Preschooler Elsa

So what was my big project for January? 

Oh, just a little costume from a movie that might have been a smash hit. 

Artist Source

Actually, this dress never made it to the movie, but it was in all the concept art! 

A friend messaged me asking if I could make a preschooler Elsa dress for her daughter to wear to their family trip to Disneyland. Little miss had outgrown the Princess Anna dress that I had made, but her little sister could fit it now! It seemed appropriate to make an Elsa dress for the older sister. 

There was just two problems: I was working on an alteration commission from someone else, and my friend's deadline was just in a couple weeks. By the time I finished the alterations, I had only one week to plan, get supplies, and make the dress. Oy.

I'm pleased to say that it was finished just in the nick of time! But my days were literally go to work, get home, and get sewing. Power sewing to the max. That is it. 

I used Simplicity pattern 1507 as a base for the dress. I traced out the bodice pieces and drew on the straps and decorative bib on the front. I could have made this as two separate pieces, the jumper and a shirt, but I wanted it to be a single piece that you could easily put on without needing to hunt down all the parts of the outfit. So I took the pieces that I drafted and essentially appliqued them onto the bodice. Easy, straight forward, simple enough. The skirt was a similar story. I sewed down the ribbons along the skirt edge, and ta-da! All the sewing is done.  

Then came the details. I had several directions that I could have gone with this. I could do the rosemaling in the traditional style and embroider everything, cut out each of the individual pieces and applique them on, or pain them on. Time was not on my side, so I opted for the fabric paint. 

I've used this before for my Captain America Disney-bound dress. This particular fabric paint doesn't stand out from the material, and it's matte = no shiny. I found some close-ups to get the details and made stencils from that. They weren't perfect, but they got the general idea across. ;) I then turned on Gilmore Girls on Netflix and painted for goodness knows how long. 

But I'm really please with how it all turned out. I couldn't imagine doing all of that embroidery or appliqueing. I doubt that it would have been done in time. ;) 

Bodice Detailing

Close up of the skirt hem

I chose to do buttons instead of a zipper because they're so much cuter. 

I think it took me a week to recover from all that power sewing. :P 

Project Details

Pattern: Simplicity 1507

Materials used: Cotton Fabrics, fabric paint, buttons, thread

Time spent: Well, the sewing was done in probably 4 hours. The painting? I have no idea...

Until next time!

SG

Tickled Pink

You might recall that last year, I made two dresses from Frozen. One was Elsa's ice queen dress and the other was Anna's toddler dress. I purposefully made them a little larger than the specified measurements and used a tie to make them fit better until the little lady grew into her dress. Because of this, both of the young ladies were able to wear their dresses a year later to see Disney on Ice's production of Frozen, and honestly, I'm thrilled that they were able to wear their special dresses for this long. :) 

Until next time!

SG

Princess Anna in Disneyland

I just :had: to show you pictures of the little princess in Disneyland. ;) 

She ran and ran and ran, and didn't trip on the dress. 

Despite being a cotton, it wore well! (you should have seen me at the fabric store crumpling all of the cottons) There was minimal wrinkle-age. 

I could just pinch those cheeks!

And she got to see Anna and Elsa twice! 

Until next time!

SG

Toddler Princess Anna

It's ~*done*~

And of-so-painfully adorable! 

Even though she's still young, I think she understand that this is a special dress. From the moment that we put it on for a fitting, she couldn't stop smiling. Then she went on to explore the stairs and clocks because those were a just as awesome, but we'll ignore that. :P 

'Thank you, Mommy!'

I was so worried that it would be too big. All I can say is, 'Thank goodness for sashes.' ;) Little missy has some room to grow into her pretty princess dress, but it also fits her now so that she can meet Elsa and Anna at Disneyland in her first cosplay. 

I think I'm dying from cuteness overload. 

Until next time!

SG

PS - Once I get 'in action' pictures, I'll post those. Because, seriously, her meeting with Anna and Elsa is going to be absolutely charming. ^_^ 

Toddler Anna Dress WIP

I have another dress from Frozen to show you! 

A friend of mine has a little girl, and she's looking for an 'age appropriate' dress for little miss to wear while they're at Disney Land. Of course, Disney has really figured out how to design ADORABLE kiddos, and they're clothes are equally cute. Anna is one of the top cute kids in Disney movies. 

The inspiration for the dress is Anna's toddler dress from the song, 'Do You Want to Build a Snowman?' You can get a better view of the dress in the pictures in the book A Sister More Like Me illustrated by Brittney Lee (very sweet story and pictures!) Brittney was one of the illustrators for Frozen, and her artwork served as a launch point for the look and feel of the movie. 

I did some research for making the dress itself, but couldn't find much. If you google 'toddler princess anna,' you get a boatload of toddlers in either the coronation dress or the winter dress. :sigh: Of course I made a Pinterest board to reference while putting the dress together. ;) 

Source

I found a pattern that would be relatively easy to alter (I used the same technique for the neckline alterations here as in Elsa's dress), scalloped the skirt, cut out a dozen tulips, and went to town with applique. I must say, I've never done this much applique before. Let's call it a 'learning experience.' Double-sided fusible interfacing is your friend when it comes to applique. I don't want to know how things would have turned out if I didn't have it.

  For the scallops, I did a similar thing as with the neckline - I cut out the contrast 'underskirt' band and zigzagged the 'overskirt' onto it. I wasn't about to try to hem scallops again. 

All that needs doing now is to attach the skirt to the bodice and put in some buttons!  

Until next time!

SG

Elsa Dress

This is ridiculously loooong overdue. It was finished in time for Halloween. :P My job, school, homework, and Christmas trees have sucked up all my blogging time, but now that the term is in the bag (!!!), I have a smidgen more time to sit down and write something that isn't for a class.

The first project that I want to show you is Elsa's 'Let it Go' dress from Frozen (but you knew that already). I used Simplicty pattern 3725 as the base and altered it using Andrea Schewe's tutorial series as my guideline.  

You can see more Elsa inspiration and my thought process for the dress on my Pinterest board. 

I made the dress to be a bit bigger with a tie in the back so that it can be worn for a longer time. 

The fabrics are just from Joann's. Since I hate how reflective fabrics look when photographed, I used the wrong side of the satin as the right side. You still get that gorgeous teal, but not the nasty glaring reflection from the camera's flash. (/rant)

This dress was filled with everything from 'oops' to 'dang it!' I had never really worked with a sheer until I did this dress. One of the moments when I wanted to cry while working with it was when my machine ate it into the bobbin well, chewed it up a bit, and then sewed it onto itself in the wackiest places. (That was the only moment that I wanted to cry. Yeah, there were frustrating moments, but that almost did me in). The only noticeable 'drats' is on the back where the the zipper stops: the trim didn't line up... :( I added a little bling to help, but it didn't really help all that much. 'It's just a dress-up costume; it's fine' they said. So I left it. 

Picture used with permission

The dress was a hit. She wore it for a week, slept in it, and went trick-or-treating with all the other Elsa's that were haunting neighborhoods this year. :P 

Until next time!

SG

Elsa Dress - In Progress

I've finished the Elsa dress, but all you get to see for the moment is a work-in-progress picture. :P

Until next time!

SG

Project Teaser

Can you guess what my next big project is going to be?

If you don't, then what snow drift have you been hiding under? :P

The entire country, if not the world, has been singing 'Let It Go' and all of the covers for almost a year. You should recognize the colors used in Elsa's iconic Snow Queen dress. 

I better get back to pattern drafting.

Until next time!

SG