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| Sorry. I couldn't resist. |
"Frozen" Fever, amIright? It hit our house earlier this year, perfectly in time with the ad campaign around the DVD release. Well played, Disney. You certainly know your target audience.
It would've made sense to wait until Halloween to sew a costume (or a dress, depending on which one of us you're asking), but my inner four-year-old took over. There would have been nothing better than dressing like my favorite characters around the clock. Plus, I know that in no time she'll be all dark and gothic and tween-y. For now, though, she's my little princess, or Queen Elsa rather.
See what I mean? The blue fabric is from Joann, as is the cape fabric. I forgot about the top of the dress on my first Elsa shopping trip, though, so the semi-sheer white dance fabric came from Hancock on a later excursion.
For the pattern, I combined two that I already had in my stash: The Wee Muses Bateau Neck Top and the Kitschy Coo Skater Dress. I've whipped them both up in the past, so I knew they'd work well for my Charlie-Elsa after a bit of blending.
The top of the bodice is the Bateau Neck pattern, which I eased into the Skater Dress from the modified sweetheart joint and down. Same with the sleeves. I traced the Bateau sleeve, but I used the Skater sleeve for length and fit. I know this isn't full-Elsa-off-the-shoulder, but it seems to work for the preschool set.
I'm sure I could have done a better job on the sweetheart here (there's a bit of pulling happening), but I wasn't about to futz with it once both pieces were together. No seam ripping, for the win!
This is what my pattern pieces looked like after I fiddled with them. I know it appears that this is all Bateau, but if you look closely at the bottom section of the bodice you'll see that I eased the sides in with our tried-and-true Skater as a guide for size.
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| My fancy DYI seam allowance. |
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| All the pieces, sans cape. |
For the cape, Charlie insisted that she wanted it to be attached to the dress. I was a little iffy on that one at first, but it actually ended up being much easier than coming up with a detachable piece--just stitch that sucker on and go. I chose a sparkly mesh(?) that wouldn't fray at the ends, gently rounded the bottom of it, gathered it fit the back between the top and bottom of the bodice, and voila! Of course, if you ask my muse, the cape should have been trailing several yards behind her, but until she can sew her own, Mom gets final say.
There's one last thing that I have to share because it was a lot of work, dammit! I carefully and lovingly hand cut a couple dozen sparkly snowflakes to float on the cape for extra Elsa-ness, and they were awesome. And they lasted about 15 minutes before they all fell off. Sigh.
You live, you learn. Or in this case, you spend precious sewing time cutting out snowflakes only to realize that the fabric you're trying to stick them to wants to have no part in being snowflaked. Next time, fabric... next time.
For the time being I'll... wait for it... Let it Go. (You knew that would be in there somewhere, right?)
