Cissy's Halloween Masquerade

Here's a spell that very few non-magical people have ever heard about.  On Halloween night, catch an autumn leaf as it falls from its branch toward the ground below, and you and your family will have a year of good fortune.  Let it drop and the leaf's magic will be lost forever.

Love spells, good fortune spells, spells against those who've done you wrong.  There's a spell to scare away a monster!  Monsters lurking far and near, Your jaws of death I do not fear.  There are no children sleeping here, so scamper off and disappear!

We associate spells with witches.  Probably the most famous of all witches, and wizards, are those from the Harry Potter stories.  And my favorite witch will always be Samantha Stevens, from the 1960s TV show, Bewitched.  Apparently. there were five Halloween

episodes during Bewitched's run.  I hope to see them all on YouTube before the month is out.  But currently I'm slowly trudging through Ann Rice's huge tome, The Witching Hour.  Its good.  There is no question that the story is well told. It just could have been told in a third of the book - at least that's what my sister said. 

Another famous witch was Dorothy's witch in The Wizard of Oz.  But I like good witches, silly witches, ridiculously warty witches, witches on brooms and beautiful witches, and even ones that turn to brown sugar when dosed with a bucket of water. 

My mother is in part to blame for my love of witches.  She loved scary Halloween witches and decorated our house each October with Beistle cardboard die cuts of pumpkins, witches, ghosts and the like. Beistle was founded in 1900 in Pennsylvania by Martin Luther Beistle, who created the company after being inspired by his experiences as a calendar salesperson and his exposure to a form of paper craft during his visit to Germany.  Beistle's line of Halloween-themed products were introduced 

in the 1920s.  They helped popularize Halloween decorating in the U.S.  And oh how I love to decorate at Halloween!

And of course, dress my dolls up in new costumes.  Its one of the ways I enjoy the season and Halloween.  Sorry if I disappointed you with Wendy the Good Little Witch for Peggy Sue, but I had so much fun reminiscing and as simple as her costume looks, it did take some designing effort.  

I've had so much fun dressing Cissy this last year, that it was time to make her, her very own Halloween Masquerade outfit.  I've enjoyed my large Evangeline Ghastly dolls in their Tonner Halloween Convention witch costumes, so I decided I might try something for my big girl, Cissy.

Let's give credit where credit is due.  This outfit was inspired greatly by Mel Odom's My Favorite Witch for Gene, given at a Gene convention.  I did not attend this, but was lucky to acquire her and all 

the conventions extras, a couple of years ago. She was the first-ever Gene convention doll with a limited edition of 350.  Very rare, you never see her offered on Ebay.  I paid a fortune for her and love her.  When you have as many dolls as I do, it's the rare ones you try to collect.  There's a photo of her standing next to Cissy at the end of this blog.  The primary differences in design are a net covered hat and full-skirted gown for Cissy.

I really loved the cocktail/hostess net-lace coat.  This hostess style was popular in both the 40's and 50's.  Lucy wore one and Franklin Mint created it for her "William Holden" outfit.  Tonner made one for the 18" Kitty Collier.  Tim Kennedy designed one for the masquerade Gene.  I'm sure there are other examples that I just haven't seen, but it's a favorite style of mine.  And it was a challenge.  Often I will try to copy a designer's doll costume and this teaches me new things.  I've also never sewn netting into a garment.  I've used it as a trim, but this was the first time I worked with it to create a garment.  

I cannot be certain how the costume I studied was pieced together, but I used a zig-zag stitch for the seams.  What looks like a thick dark thread is the zig-zag gathering the edges together.  Sometimes I had to go over an area twice to make sure the threads grabbed the delicate netting, but as with most of what I do, once and never again, I do whatever it takes to make it work.

I created a full-skirted gown from an orangy silk.  I made the skirt width about 4" less wide than the width of the jacket's skirt so the jacket would flow over it.  While I was doing this, a length of pre-pleated netting arrived.  I played with it some and decided to give the hem of the dress a ruffle.  So, this was also a difference from Gene's.  Gene's costume was a full-length pencil skirt with a slit up the front for that 40s look.  This was my attempt to bring the look into the next decade.

I was having a bit of a problem with not enough fabric left over for a hat, so when I made the hat too big, I chose to cut the back of the brim to make it smaller and seamed it.  I know it doesn't look as nice, but at least we have the hat.  

Added to the hat was a little paper velour bat with golden crystal eyes.  This followed on the heels of Cissy's mask made of the same black velour paper.  The paper has a peel off sticky back, so both the bat and mask were applied to black silk and recut.  

Cissy's a big girl and this is a big costume with that very tall hat.  I think one of the reasons we love Cissy is that she is impressive because of her "stature".  This costume came out exactly as I'd hoped (save for the hat scufuffle.)  A snap closes the jacket, and a crystal button decorates the center waist.  She has little star earrings on that match the stars in her moon and star costume. (Gene's was dots.) 

Cissy's carrying a "broom" very similar to Gene's, and her mask has the elastic thread, whereas Gene holds hers on a stick.  Cissy's look is finished with a little plastic cauldron for collecting treats (or giving them out), at the party.

Below are some of my favorite recent witch illustration finds.  They're FUN, colorful and imaginative.   

I hope this month is shaping up nicely for you and you're enjoying these gorgeous autumn days.  

Love, Melissa