(There’s a lot here that is not sewing related, so if you came for the Medusa costume, CLICK HERE to jump to the tutorial)
Growing up, my house was always full of books. My parents were voracious readers, and from early on I learned to love books.
The bookshelf was in the girls’ room—the girls being my twin sisters and me—so I had access to all sorts of books from an early age. The children’s stuff was next to the adult books, and as a child, I did not see a lot of difference.
This is how my love of Greek Mythology started. My father had a series of mythology books that he carefully collected after many months of buying the newspaper, and I was hooked from the very first one.
The stories of gods and goddesses, their trials and tribulations, their meddling in the human world—and, let’s be honest, the very reprehensible behavior of gods toward women—have been my companions for a lifetime.
It is no wonder, then, that on my list of possible Halloween costumes celebrating misunderstood women, Medusa was always featured but never realized.
My father passed away on June 30. This has been the greatest loss of my life. Since then, my brain has been inundated with memories of the half century I had the joy and the privilege of being his daughter.
And even though silly, bringing my Medusa costume to life this Halloween felt like the only choice. I combined my father’s and my love of mythology and reading with my love of Halloween and sewing. This is one of the many ways I’ve found to keep him close to me.
Jump to:
Creating Medusa
Snake Crown
The most important element of this costume are the snakes. There are many great tutorials online; I used this one from Instructables.
This is what you will need for your DIY Medusa snake crown:
Rubber snakes (I bought these from Amazon)
Plastic tiara, crown, or hairband (I got my tiara from Party City)
Metallic gold spray paint (I bought mine at Michaels)
20-gauge gold jewelry wire (Also from Amazon)
Polyester boning (Rigilene), ½ inch (You guessed it—Amazon)
I started by spray painting the snakes. Then, I attached the snakes one at a time to the tiara using the wire and following the tiara’s arches as support. The wire is bendable enough that you won’t need a tool.
The snake crown looked awesome… but it would not stay on my head. The snakes made it too heavy, and I would have to walk around with a stiff neck to keep it from falling. So I removed all the snakes and considered what to do.
I had to find a way to give the crown more stability. Enter the boning. It is made of polyester, so it is quite pliable. I’ve had it in my collection of sewing notions for quite some time and was happy to use it.
I cut a piece of boning and placed it around my head. Then, I glued the ends with a hot glue gun. I finally attached it to the tiara with the jewelry wire.
I wore the crown without the snakes, did a bit of goth dancing, accelerated it to head banging—and the crown stayed put!
From there, it was placing the snakes back, held by wire. Once I was happy with the placement, I spray painted the whole crown again, this time to cover the wire and the tiara. Snake crown level: Completed!
If you are not the craftsy type, you can buy a ready-made Medusa crown at your local Halloween store.
Medusa Dress
I had the loftiest plans for the dress. I purchased this beautiful snakeskin metallic lurex at Michael Levine. I selected the Seamwork Myrna dress for its vaguely goddess lines. I even sewed the bodice.
But it was not working. The dress was not screaming Medusa. I went looking for something more Gorgon-like in my stash.
Oh, the joy I felt when I found a forgotten cut of sheer black fabric covered in glitter! I purchased it from a sales bin eons ago, and it had been hiding inside of one of my name fabric boxes.
I created two panels by folding the fabric in half following the grainline. The fabric was 2 1/2 yards by 44″, so I ended with two 1 1/4 by 44″ panels.
Then, I placed the panels right side facing, marked the center fold, and pinned the two pieces following the narrower side of the rectangle.
Using the center fold mark, I left a 15-inch opening for my head, sewed a 5.5-inch shoulder seam, and left the rest of the shoulder open—to make wrapping the dress around myself easier.
(Congrats! You’ve sewn a very simple caftan dress.)
If you want more control (or less of a chance of a wardrobe malfunction), you can sew ribbons to the selvage where you want your waist to be.
Since I wore a slip under my costume, I had my husband help me wrap the dress, and I kept it in place with some rayon rope I had in my crafts stash.
That’s it! You got yourself a dress. If your fabric frays a lot (if you are working with satin for example), you should finish your raw edges. Or you can just go for the “I’ve been living in this cave for too long” look.
Details
I bought a snake necklace and bracelet at Party City. The bracelet was broken 🙁. Because I wanted more bling, I bought a bundle of cheap jewelry from Amazon.
I used black and gold eyeshadow and fashioned some gold lipstick out of lip gloss and gold eyeshadow.
I wanted to dance-dance-dance, so I wore my Docs. I can totally see a scenario in which Medusa would choose Docs over strap sandals.
The Finished Medusa Costume
This was my most recognized costume… ever. The crown stayed put for the whole night, but I had to adjust my dress whenever I used the restroom—but no major wardrobe malfunction! I am really happy with how this came out—especially given that the beginnings of the costume were not hinting success.
Now, go and sew your own! And enjoy your Halloween. It only comes once a year!
