Adapting a crochet sweater into a Morticia inspired dress.
Inspiration
Husband and I dressed up as Gomez and Morticia in 2021. Ever since then I’ve been wanting to crochet a Morticia inspired dress. Yes, this is quite an undertaking. While The Everlasting wedding dress design was a strong contender, I wanted a more rounded neckline.
When I completed the Granny Crew Light Sweater, the bell sleeves were screaming for a witchier version. Even the crochetcakes community on insta was rooting for a black Morticia inspired crochet dress. Honestly, I didn’t take much convincing to start my search for some dress appropriate yarn.
Yarn
Living in a more tropical environment, my first stop for some yarn was my trusty Yonkey Monkey. This bamboo/cotton blend really lends itself well for a light-weight garment. However, their black wasn’t black enough. My second stop was Premier Yarn Bamboo/Cotton yarn blend. Although I was really leaning towards this yarn, I still felt it might be too heavy for a dress. The 1960’s shift dress used a similar blend and the long sleeves would have definitely added some weight.
In the end I went with Lana Grossa Gomitulo Puno. On Ravelry it’s listed as a sportweight yarn but it really crochets up more like a fingering weight. The blend of Cotton, Wool and Alpaca really makes for a lightweight garment. In addition to it being lightweight the fluff from the Alpaca really adds an ethereal effect that I felt was perfect for a Morticia inspired crochet dress.
This yarn had been patiently waiting in my stash since 2019. Unfortunately, I only had 3 cakes and the yarn has since been discontinued. A shame.
Construction
Since I was using discontinued yarn I had to pivot from my initial idea to make a floor length dress. However I don’t feel that I compromised too much of the design. Again, the goal was Morticia inspired, not an exact copy.
For the basic construction of the dress I followed the Granny Crew Light Sweater up until I split for the sleeves. From there we did some minor changes.
Changes for a Morticia Inspired dress
- Longer sleeves – While I did achieve gauge, the yarn didn’t stretch much with steaming so I decided to add 4 rounds after completing the increases before ending with a shell border to imitate the tendrils that hang off of Morticia’s sleeves
- Waist Shaping – All versions of Morticia’s dress are cinched in at the waist. For this I completed 3 decrease rounds. In order to achieve a more even shaping, I think I would have stopped my raglan increases earlier and simply crochet without increasing until I had a comfortable arm hole depth.
- Increases – I wasn’t going to have enough yarn for the mermaid style dress with a train so I decided to adjust the silhouette to be more A line. For this I completed 9 increase rounds, spacing them out as needed.
- Short rows – another significant change was adding short rows at the back of the dress. I started these right above my behind. If you’ve never worked with short rows, they are designed to create extra fabric without increases. In order to create the short rows I followed the granny block stitch working in rows.
- As I was playing yarn chicken, my final change was not completing the front post back post neckline. Instead, I just did 2 rounds of single crochet.
Crochet Dress Size and Yarn amounts
- I followed the granny crew light yoke for size 2
- Circumference
- Bust – same as pattern
- Waist – 32”
- Hip – 40”
- Length
- From the center back 31”
- Sleeve length from underarm – 18.25”
- Total Yarn – 3 cakes of lana grossa gomitolo puno 450g/1,869 yds
Final thoughts on the Morticia inspired crochet dress
I absolutely love how this dress turned out. I think the yarn really helped carry my interpretation through. While it may be a smidge too warm to wear during a tropical October, it’s a wonderful layering piece. I can see myself wearing this dress quite a bit. Honestly it was so fun to play around with different techniques to get the fit I wanted. 10/10 would recommend.
