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.

Belle Dress and Cape

I thought I'd blogged about this before, but apparently not!  I've been working on this Belle Winter Dress for about two years - it's not complicated, but I'm not making it for any specific reason other than the fact that it's always been my favorite.

The bodice and skirt are actually made from two different patterns:  Simplicity 9891 for the sleeves and skirt and Simplicty 4940 for the bodice.  The sleeves are pink chiffon that I had left over, the skirt is a low-quality, lightweight velvet, and the bodice is satin.  The cape is also made from a lightweight velvet.  I got the velvet and satin from fabrics.com

Well, the other night I decided to try to finish my Belle dress for the work Halloween party today.  It's not completely finished - I still need to add the ribbon down the front and around the waist, and I need to add the ruffle to the bottom of the dress.  However, it's good enough for right now!

I attached the ruffles to the sleeves and then the sleeves to the dress.  I was absolutely shocked at the fact that I sewed the sleeve on correctly the first time!  Sleeves and zippers were always my two worst parts of a dress, and I've made great strides in both over the last two years.
 
The sleeves were finished with the serger, which I think adds a nice weight to them.  They're a little long, though, so I'm going to shorten them up.  The top portion of the arm is a bit tight and the seams are cutting into my arms,  but instead of trying to rip them out and put in new sleeves, I think I just won't eat as much Halloween candy.

Here is the (semi) finished dress:

Front

Back

Because Belle's cape is really more of a capelet with a long back, I used two different patterns:

 Simplicity 5840 view B for the cape (only two panels).

McCall's 3033 view A for the front capelet.













I cut out the cape and attached it to the capelet, which I cut about three inches shorter than the pattern.  once because I had an error in the sewing, then I pinned it right sides together, then I got distracted and thought I'd already unpinned and repinned it and ended up sewing it right sides together, so I had to rip it out.  Oy!!!

I then made the hood and a hood lining so that you can't see the seams when the hood is down.  After attaching those to each other, I sewed them to the cape/capelet (yes, it's four layers of fabric - blech). The cape is actually shorter than I would have liked.  See, I had to open the fabric to a single layer and cut each piece at a time because the pattern is so wide.  And on the second piece, I forgot to flip the pattern upside down.  So I cut two of the same side.  The material that I had left wasn't long enough to cut an entire piece, so I ended up cutting about four inches off of the bottom of the cape.  (But I think it still works - I wouldn't want white fur swishing along the floor getting dirty!)

I then had to add the fur lining.  I found fake fur on a bolt at JoAnn Fabrics at $10.99/yard.  It was on sale for 40% off, so I purchased 1.5 yards in case I made a mistake.  I ended up cutting three 5" pieces from that 1.5 yards, and that's all, so don't get too much!

It was much, much easier to put on the fur than I thought it would be.  I pinned it right sides together to the bottom of the cape (with the bottom hem and the bottom of the fur together, just like if you were sewing a regular seam).  I could have just folded the fur fabric in half and sewed it onto the fabric that way, but because it's so thick, I found it was difficult to match up the edge of the fabric and keep it pinned in place.  Therefore, once I had the fur sewn onto the cape, I then folded it in half and sewed it right onto that same seam.  I did the same thing for the edge of the capelet.  Sewing it to the seam ensured that no stitches showed on the outside edge of the fur or on the fabric.  Also, there are a few spots where the fur had to overlap because the pieces weren't long enough.  I tacked the length of those together by hand, and you can't even tell where the seams are.

However, I had to sew the fur onto the hood differently, since I didn't want any seam to show.  I followed the first step, but then after sewing it on, I turned the edge over the inside of the seam, so that the fabric was between the two edges of the fur.  Therefore, the outer fabric of the hood was sewn right sides together, and the inside fabric was sewn "wrong" sides together (because the hood has a lining, it's technically not the wrong side of the fabric, but it is the wrong side of the fur).  I then hand-stitched the edge of the fur to the seam I'd created so that there would be no visible stitching.  Whew!

And so that's the finished product (so far).  The capelet looks great until I put it on, and then I feel, to paraphrase some of Kaylee's cut dialogue from Shindig, "like the clapper of a bell".   The problem is that the fur makes the fabric stand out more instead of just draping.  I'm going to rip it at the bottom of the shoulder seams and, while keeping the top two inches intact, cut some of the excess material out of the bottom portion of it so it lays a bit flatter.  I also need to correctly hem the dress - I was in a rush last night and just hemmed it to the floor.  It's about an inch too long!  And as I mentioned earlier, I still need to put on the ribbon, but that will take a while because it has to be tacked on by hand, and that's really nerve wracking, so I want to do it when I don't have to rush.

My husband thinks I look like Mrs. Claus, and at my work party, 90% of people also thought I was Mrs. Claus (the other 10% thought I was Little Red Riding Hood or Sleeping Beauty).  It didn't help that someone was dressed up as Santa (though he didn't suggest I was cosplaying his wife).

And here is the final-ish product!