This cosplay was a long time coming. My niece’s favorite horror film is The Shining, and she had asked about costuming the Grady twins/sisters for maybe Halloween, Comicpalooza, or DragonCon. Trying to take the easy route, I ordered a set of dresses from an online retailer, and they were terrible! I returned them immediately and said “I can do better.” Here’s how I made the costumes fully adjustable for myself, my niece, or any of my friends to wear with me.
Image: The Shining (1980)
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Image: The Shining (1980) 
I originally used screenshots from the film, as well as published pictures from Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition as reference. Towards the end of the piecing, we watched the director’s cut and saw in an added scene that the girls had button closures and back ties not shown in any of the images I found online. This cleared up how I’d finish the dresses and make them adjustable from a size small to large, depending on the wearer. For sizing, I cut all the pieces to the larges of our measurements and even widened the waistline a little bit so the sash belt ties could make them fitted more comfortably to each wearer. They shouldn’t be flattering and definitely not sexy. What I absolutely did not want to do is sexualize pre pubescent dead girls. So my Grady dresses are modest, as they should be, and disturbing worn by adult women, as they should be.
altered pattern pieces 
smaller pieces cut from pillow cases 
skirt pieces cut from top/bottom sheets 
smaller pieces cut from pillow cases
I frankenpatterned the dresses from 3 different patterns that included the Peter Pan coller from a vintage 1960’s girl’s dress pattern, a modified Regency era gown bodice, and a modern midi-skirt pattern. Of course the collar needed to be scaled up to adult size, and the Regency bodice needed the neckline raised and the waistline lowered significantly. The Regency sleeve pieces were perfect, minus the sleeve band that I didn’t use. And the midi skirt pattern was subdivided for the lower pintucked section. The original dresses from the film were made with a sheer dotted material over a white liner, but these dresses were made by upcycling solid baby blue sheets. I also had spare white sheet fabric that I used for liner pieces.
Regency era pattern: McCall’s Patterns M7493 A5 Cropped Jacket, Floor-Length Coat and A-Line, Square-Neck Dress, Size 6-14 (7493)
Midi skirt pattern: Simplicity 8176 Dirndl Skirt Sewing Pattern for Women, Sizes R5 (14-22)
For accuracy, the bodice fronts and skirt edges should be pintucked like on the dresses from the film. I was able to cut all non-pintucked pieces easily, but the bodice front and bottom section of the skirt needed to be completely pintucked before I could cut anything. Times 2! I used a cutting mat, clear quilt ruler, and iron-off pens to mark 1″ vertical lines for the pintucks. My pintucks were mostly 3/8″ but I’ll admit some of them got squirrely. I used white thread throughout this project, as it was the most abundant color in my supplies, and pintucking uses a lot of thread! Pintucking was the bulk of this project, and everything else went really fast.
Heat erase pens: Madam Sew Heat Erasable Fabric Marking Pens with 4 Refills for Quilting, Sewing and Dressmaking (4 Piece Set)
The fun part was piecing everything together, including adding lace trim to the bottom of the skirt. It went fast, even though I was making two dresses at a time, liners included. I followed the directions for the Regency bodice, minus the sleeve cuffs which I replaced with gathered lace, and kinda winged it for the collar and skirt.
I knew how it should look, so I kinda just sewed by sight. I even made sure to stitch a double row about an inch or so from the top of the pintucked section of the skirt, similar to the original dresses. And I did the gathering all at once (blue on the machine, white lace by hand). The fabric may not be sheer or have little dots, but the construction was damn close to the oiriginal.
The belt sash ties were pale pink in the front and blue in the back. I used scrap sheet material for the blue and satin ribbon for the pink. I opened up the side seams above the waist, slid the ties in, pinned, and sewed shut again.
sleeve before 
skirt hem before 
sleeve after 
skirt hem after
I really liked how the gathered lace at the collar turned out. It was very clean. But I didn’t love the sloppy lace sleeve “cuffs” or the ungathered lace skirt hem…so I added more! Originally I stitched gathered lace to the inside of the 2/3 centermost sleeve hems, so I just added lace to the outside as well. And I gathered a long section of lace and stitched directly on top of the ungathered lace on the skirt. Much better!
And for the final, little details, I closed the backs of the dresses with cheap little plastic pearly buttons (and buttonholes). I also made elastic bands to make my black Rothy’s look like Mary Janes. And I bought a 3 pack of little girl’s pink flower hair clips for the front ribbon ties, pink acrylic barrettes, and 2 sets of lace knee socks.
Clips: Flower Hair Clips Set for Baby Girl Lightweight Floral Hair Bow Accessories with Boutique Fully Lined Alligator Clip 3pcs for Toddler Teens Gifts (color G)
Socks: Lace Boot Socks Knee High Socks Ruffled Lace Trim & Buttons Leg Warmers for Boots (White)
And just like that, they’re done! I’m very pleased with how they turned out, and proud of the fact that they’re comfortable to wear, and washable! What do you think?
My niece and I wore these costumes to Comicpalooza in Houston one day, and my friend Melissa and I wore them to Comicpalooza the next day. We held hands and creeped out a lot of people, even that clown from American Horror Story, so I’ll take that as a win!
We were also invited to walk the runway at the Villain Vogue Fashion Show at DragonCon in Atlanta, so we got to creep out an even larger audience there. Since masks were mandated at that convention, we had matching Overlook Hotel carpet masks. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in these costumes and are looking forward to wearing them again!
“Come play with us, Danny.”
– The Grady sisters, The Shining
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Wow those look so cool! I was looking everywhere on how to make those for my twins and you just made everything easier for me, Thank you so much!!
I’m so glad you found it! I made these in about a week or so (so much caffeine). Happy sewing and creeping people out!
Hello,
These dresses are absolutely perfect!
I don’t really k ow my way around a sewing machine but sadly.
Would you be at all interested in making a pair of these dresses for my sister and I?
We are willing to pay anything you want 😀
Either way your awesome and I admire your work!
Let me know 😉
Awe thank you Melissa. Unfortunately I do not take commissions, I stay pretty busy. More here: https://redshoesredwine.com/the-art-of-saying-no-commissions/