I’ve never been a cinema buff, but for the last several years, I have had a cinema card, and to get my money’s worth, I try to watch at least two movies a month. This month, one of the selected movies was Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the long-awaited sequel [cit.]

To be completely honest, I have only some vague memories of the first one. I definitely watched it, because well, back in the days, there wasn’t as many movies and shows as now, so the probability of catching a re-run at some point on the telly was pretty high.

I wished I re-watched it before going to see the sequel just so that a few things would have made more sense, but overall, I did enjoy, and I like Tim Burton’s aesthetic in general since I love black and gloom. And of course, I enjoy looking at costumes in the movies I watch, sometimes getting inspired for more clothing ideas, mostly, which rarely get made.

But rarely is not never, and this time, also helped by the current obsession over knitting, and a bag of black wool I had, I have been working on a new idea.

Astrid Deetz wears a distressed striped minidress on the bicycle scene, and as soon as I saw it, I thought “I can make it… with some changes to suit my style of course, i.e. black mostly.” What did I like of it? First, how it was styled: short dress with boots. Second, the lingerie closure strips give it a punk appearance that appeases my younger self.

Once home, I did some research, and found out it’s a Marc Jacobs’ dress, from his line Heaven, and it’s no longer available. But anyway, I wouldn’t have bought it because… well, it’s not black. However, I took out my new fashion notebook and started sketching and plotting. Obviously, I haven’t finished it, the movie came out two weeks ago, this is not why I’m writing this long rambling post, I’m writing to document the whole process instead.

Recently, I was working on a summer dress* , drafting the pattern myself, and I didn’t take good notes about the process, which had been long and winded, and I feel now I will probably have to repeat the same mistakes next time as I’ve no notes. So this time, I decided to dedicate a new notebook to my fashion ideas, with sketches and noted, while also writing small update posts.

Swatches

I decided to use a bag of Friends Wool from Hobbii I had bought for a different project, as it had several black balls and one white, so I could start straight away. Ten white and two anthracite balls are now on their way to me.

I started properly, with some quick swatches to figure out what needles. The swatches below are with 4mm and 4.5mm, the recommended size, but I found them too loose, so I decided I’ll go for 3.5mm. Also tried with different stripe patterns.

The purple swatch is some experimenting with a lace pattern I found on a book I had for years The Knitting & Crochet Bible: The Complete Handbook for Creative Knitting and Crochet by Claire Compton, to reproduce some of the details from the dress. If you look closely you’ll see some lace details to add to the distressed look, and I want to maintain this even though I won’t be going full on distressed as not really my style anymore.

construction

I then went into a rabbit hole to find a construction that would maintain the style of the dress while also being easy enough as I have never improvised a sweater**. These are types I’m considering:

• Flat vs in the round: knitting in the round make it easier to check and adjust the fit. On the other hand, it’ll create a little step with the stripes. I tried jogless joining for another sweater, and I still could see the junction, so flat and seamed would probably look nicer.
• Top down vs bottom up: similarly to point one, knitting top down makes it easier to check the fit especially since I’ll be winging it. Bottom up is not really a contestant here, however, most info I could find for seamed sweaters are knitted bottom up.
• Raglan vs set in sleeve: set in sleeves would reproduce the construction of the inspiration dress more closely, but they are normally knitted bottom up, which I’m trying to avoid. Raglan on the other hand is knitted mostly in the round when top down.

Sun Dragon Tips & Tricks has videos on sweater construction that helped me a lot in figuring this out so far.

So, this is all for now!

Next step is to knit another swatch to figure out the gauge, decide the construction, and then a lot of math.

Follow me here or on Instagram to see how this is going to end!

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*No, it’s not finished, but it’s no longer summer, so I parked it for now to focus on cosier projects.

**I have knitted 2 wearable sweaters for myself, so not much of a record there…