Taking shape

As I said in my previous post, I decided to use Simplicity 5520 as a base for the Elsa dress.

Unfortunately it would need quite a lot of tweaking to get the look I was after. Cue copious amounts of greaseproof paper and nicely sharpened pencils. From a nice simple dress with four main pattern pieces we went to one with 11 pieces in the space of a couple of hours. It went quite smoothly, but I did start to get a bit lost off when I tried to add seam allowance back in!

Please excuse the quality of the photos, it's something I'm going to work on in future.  I had to put the pattern pieces on a piece of ivory fabric.  It's not a good day when you realise that your carpet is very similar in colour to greaseproof paper!  Ah well, it meant I didn't have to vaccuum.

The sewing together went smoothly and relatively quickly.  My side front/centre front seams don't quite match, but I won't tell anyone if you don't. For the cloak bit I just cut a piece of net about 2m long to roughly the right length, gathered it and sewed it in the seam between the net and the lycra of the bodice. Katie did try it on when all relavent pieces were together.  It is a little large around the bodice (seriously, these children are weird shapes), but she could at least get in and out of it.  On to the sleeves.  The sleeves included in the pattern weren't the right style at all.  When I made a dress with the pattern last time I did draft some.  By myself.  And amazingly they fit.  I can't remember much about the process other than it took several different books with different instructions before I cracked it.  It was a very proud moment when they fitted into the dress.  I kept pointing them out to people.  Honestly.  The most boring part of a princess dress.  I digress.  I did make the pattern piece slightly longer (in the vain hope that Katie has grown a bit in the last year) and made the wrist end pointy, to look more like Elsa's dress.

Then I tried to attach them.  And I tried again.  And again.  I just couldn't get my head around the logistics of it (this is what happens when you don't follow patterns).  I even tried tacking the sleeve in and I avoid tacking at all costs.  My problem was that to hide the seam in the lining under the arm (basically in her armpit) the rest of the sleeve was being pulled wrong and I'd have ended up sewing it closed.  Not helpful.  In the end, and after several days of head scratching and randomly saying to people "But why won't they go in, WHY?"  I hit upon a solution.  I'm fairly certain it's unorthodox and it felt like cheating but I, whisper, put some teeny, tiny cuts in the bodice.  Just in the seam allowance really.  But it worked!  The dress now has sleeves. I've since hemmed the skirt and sewn in a bodice lining. I really only lined it because I think one layer of net might be too flimsy for the top of the bodice and I thought too many seam allowances in net would be scratchy on small people's skin.

And here we have it. Drumroll please........the almost completed Elsa dress. With a over a week to go until the big day. It's a bit concerning being so nearly done. I've only got to hack off (sorry, carefully measure and trim) the bottom of the cloak and clag on some sparkly bits. I know the original is quite understated in the sparkles department, but Katie's almost 7 and there's nothing understated about her!




The front view.  I'm quite liking how the net looks sparkly as well as the bodice.  It's not, it's just plain white, but it looks good in photos.  I think I've got enough of the trim used around the neckline to go around the bottom of the cloak.  I'm trying to add a bit of weight to the cloak for all important twirling.  The dress should flare out nicely as there's plenty of fabric in the skirt and the lycra's quite heavy.

The bodice front...












and the bodice back.  You can see where the cloak's attached.  After her birthday we'll hopefully have some pictures of a child in the dress, but I'll post some more later in the week of the completed dress.