Making an ethereal robe for Halloween from scratch!

The moon has always called to me. I love to find it in the sky and gaze upon it. This Halloween we get a full, blue moon, and perhaps a very powerful one. So I decided to make my own “witch robe” for the festivities.

Witch robes are long and black with long sleeves and a hood, right? At least, that’s the iconic imagery. I decided to make a light, sheer robe with sleeves and a massive hood.

I used black silk chiffon because it’s sheer and it’s soft and it’s fancy. I’ve made scarves with chiffon before, hand-rolling the hems, but this was my first experience constructing with it or running it through my machine.

Silk chiffon is definitely an advanced fabric!! It is slippery, frays quick as a blink, and evaded my shears like Neo dodging bullets in the Matrix.

But the drape, the quality, and the feel are downright luxe. I love the end result, but will seriously have to consider working with silk chiffon again. There’s a million black spidery fibers all over my workspace!

The pattern work was pretty simple; I merged two tried and true patterns. I took the body from my Seren trapeze dress as it had plenty of ease, and combined it with the shoulders, armscye, and sleeves from my Captain’s Cardigan pattern.

I layered the patterns over each other, matching the bust marks and shoulders. Then I lay my tracing paper over both and traced! Easy as potions.

I added slits along the side seams to make sure I can walk and dance without ripping it. For this step, I added a 1/2″ tab along the side seams.

Once the shoulder seams were finished, I had to cut the neckline bigger, because my jacket pattern isn’t meant to close and the neck hole I cut was sized for a cat! But otherwise it went as planned.

The hood was made sans pattern. I reviewed this hood tute, then simplified it for my pattern. Instead of cutting two curved seams, I only cut one. I hemmed the front edge and basted the ends together at the center front.

The hood was way bigger than the neckline (which was expected), so I pleated it on the fly. I pinned the center front and back first, and kept the front flat by starting my pleats from the back.

Because this fabric is so slippery and was fraying fast, I used French Seams everywhere. The armscyes, the hood, everything! It was a pain, but so worth the extra durability.

The fabric is so finnicky, I decided to hand-roll the hems of the sleeves and bodice. They had already frayed an inch in some places!!

Despite the trials, I’m in love with the finished product. It’s gorgeous, flowy, and feels very witchy. I think it will be perfect for moon gazing, sage burning, and tarot reading.

Thanks for reading! <3