My daughter recently got into Frozen mode. I can't blame her, the songs are catchy and Elsa's name is similar enough to my daughter's that she really identifies with her. I have already knitted her a very time consuming two ended Little Mermaid doll for Christmas, and a creeper softie for my Minecraft mad son. I had also planned to make an Elsa hat with the big plait hanging off. But then my daughter kept on about how she would love an Elsa dress, and talking about all the ways her turquoise sequinned sparkly dress-up isn't right (there shouldn't be circles on it mum, and where are the sleeves?). So it's time to take my first foray into dressmaking. I don't consider myself a novice sewer, I've made cushions with zips and homemade bias binding, co-sewn three quilts with my mum, and made roman blinds and curtain tiebacks with piping for my daughter's room. But this will be my first garment!
I read around the web, research being my background, and found a very clear blog post
http://gracehepburndesigns.blogspot.co.nz/2014/01/designing-elsa-costume-from-disney.html on
the subject. How hard can it be with such good instructions?
So I purchased the same pattern, Simplicity 2463 Special Occasion Dress.
I bought my fabric before I found the blogpost, so I got minimal amounts. I had 60cm of light blue satin (for the bodice),
60cm of darker blue satin (for the skirt), and a metre of sparkly net stuff for the yoke, sleeves and cape. This is an lot less than the pattern calls for.
It still cost me $40 though, and the zip was another $3.
Planned changes:
Like grace Hepburn, I
1. Deepened the V shape on the bodice top
2. Ditto for the bottom of the bodice
3. Altered the top of the front section of skirt to match the bodice angle.
However I made another change. Elsa's skirt in the movie has a split at her right front. I will replicate this by leaving one of the front skirt seams half unsewn. This allows me to also drastically reduce the amount of fabric I use in the skirt.
I plan to make the front panel only very slightly gathered. The back and side panels will use all the remaining dark fabric I have and be as full as possible (but a lot less than the pattern recommends!).
My lining fabric is an old blue sheet, probably cotton but possibly poly cotton.
I started by deciding on the pattern size to use. I dithered for ages over size 4 (close to my daughters measurements), or size 5 (room for growth).
Then I opened the pattern and discovered the shop had sold me size bb, when I had asked for aa. So size 5 was the smallest I had.
Decision made!
Next I traced the pattern pieces onto plain newsprint paper (we get end of roll paper from the local newspaper very cheaply).
This meant I didn't have to buy the pattern again when she wants a larger size or I have to adapt a pattern into
some future Disney outfit.
Finally it was time to cut fabric! Being a bit nervous, I decided to begin with the bodice lining. Cutting the pieces
was easy, although
as a complete novice pattern cutter it took me a while to realise that I wasn't meant to transfer the little triangles to
the pieces with my fabric marker, but instead make little triangles on the outside of the pattern. Oops!
Rookie mistake, but not important.
Reading about working with satin on the web, I did cut the fabric between two pieces of paper to begin with,
but later realized it wasn't necessary. I didn't get many runs from my blunt old pins or old sewing machine needle either!
The bodice lining went together easily. The yoke was another matter. I cut the pieces out (with proper notches this
time!) but discovered my machine eats this delicate fabric for breakfast. So it was hand sewing for the shoulder
seams and back hems. Sigh. I like hand sewing but it does slow things down. Especially when you French seam
so the edges won't irritate tetchy preschooler skin. I also French seamed up the sleeves (which I had to invent a
pattern for). Before I attached them to the bodice, I realized the bodice lining would show at the sleeve hole, so
made a quick bias binding for the lower half of each armhole.
The skirt pieces were easy to cut and sew together, although next time I would French seam these too. It only
takes a few minutes longer on straight seams, and would have been so much easier to do than zigzagging the
nasty fraying satin edges later. There are turquoise threads on all the rugs in the house now too, sigh.
After hemming the skirt (I used a slip stitch), the next step was gathering the skirt and sewing it to the bodice. Gathering is a pain, but worth it of course. Two gathering threads, then another line of basting, and a final line of tiny tiny stitches for the actual seam. I found the v shape really really awkward to sew. The bodice satin kept sliding under the needle, and I would have to stop and cut and unpick. Which is when I discovered the stitch I was using was smaller than the tip of my seam ripper. Joy.
Spending entire evenings making tiny stitches and then unpicking them again was not part of my plan. Next time I would not deepen that v on the bodice AT ALL!
After all that fiddliness, putting the zip in (the bit I was really dreading) turned out to be remarkably simple. The final touch on the dress was a train, made out of the same sparkly net as the sleeves and yoke. I used all my remaining fabric, folding it in half and trimming the top to match the width of the bodice back. After more tedious hand hemming, I sewed some lace across the top for strength, then put on some sew on poppas. I didn't like the idea of Velcro near satin, but I wanted the train to detach easily if stepped on.
Last thing of all, I glued on some felt snowflakes I had cut previously, using my snowflake window clings as templates. I accidentally glued them on the underside, oops!
And that was it....finished. About ten o'clock on Christmas Eve, so it could have been worse!
And as you can see, I made the hat too.
For what happened next, and a couple more tips, see the next post...
