Halloweening - Costumes - Spider Nightmare

Remember the Spider Nightmare costume I've brought up a few times now? Well, I thought I'd share this also. Mainly also because it is easy and cheap and comfortable :)

You need: LOTS of cheesecloth or muslin. Apparently they're the same but I really cant see that as the muslin you find here is impossible to tear up... But it worked out anyway. LOTS of spiders, and some imagination.

My inspiration for this costume was Martha Stewart actually but I cant find the picture that I'm looking for. It is of this woman with a spider web shawl and it's covered in spiders. Anyway, that was the idea... The end result was a little different:

For the top I used this Simplicity easy-to-sew pattern. Not as easy as I thought it would be but once I got the hang of it it was ok :) I made the top out of back muslin, the straps out of white muslin, and I added a large spider on the front also.


I used a hoopskirt with two tiers to give the skirt its volume. The skirt has 10 meters of muslin and about 100 spiders. The most expensive bit in this whole costume were actually the spiders!

For the event itself I also made black and white dreads out of roving wool to match the outfit. I used white theatre makeup to 'skullify' myself and someone at the party even gave me spider jewellery in the form of eyeliner LOL. With the right background this dress is quite cool actually!

Any remaining spiders ended up in my hair also, but in the dark it was a little hard to see. A friend of mine only saw these afterwards in the photo and told me she was glad she missed them on the night itself! LOL

So there you go, another cheap and easy costume to make :) I spent about 15 pounds on fabric (roughly) and maybe the same on spiders since they're rare here and I couldnt find my spider stash anymore (of course I found them after Halloween!). It might be about the same as buying a costume, but then I now use this skirt for my zombie dress and the top for the pirate costume. So it's all reusable and made out of materials I want and not something synthetic as the shop ones are. If you can get a good deal on fabric, I would definitely use it for something like this though!