Making a Dalek dress for the craftily impaired.

I've made a dalek dress, not from scratch you understand because that is beyond my skillset but I have made one and here is how I did it.

What you need:

1. A jersey dress - I got one similar to this though you can play around with styles that suit.
2. Ribbon  - to decorate the bust area I used 5 metres of silver and just over one of black satin ribbons
3. A sink plunger
4. Polystyrene spheres cut into halves
5. acrylic paint in black and silver
6. a wide plastic alice band
7. two sound to light kits from Maplin http://www.maplin.co.uk/sound-to-light-led-22545
8. a whisk
9. glue gun
10. all of the pins
11. elastic stretchy belt
12. leggings
13. knee high boots
14. A friend to help with fittings

I decided I wanted to be a black and silver dalek because the materials were slightly easier to source and I was running short on time. 

Unless you have a you shaped mannequin it is impossible to set the ribbons on your own.  My friend used me as the dummy and we pinned the ribbons in place to look like the venty mid section on the dalek in a grid pattern.  I decided to have three horizontal silver lines and three black uprights. On the front and back and pinned the ribbons in place so I would know where to sew.

So this took a while and because my bust is on the large size, we had to shape the ribbons over the top.

Due to the nature of the jersey being a stretchy material and the ribbon being non-stretchy, I've only sewn in strategic places so that there is still give in the jersey.  On the sleeves I've stitched three piece of silver ribbon but again only in certain spots to keep the flexibility.

Next the balls.

I am not to be trusted with sharp implements so I enlisted the help of my father to cut them into half.  I ordered 25 60mm diameter balls and ended with 50 half spheres.  I have hand painted them all silver.

I recommend acrylic paint for this because yes aerosols would have been quicker.  But I didn't want the polystyrene reacting with the paint and thought that the water based paint would be less likely to react.  The down side is that it has taken three coats of paint to get near the shade of silver and the coverage I wanted. Dull work but someone's got to do it.

To attach the half spheres to the dress I use a hot glue gun and stick them on in columns.

And the finished article: 

I got a little over excited when my Dad finished my headset...

I bought a wide plastic alice band and two sound to light kits.  My dad is an engineer so it was his job to do the electronics and mount the kits on it. I'm thrilled with the results.