witch’s Hat

I made a witch’s hat last year based on Lady Rebecca Fashion’s tutorial. However, I didn’t have any millinery wire to reinforce the rim. While it was very cute, it was too slouchy to be functional. I decided to take apart the hat and make it better this year.

First, I purchased millinery wire and zigzag stitched it along the brim. I then added some wire up the seam allowance of the cone and whip-stitched it in place. This gave the hat much more structure.

I reattached the cone to the brim with a backstitch and bound the seam allowance with cotton twill tape.

Chemise

This was, by far, my favorite part of this costume. I hand-sewed this entire chemise based on this pattern, using construction techniques from Burnley and Trowbridge’s 18th century sew-a-longs. I also consulted Festive Attire’s blog post on her 17th century Italian chemise which was free. I learned a lot, including how to pull threads for the first time!

Bum roll

To really get that 17th century witch silhouette, I had to make a bum roll. I used a free resource I found from elizabethancostume.net. Obviously, not the same time period but it did the trick. I used the scrap fabric stuffing from my last post to fill it!

Petticoat

This is where most of the dyed bedsheet was used. The petticoat was pretty self-explanatory in terms of construction. I simply followed the pattern instruction and it went fairly quickly. I tried cartridge pleating for the first time and really liked the affect.

Pair of Bodies (Stays)

This took the most time by far. The only experience I had with stays were with Redthreaded patterns (which I love). I had never attempted something this complicated from scratch. During the 17th century, stays were transitioning from an exterior to an interior garment. Making stays meant to be seen was new to me as well! I used the Reconstructing History pattern based on the pink stays at the V&A.

Mockup

I didn’t have time for a full mockup so I taped together some flexible, thin cardboard and made a few adjustments, like adding an inch to the back piece and moving one of the tabs.

Construction

The next step was cutting out the pieces! I used the cotton coutil I had left over from two Redthreaded stays kits, as well as a bit more that I had to purchase. This was also my first time working with silk taffeta, and I have to admit I absolutely loved it. While I like reusing fabric, the shine and feeling of the silk was a bit addicting.

On to the boning! This was the most stressful part of the project for me, because the pattern simply said ‘add the boning channels’ without the exact placement, size etc. that I am used to in Redthreaded patterns. I marked them out and sewed them as best I could. I ended up omitting boning from some channels simply because I ran out of material. I had purchased 20 yds of synthetic whalebone and wasn’t willing to spend any more money on the project. I would say that amount got me 80% of the way there.

Finishing

A Note About Binding: I messed up the binding quite a bit and will definitely have to redo it. I tried to sew on the binding by machine in an attempt to close off the channels and bind in the same step. Big mistake! It ended up looking very messy and not secure in a lot of places. I will most likely ripe out the binding, sew around the seam allowance on all pieces (like the below stomacher), and then whipstitch a new binding down by hand next year.

Another time consuming part of the stays were the hand-sewn eyelets. This pair of stays had quite few more eyelets than stays I had constructed before. I only managed to finish half of them for Halloween!

The final step was the sleeves. I used the dyed cotton fabric for the base of the sleeve and whipstitched down a silk embellishment on the cuff.

Final Thoughts

I had a lot of fun being a 17th century witch on Halloween! The fit wasn’t very good the night of Halloween, because I had only finished half of the eyelets, but it stayed together and allowed me to run after my nephew from house to house 🙂

Things I will be changing/finishing next year:

1. Rebind the stays. I talked a little about this earlier but I will close the boning channels separately and then whipstitch a binding on top. I may try and source a nice paduasoy ribbon.
2. Add the busk. I didn’t have time to add the busk pocket or line the stays so I will do both of those for next year.
3. Finish the sleeves. I didn’t want to spend the time making ties to attach the sleeves to the stays if I was just going to re-bind everything anyway, so I simple pinned them on for Halloween.
4. Get enough stay cord. I had purchase 4 yards of stay cord but quickly discovered this was not long enough to lace up these stays! You will need at least 7 yds. I had to use some silk ribbon I had but didn’t love the color or look of the stays laced with it. It was orange and therefore Halloween-y but I’ll most likely change the color scheme a bit.
5. Make a jacket. I want to make the Reconstructing History jacket and perhaps do some crewelwork embroidery on it.
6. Jazz it up. Currently, the costume is neither fantastical enough or realistic enough to be satisfying. I think I’ll add more whimsical, witchy details for next year.