Martha Dracula DIY Costume, Hotel Transylvania

My daughter decided to be Mavis Dracula from Hotel Transylvania and begged me to be Mavis's mom, Martha. This definitely seemed like a fun costume and I figured my time to do mom and me costumes is limited.

Here is what I was working with:

Fortunately, I had two patterns that work out nicely for this costume.  For the main part of the dress, I used dress B on McCall's 5499 pattern, with no belt. I used a 14" zipper down the back instead of the lace up back. The pattern flares at the bottom, so I had to modify the size when cutting the pattern. The neckline was a v-neck, so I made a change to this. I also needed to figure out how to add that trail at the end. Lots of fun modifications!

The arms on this pattern don't have the long, droopy look of Martha, so I used the arms from Simplicity 4940, dress A.

I bought a black suiting material that I also used for Mavis. Starting with the McCalls pattern, I used dress B. This dress has a lot of material in the skirt and the Martha skirt needs to be more fitted. Instead of wasting fabric to tailor the dress, I folded the pattern pieces to narrow the skirt. You can see below how the pattern is folded under. Don't forget to add the extra pattern pieces to make the skirt the correct length. I forgot to do this and had to improvise!

To add a train, I added 12" of length to the back pieces. I drew the white lines above to show how I sketched this onto the fabric.  On the side back pieces, I measured out 12" on one side of the side back piece to match up with the back pieces and made a curved line toward the other side, which would then match up with the front side pieces. When placed together, the side back and back pieces should make a semi-circle to create the train.

The v-neck was much easier to add then I expected. I placed my ruler on the fabric when folded in half, like the picture above. I cut off this piece of fabric and the neckline flowed nicely from the shoulder on down. I used bias tape to easily keep the v-neckline looking sharp. I used this tutorial to use bias tape on a v-neckline.

I sewed the rest of the dress like on the pattern, except I added a zipper instead of the lace up back. It fit great.

For the choker, I cut a piece of fabric 2.5" by 14", which should be more than enough extra material to do the velcro. I placed right sides together and sewed along raw edge. Using a safety pin, I turned it inside out. I ironed it flat and sewed along both long sides close to edge to keep it flat. For the short sides, I sewed them under so the raw edge is facing the neck.

I found this beautiful button at Joanne's for a few dollars. Instead of going for a sparkly jewel, I liked the antique look of this one.

I sewed the button on the center of the choker and added the velcro. The velcro was iron-on so it stayed pretty strong.

This was a very comfortable costume. Most people didn't know who I was but Aurora loved our mom and me, Mavis and Martha Dracula costumes, so that's all that mattered!