Anna's Dress - Frozen

In addition to the Elsa dresses that I made for Halloween this year (well, last year), I also made two Anna dresses.  Like the Elsa dresses, I used Simplicity 1233 as a basis.

For the bodice, I used a black suede for the main body and a brown suede for the trim.  I used a turquoise satin for the sleeves and neck.  I also added a zig zig stitch to the collar and down the front of the neck to add some embellishment.  (Please note that I did not follow the pattern for the bodice, but modified it myself.)

The bodice attaches to the skirt, which was made with a royal blue broadcloth.  Overlaid on the broadcloth is a turquoise felt (purchased off the bolt).  All fabrics came from JoAnn's.

 
The bodice and skirt have embroidery, but since I wasn't going to embroider a bazillion flowers, my husband printed out some patterns based on the actual costume.  I then cut each piece out of various felts, which were all purchased at Michael's. 

These individual pieces were meticulously glued on with fabric glue.  I would have preferred to have sewed each one on, but that wasn't realistic based on my time frame.

The cape is my favorite piece of the entire costume.  It's a fuchsia felt from JoAnn's.  The pom pom trim on the top of the cape are 1 1/4" ball fringe with 1/2" pom poms from trimplace.com.   The zig zag trim is 1/4" ric rac from NorthernThreads.net.  I also did a zig zag stitch around the top part of the cape, since that trim is much smaller than the 1/4" ric rac.  The clasp was from a filigree clasp from JoAnn's.  Of course, now that I don't need the heart-shaped clasp anymore, they have ones that look JUST like Anna's!

And here are the finished pieces!

Elsa's Snow Queen Dress - Frozen

A few months ago, my niece E asked me to make her Elsa's gown from Frozen for Halloween.  I agreed, because I wanted to give the dress a shot, and so I started looking for fabric.  I also was asked to make an Anna costume for my younger niece, K.  By the end of September, I was making two more Elsas and another Anna for some of my friends' kids!

I used the Simplicity pattern 1233 as a basis, but I made several modifications of my own.  I also had to make a larger size for my biggest Elsa, because the pattern I had only went up to an 8, and she was a 10.

For the bodice, I used the Turquoise Confetti Dot, the skirt was Turquoise Tissue Lame (only use this if you're a masochist!), and the yoke and sleeves were a light blue organza (all from JoAnn's).  For the cape, I originally purchased two yards of fabric off of eBay, but when I got an additional two orders, that fabric was sold out, so I ended up getting a different fabric.  They both are organza with silver snowflakes, and are super hard to work with, due to all of the glue holding the snowflakes on ...

I used the Simplicity pattern as a guide, but made a lot of adjustments.  First, I made the neckline a bit more heart-shaped, and the bottom of the bodice deeper.  I also cut a lot out of the skirt, as it was VERY full.  The cape needed no adjustment.

I cut out the bodice and attached the lining, which was just a turquoise lining fabric.  The bodice fabric was difficult to work with due to the glue (which is just annoying - make sure you clean off your needle frequently to prevent pulling, puckering, and thread breaking).  I then put the yoke together and serged the seams.  I then simply laid the bodice on top of the yoke and sewed it on.

See, originally, I was going to attach the cape using velcro.  I actually got as far as the first dress to do this (I was making them assembly-line style), but it turned out to not be as great as I thought it would be.  The idea was to make it detachable so that I could leave the back of the cape in one piece, and the girls wouldn't have to contort to get into it.

That didn't work so well, so I did end up ripping the yoke and sleeves out of the other two and then inserting the cape, prior to reattaching the yoke and sleeves.  I'll go into that a bit more later.

The skirt was a NIGHTMARE.  I used the tissue lame as a lining because I'd purchased the fabric before cutting the fullness down.  It shredded if you so much as looked at it.  Even when serged with a roll, it just shredded apart.  It also puckered and pulled like crazy, even with the thinnest needle I could find.  I ended up using a lot of seam stop glue.

I sewed the skirt to the bodice in the same way that I did the yoke.

I ended up with the following (see photo).  To neaten it all up, I then turned the yoke and top of the skirt over and sewed it to the bodice.  It's not the best technique, but it worked.

I inserted a zipper and then added trim, which I didn't get the name of, but purchased at JoAnn's.  I first turned the serged top of the yoke under and sewed it down, then hand-stitched the trim to it.  It was really easy to do the trim - it was very forgiving to the needle, and it went pretty quickly.

The very last thing to do was to attach the cape to the back.  I didn't want to go the velcro route again, so I attached two hooks and eyes, which are pretty hard to see.  I have one on each side of the zipper, and so the cape just hooks onto the back there and has a nice flow.

And here's the finished product!  This is the dress I made for my friend's daughter, and was the largest dress.  The bottom photo is the two larger dresses.  I'll have to get my niece's (the smallest, and with a different cape fabric) back after Halloween and attach the cape properly.  To get in and out of the dress is a bit of a trick, but I don't think anyone's had a problem yet.

Stay tuned - the next entry will be the Anna costume construction!  ETA:  You can view Anna's dress construction here.

Eowyn Victory Dress Part 5: The Dress

I had planned on writing this blog much earlier in the week.  And then something bad happened, and I didn't sleep all weekend, and all the work I ended up doing over Saturday and Sunday had to be ripped out and remade, and then I got really sick because I hadn't had a good night's sleep for four nights ... but tonight, I finished the dress (except for the hem and serging a few seams, because I need a second pair of hands to help me with the hemming, and I'd rather serge everything at once).

Here is the reference shot:

The dress should have been a simple build.  I used a combination of my two favorite Simplicity patterns (4940 and 9891).  As I have obviously used both patterns multiple times, I wasn't worried about the fit.  I modified the front panel so that the neckline was correct.  I decided early on to simply make a gown and not a separate bodice, because no one was going to see anything from the hips up.

It looks pretty good, right?  WRONG!  Honestly, I don't remember what I didn't like about this because I was hopped up on Dayquil, but I had a freaking meltdown when I put it on.  I think the entire front poofed up or something.  I spent the next few days readjusting the bodice.  Also, I had gold piping on the sleeves, but then I realized later that there is no gold piping on the dress sleeves, only the jacket.  Argh.  So THAT all got ripped off.  As for the rest of the dress, I wasn't going to remake the entire thing because I wasn't about to start dying fabric again.  Luckily, I had JUST enough fabric left to make a bodice, like the dress is supposed to have.  Also, I don't have a shot with the sleeves, but they were WAY too long.

Using the pattern I'd made for the jacket, I made a new bodice.  I wasn't too happy with my original shaping, so I reshaped the neckline to make it a more gradual angle, and then made the neckline a little more pronounced.  I tried it on several times to make sure it would work.  Because the original costume has blue trim along the edges and I didn't really feel like worrying about that, I simply sewed about 3/8" from the seam to give a textured look.  I think it works.

I then pinned it in a very general manner to the original dress to see where it should lay.  After trying it on about six times, I was finally happy and sewed it on.  Believe me, cutting off the original top was very difficult to do!  I mean, if it didn't work, I was screwed.

 I think I may have dropped the waistline about 3/4", but unless you are paying a lot of attention, I don't think it's noticeable.

The final step was to add the buttons in the front.  I used these buttons from JoAnn's and painted them light blue by mixing together a variety of paints I had laying around.

I finally attached the buttons down the front of the bodice.  They don't lay totally straight because they have such a big stem to them, but they'll do.

And tonight, I realized that the shoulders weren't sitting correctly, so I ended up taking about an inch off of them.

Let's just keep something in mind here - NOTHING FROM THE WAIST UP WILL BE VISIBLE.

I'm hoping to finish the majority of the jacket and front panel tomorrow so that I can get started on Matt's Eomer tunic.  I'm so glad the dress is done.  It was much more of a headache than I would have liked!

Eowyn Victory Dress Part 3: Jacket Front Panel

I still don't know what to call this darn thing.  It must have an actual name.

So, the jacket has this really cool embroidered detailing over it.  I started drafting it the other night. I'm a bit annoyed that we don't know what the back looks like.  Is it just the front panel, or does this detailing go down over the back at all?  Oh well.

I made the jacket bodice mock-up out of white muslin, so I used scraps from Shadow Weaver to make the front piece and belts for contrast.

 I made some adjustments, then made another mock-up out of the original brocade I'd purchased for the costume.

It's just about right, so I made the patterns with seam allowances.  There will still be some adjustments to make with how the belts lay on the sides, but I think I'm about 95% done with the fitting for this.  I won't know for sure until I finish the base of the jacket, which won't be until I figure out what to do about the sleeves.   I also made the base of the jacket longer.  It can always be trimmed.

Patterns pre-seam allowance

The embroidery for this is going to be the trickiest part.  I won't be tackling that until the base of the panel is completed.

Here it is with the actual fabric I'm going to use and the jacket mock-up.  It still needs some adjustments, but overall, I'm pretty happy with where it is at the moment.

Eowyn Victory Dress Part 2: The Jacket

Yesterday I dyed the fabric for the jacket, and today I worked on drafting the pattern.  For the bodice of the jacket, I used Simplicity pattern 4940, which is a pattern that I turn to for a lot of projects.  In addition to the gown, there is a separate bodice pattern.  It's actually two pieces, so I had to alter it into one piece.  I did make some other adjustments, including lower the bottom of the bodice (I still have to make it a tad lower).  I do still need to work on the sleeve area, as it doesn't fall quite right with the drafted sleeve.

The fabric is a gold metallic brocade from JoAnn Fabrics.  I dyed it in my washing machine on the medium load setting with 2 tsp Teal and 2 tsp Evening Blue Rit Dye.  I think it turned out pretty well!  After careful consideration, I decided that the best thing to do was to make the next draft of the bodice out of the actual fabric.  The reason for this is that the fabric is a lot stiffer than the muslin, and I wasn't sure if it would lay the same way.  Luckily, I have about 16 yards of this stuff, so as long as I work with the same pieces over and over as I make my adjustments, I'll have enough to make more.

Here is the base of the jacket, both front and back.

The sleeves really had me confused for a long time (and I can't say that I'm NOT confused by them right now).  First, they are split in the front, which is actually more difficult to figure out than it seems.  Second, there aren't many reference shots of the sleeves, and they're not very good quality, so the shaping, the length, and the cut are difficult to discern.

After trying to modify one of my sleeve patterns, I decided to attempt draping.

But first, because my only reference photo of the length and width of the sleeves is of Miranda Otto from the back, I had to make a duct-tape dummy of just my bent arm.  I pinned this to my mannequin so I had a shape upon which to build the sleeves.

This is only a start, but I am heartened by how it went.  I think if I can use one of my sleeve patterns to do the shoulder area, I'll be able to use the sleeves that I formed by draping to make the rest.

Draping - Rear View

 And here's the sleeve sewn onto the bodice.  There is a lot of material that I have to remove under the arm and figure out how to do the split a little better.  I also feel like it needs to be slightly wider.  Also, the sleeve isn't actually that long, but I haven't figured out long they need to be.  I need to be in the proper shoes, first.

So, that's where I am now.  Tomorrow I'll post about the front panel (front piece?  What do I call that?)  I actually worked on that the other day.  Because so much of it requires trim and beads and embroidery, I'd like to get the base of it finalized this weekend so that I can start the detailing.  I ordered all of my lining yesterday, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to finish the under dress next week.