Spiderman Dress Throwdown with Tanit-Isis

Once upon a time, there was a nerdy girl in glasses who was unpopular at school. She spent her summers working in her dad's lab, wishing that her classmates would understand why science was cool, until one day...

Old lab coat from my dad's lab, since mine is in TCOCC.

Her dad did not mysteriously disappear, nor did she have an Uncle Ben, and she was bitten not by a radioactive spider, but rather by the sewing bug. Her love for superheroes and nerdfighteria led her to transform into the amazing Cationess, fighting sartorial monotony and throwaway culture by making unlikely dresses out of thrifted sheets. 

My superhero pose is kind of spoiled by the fact that I'm holding onto this pole for dear life.
I couldn't bring myself to walk any farther out on the the ledge.

Sitting is okay, though. The Cationess keeps watch on the city....

Oh my goodness, is that a thrift store sheet in need of recycling? I will save it by making it up into an unlikely dress!

She was privileged to learn from a much greater seamstress, Tanit-Isis, but unlikely circumstances (aka fortuitous thrift store finds on both their parts) led to a showdown between the n00b and l33t. 

Gearing up for take-off...apparently taking off involves spinning around, not unlike the Sailor Moon transformation.

Taking off to fly to Canada! Where I would promptly freeze to death, of course. Can you tell how cold I am in all these shots?

Okay, I can't stand writing this artificially dramatic third person narrative about myself anymore. So yeah, in case you couldn't tell, Tanit-Isis and I decided to both sew up some Spiderman dresses in anticipation of the new Amazing Spiderman movie (although, can it really be called "in anticipation" if it's after the movie's already come out?). I'm so excited to be able to do this sewalong of sorts with her -- she's seriously one of my sewing heroes. Her blog was actually the second sewing blog I ever discovered (the first was the Selfish Seamstress, and it was her account of Tanit-Isis' awesomeness that pulled me in), and I could just gush forever about her jeans, coats, and retro dresses. I won't, though, for fear of sounding like one of those creepy groupies who know their victim's idol's blood type or some such nonsense. I'll just leave it at this: when she first started commenting on my blog, I was *almost* as excited as when Ryan North tweeted my Superman dress. Anyway, to call this a throwdown seems laughable. It's like if Aquaman was in a fight with oh, any other superhero.

It's a showdown like the back of my midriff panel -- evil Spidey vs. good Spidey!

The wind caught the skirt and my husband snapped a picture at
just the right time to show off its fullness.

Anyway, for those of you who care (not Shayna, although she was the one who graciously gifted me these sheets), I made my dress from the OOP Vogue 7521. I used the View C back strap pattern with the View A length, replacing the straps with black soutache cord in order to mimic Spiderman's signature webbing. Unfortunately, trying to get the correct tension on all six cords was extremely difficult; it's still not quite right, but I don't know if I have the mental energy to try fiddling around with it anymore. All of my insides are finished so nicely, I can't bear to think about ripping it open to fix that one cord. I'm also not a fan of how much excess fabric there is at the top of the bodice pieces (they're too thick to really count as straps, but not thick enough to count as reasonable coverage), but otherwise this dress turned out as I hoped.

Summary:
Fabric: Cotton-poly blend thrifted twin sheets (despite having both a flat and a fitted sheet to work with, there was still some tricky cutting to avoid...questionable spots).
Notions: A black zipper, seam binding, and thrifted vintage black soutache cording (my husband pointed out that black elastic cords might have worked better, but I was trying to avoid purchasing anything new)
Hours: Nine or so. I spent at least an hour adjusting and readjusting and basting and ripping the cords, and then slipstitching the lining down by hand was another hour. I keep feeling like I should be making these up faster, but I find that I'm really enjoying taking the time to finish all my seams properly, even if that means I'm sewing up each seam multiple times.
Will you make this again? I like the idea of this dress, especially the back shoulder drapes in View C, but as a full-length evening gown. However, 1) I don't need any evening gowns, and 2) the triangle bust pieces leave something to be desired in terms of amount of excess fabric...so the answer is maybe, but only if there's a specific occasion and I have time to redraft the bust pieces.
Total cost: Shayna gave me these sheets as a gift, so it only cost me $2 for the zipper and cording, but if I factor in the cost of the sheets, it rises to all of $5.
Final thoughts: Spiderman isn't my favorite superhero, and this dress is a little too exposing for regular wear (especially in foggy San Francisco summers!), but it was fun to see this idea turn into reality. I do like the fullness of the skirt, but if I plan to wear it again I'm going to need to invest in some bike shorts or tap pants -- the wind has entirely too much fun with it -- as my husband had to work hard to not get scandalous shots. I really, really wish I was going to Comic-Con this year so that I could have a good reason to wear this, but alas, one of the downsides to being in my favorite city is that it does not host Comic-Con. Also, I don't think we're going to be seeing the new Spiderman movie in theaters, as he's not my husband's favorite, either...would it be terribly wrong to wear this for the Batman movie?

Not especially confident superhero face for an idea of dubious quality?