Enchanted

April 2012.  Charlotte's birthday fast approaching.  At the time her favourite obsession was Disney's 'Enchanted'.  For those not in the know, it's a 2007 mainly live-action film.  Giselle finds herself transported from Disney animated princess world into modern day New York.  Several other characters follow and chaos ensues.  It's actually quite good.  I've even been known to watch it without a child present.  Should I really admit that?  Perhaps not.  At the time Charlotte enjoyed acting scenes out, often while watching the film.  She was often heard asking for a poisoned apple.  Hopefully not in public.

Giselle spends part of the film (both animated and live-action)  in the world's biggest wedding dress.  'Big Fat Gypsy Weddings' has nothing on this number!

Look at those sleeves!  And the size of the thing!  This one was going to end up more 'inspired by' than a faithful recreation.  Charlotte did want it big enough so she didn't fit through doorways.  I pretended I didn't hear her.

For the bodice I used (yes you've guessed it) Simplicity 2817.  I've had my money's worth from that pattern.  I think I may have bought it in a sale as well.  I just made it in plain white crepe backed satin.  I changed the zip in the back to an invisible one.  Have I mentioned how much I love invisible zips?  Best. Invention. Ever.  For the sleeves I used the same pattern but I made the pattern HUGE.  I more than doubled the size.  I wanted them to be MASSIVE.  Then I sewed them up and attached them to the bodice.  Frankly, I was a little disappointed.  I dread to think how big the pattern pieces were in the original.  They're ok.  They just don't have quite the impact I was hoping for.

Then came the skirt.  I was very confused by those ruffles.  I used net for the frilly bit, but I had no idea how to make the ruffles fall properly.  I experimented with strips of net quite a lot.  But to no avail.  Searching the internet I found this site.  Which includes a link to this amazing tutorial.  It wasn't strips I wanted, it was spirals.  Lightbulb.  A hasty measure of the net I had  to see how many spirals I could get.  I have a terrible habit of buying fabric and then deciding what and how I'm going to make something.  It's generally because I've left things so late I'm ordering fabric and drawing up patterns at the same time.  Bad Auntie Sandra.  As it tuned out I didn't have enough to go all the way around the skirt.  So I thought I'd put them in the front and around the sides and make an underskirt to stick the rest out.  This plan didn't work out either.  Because the net was quite stiff the front and sides stuck out massively.  The underskirt wasn't necessary.  The dress is slightly flattened at the back, but fortunately princesses don't have eyes in the back of their heads!

I drafted the overskirt myself.  It's A-line type panels (so it fits the bodice at the waist and then flares out) with shaping at the front.  It's also set off centre.  I think I should have made the opening bigger or more to the side, but never mind.

Completed dress before decoration.  I then added sequins and gems.  

I also made a butterfly and flower.  The flower's detachable but the butterfly's sewn on.  You can see them best in the animated portion of the film.

And here we have the birthday girl.

You can just about see the butterfly on the neckline and the flower at her waist.  That's Charlotte's elegant ballerina pose by the way.

And then the other niece wanted in on the action.  This is her demure look. 

I did have loads of photos of the making of this dress and other shots of the children in it, but the computer took poorly a while ago and I lost them.  Boo!

On the whole Charlotte loved her Giselle dress.  Even if she could fit through doors.  It's one of the most worn of their dresses.  White perhaps isn't the best colour for a princess dress though.  

The Little Mermaid

So after Katie got her pink Ariel dress for Christmas 2011 she still wanted a green tail and purple bra for birthday.  We did try to persuade her that it still wasn't age appropriate (to be fair, I'm not sure when it would be), but she wasn't having any of it.  She was at this point obsessed with 'The Little Mermaid'.  I'm fairly certain that's what she wanted to be when she grows up.  Not much has changed mind you.  In the end I caved.  You can't really argue with an almost 5 year old about princess costumes.  It was obvious that she wasn't going to stop asking until she got one.  I was just going to have to bite the bullet.

It was around this time that we found out her plans for her tail and bra.  She wanted to wear them in the bath!  I assume she was going to splash around a bit too.  Funny as the idea was, we did have to tell her that even if she did get a mermaid tail (and bra) she wouldn't be allowed to wear it in the bath.  This caused not a little consternation.  After a lot of thought and soul searching (all of about 2 seconds) she decided that she could live with that.  A green tail and purple bra it was.

How to make a mermaid's tail?  I had no idea.  By this point I thought I could probably tackle most princess dresses, but a tail was something else entirely.  I couldn't use faithful Simplicity 2817.  I did come across a few mermaid type patterns, but most of them involved a long, tight skirt flared at the bottom rather than an actual tail.  Luckily I found this

The tail part looked great, but I could imaging Katie's reaction if I tried to make her one of the tops.  I know, they're much more suitable for a 5 year old, but she wanted a bra.  Unfortunately you don't find many bra/shell top patterns for children.  I was going to have to wing it with that one.

The tail I just made from the usual crepes backed satin but I overlaid it with some green net type stuff with sequins.  The fin of the tail has wadding in between the top and bottom layers.  The swirl design is then quilted through the layers and the sequins are sewn on top.  I'm no good at sewing sequins on.  When they're in a long strip I just can't seem to stop them falling off the thread.  I've tried knotting the ends of the thread, gluing the threads, tucking the ends under and sewing, all to no avail.  If anyone has any top tips I'd love to hear them.  I think the only change I made to the tail pattern was I didn't put a zip in the waistband.  There seemed to be enough stretch with just the elastic.

For the bra I just made it up as I went along.  I had no idea if it would work or not.  I made shell-shaped pieces (try saying that 7 times fast!) out of crepe backed satin and used wadding and sequins like on the tail.  For the straps I made long tubes of fabric and threaded elastic through them.  The only problem was figuring out how to attach the shoulder straps to the bodice strap and still being able to stretch in all directions.  In the end I just looped the shoulder straps over the bodice strap and sewed them back on themselves.  This means they can move around on the bodice strap which is what I wanted.

So here she is.  Our Little Mermaid.  I'm having the same problems as before with editing the photos I think it's because they were taken on a phone, so I'm afraid you're just going to have to put up with in their uncropped state.  You will note that Katie/Ariel is posing on her 'rock'.  Also known as a foot stool.  She refuses to walk when wearing the tail.  There is an opening down one side to stick your legs through and a loop to hold it up with.  Katie's comment when she saw the opening was "Can you not just put a zip in it so I'm like a real mermaid?"  Er, no Katie, it doesn't quite work like that.

I think overall she was pleased with the outfit.  Even if we wouldn't let her in the bath with it on.

Part of your World

November 2011.  Katie aged 4.
'I know what I want for Christmas.'
'Do you?  That's nice.  And what do you want for Christmas?'
'I want a green tail and a purple bra'
'I'm not really sure that's age appropriate'
'But I want to be Ariel!'
'How about the pink dress she wears?'

This conversation went on for several weeks.  We eventually got Katie persuaded that she would have Ariel's pink dress.  For those of you not familiar with 'The Little Mermaid'

this is what I was aiming towards.  While searching for inspiration I kept coming across this cartoon

on this website.  It made me chuckle every time I saw it.  I had very similar feelings about the dress myself.  I don't know if you've noticed yet but I don't do pink.  Unfortunately the nieces love it.  I keep trying to train them but to no avail.

Anyhoo, back to Ariel.  I used good old Simplicity 2817 for the bodice.  Raised the neckline an inch or so and narrowed it down a bit so it wasn't hanging off Katie too much.  For the sleeves I  used the long, puffed sleeve pattern from the witch pattern (Simplicity 2569) with some white applique bits on them.  I'd learnt my lesson trying to adapt the Rapunzel sleeves!  They're much better than that attempt.  The skirt wasn't too problematical either.  I just gathered up a layer of white crepe backed satin with a couple of layers of tulle on top.  The top layer of white is slightly stiffer (it wasn't supposed to be but this is what happens when you order fabric off the internet without asking for samples first) with dots on.  Not strictly accurate, but it got lots of positive comments.  And who doesn't love spotty fabric?  The top pink layer I made the same way as the puffy bits on Cinderella's skirt but bigger.  I just cut a semi circle of pink satin, hemmed the straight edge and gathered around the curved edge to attach at the waist.  I think I just cut the biggest semi circle I could out of the width of fabric.  When I made Cinderella's dress I couldn't believe how easy it was to make those puffy bits (apart from the fact I was making them in organza of course).  I'd looked at the dress before and couldn't get my head around how it would work at all.  You live and learn.

So, the completed Ariel dress.

Ah yes, Santa also brought Katie an Ariel wig for Christmas that year.  Just when you thought Katie's hairstyles couldn't get any better.

February 2012.  Coming up to Katie's 5th birthday.
'I know what I want for my birthday.'
'Do you?  That's nice.  And what do you want for your birthday?'
'I want a green tail and a purple bra!'

To be continued...

The Princess And The Frog

So, Christmas rolled around again in 2011 and it was time to make more costumes.  With a lot of persuading Charlotte decided that she would like Tiana's green dress from 'The Princess and the Frog'.  It took a lot of persuading.  I kind of wish I'd left this dress until later.  I love the look of the dress in the film and don't think I did it justice.  I'd like to have another go, as I'm sure now with some more experience that I could do a better job, but I'm not sure either of the girls would let me have another go at it.

I love it! There's no pink.

I used crepe back satin for most of the dress with tulle for the very bottom layer of the skirt.  I used one shade of green, but I used both sides of the fabric to get a bit of colour and texture variation.  I used double the fabric in all of the leaves and petals of the dress and that's where the major problem lies.  The finished dress is just sooo heavy.  It would even have been better as a skirt and top, but I'm not sure the skirt would have stayed up, Charlotte hasn't got any hips to speak of.  Perhaps braces would have been the way forward?!  There was real concern at the time that Charlotte wouldn't actually be able to wear it because of the weight.

I made and lined (yet more weight) a bodice for underneath the petals at the top and then just attached the petals on before attaching the skirt.  If memory serves correctly (we are talking three years ago) I had to sew the skirt on by hand as my poor machine couldn't cope with all the layers where leaves overlapped.

This is Charlotte on Christmas morning just after she'd unwrapped the dress.  Hence the clutter around her.  I am very proud of the headband to go with this one.  If only we'd managed to straighten the pollen type bits on top before the photos!  I also really like the giant detachable waterlily on her hip.  I seem to be having problems with photos for this project.  I can either have them like this so you can't see the detailing or crop the photos and have everything so pixellated you can't see anything at all.  I might get the hang of this technology thing eventually.  I might not as well.

She is also wearing an underskirt as well.  Not that you can tell.  For a few of the princess dresses now I've tried to make hooped skirts to go underneath.  It's never been a roaring success.  If I didn't leave things until the last minute (ie the week before Christmas) I might do better.  One day I'll look up instructions on how to make them properly.  For the Tiana dress I tried to first use plastic hooping but the weight from the dress meant that it buckled.  I then had to try metal hooping. As you can see It doesn't seem to make that much difference.

On the positive side, I did learn a lot making this dress.  Not to make a dress that weighs more than the child wearing it, for instance.

P.S.

I meant to put this at the end of the last post but never mind.  Memory like a sieve.  A couple of months after making the Rapunzel dresses I was browsing through patterns in a local haberdashery when I stumbled  across this pattern

I don't know whether it was released in time for the children's birthdays that year or not.  I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have wanted to plait two of those wigs though!

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your ... dress?

So, back in January of 2011, Disney released a new film, Tangled. And the girls loved it (of course). No prizes for guessing what kind of dresses Auntie Sandra would be making next.

Katie's birthday's in March and Charlotte's is in May, and they both decided that they wanted the same dress.  This is actually quite unusual.  I actually really like Rapunzel's dress.  It's a bit pink for my tastes, but it's not too "princessey"I like the purplely colour (I'm just making up words left, right and centre now) and all the details.  Not quite so keen on the details when I had to incorporate them all.  Snow White and Cinderella were both simple dresses without much detailing, but as computer animation gets better the dresses seem to get more and more elaborate.  I suppose it's because you don't have to keep drawing them all by hand!

I used the same bodice pattern as Snow White and Cinderella, Simplicity 2817 (notice the point at the front of Rapunzel's bodice).  I thought I could change the Snow White sleeves up a bit to make them three-quarter length and put a piece on the front of the bodice like the witch dresses for the lacing on the front.

Only make it a bit smaller and try to line up the ribbons better.  I didn't realise how far out I was at some of the edges until I enlarged that picture.  Or more technically enlarged one of the front of Katie's dress and I decided I couldn't share that with the World!

I had some purple crepe backed satin left over from Katie's witch, so that was going to be the over skirt.  I also got some pink and lilac satin for the bodice and sleeves.  The underskirt proved more problematical.  I wanted something in a similar purple but with a pattern on.  In the end I found some fabric with what seemed to be tinsel running through it.  It was a bit of a pain to sew, but nothing like as bad as organza!  The main problem seemed to be when my needle hit one of the strips of tinsel. It would stretch that strip and pull at the rest of the fabric.  D'oh

I used wide pink ribbon for the stripes on the sleeves.  I managed to find some almost exactly the same colour as the crepe backed satin.  I also found the cute butterfly trim that matched the lilac.  It's not strictly the same as Rapunzel's, but I thought she would approve.  The way I tried to extend the sleeves wasn't great.  It wasn't until after I'd made them and lined them (I think that was the main problem) that I discovered I had a pattern with the exact sleeves I needed.  The witch pattern!  Double d'oh.

Always check what patterns you have at home people!  The sleeves pull a bit funny and don't quite lie right, but neither of the girls seemed to mind.  I'm not looking forward to them getting older and wanting perfection.

You'll notice on the completed bodice that my ribbons line up much better than in the witch dress above.  Please, please notice.  Just don't take too much notice of the point at the front.  Again, I didn't trim it enough so it's quite bulky.  

More trim.  The 'lace' at the bottom and around the neckline is more than double the width showing.  It's got large holes down the centre of it.  I'm not sure if you knit with it or thread ribbon through it, but I thought it worked quite well here.

I seemed to take loads of photos of one of these dresses while making it, but I can only find a few with a child actually in it.  None are very good I'm afraid.  They all involve Katie being her naturally stylish self.

Ah, socks and messy hair.  A killer combination.  How she's going to love these photos when she's older.  If you look carefully, you can see her Rapunzel plait. Blonde plait with brown hair.  You just can't tell it's not natural can you?

This is Katie's cute face.  Terrifying.

And finally

There was a reason for the red hair and cheeks.  She was going to school dressed up for Red Nose Day (Comic Relief).  I'm not sure what the theme was supposed to be that year, but I'm sure a princess dress, red hair and a clown face was appropriate!

The Little Princess(es)

Flushed with success from making two witch dresses for Halloween 2010, I decided it would be a good idea (!) to make princess dresses for Christmas that year.  That was before I discovered organza was the work of the Devil, but more on that later.  Simplicity have an official Disney princess pattern for Snow White and Cinderella.

They also have an 'adult' version of these dresses, best not to get them mixed up!  Apparently you used to be able to get lots of other Disney patterns that have since gone out of print but I have noticed that they've started printing more (eg. Tinkerbell, Tangled) recently.  Other pattern companies do similar patterns, made up in colours to look like Disney princesses but with different design details.  I wanted my little princesses to look exactly right (or as close as I could get), so Simplicity it was.  

Charlotte decided she would be Cinderella and Katie wanted to be Snow White.  If I'd had the choice (like my opinion matters!) that's what I'd have gone for too.  Charlotte's fair with straight(ish) hair, and Katie's got brown (very) curly hair.  I ordered fabric.  Crepe backed satin for most of the dresses, some kind of dark blue crepe(?) for Katie's cloak and bodice, and organza for Charlotte's sleeves and puffy bits (I have no idea what to call them!).  This was back in the days when I took notice of fabric allowances on the backs of patterns.  I ended up with loads of left over fabric.  I think for Charlotte's I had twice as much as I actually needed.  Ah well, you live and learn.  Left over fabric will be making an appearance in later projects.  See if you can spot it.  It's a game for the whole family to play!

I'm not sure how much I changed the pattern in size.  I know I kept reading in reviews (I know, sewing pattern reviews, who knew!) that the pattern was quite low cut, so I'm fairly certain I raised the front and inch or so.  I know I have in all the other projects I've used this bodice pattern and  I've lost count of the number of times I've used it now.  With the point at the front, it works for most princesses.  One change I did make was to press the seam allowances of the sleeve in towards the bodice, rather than out as stated in the instructions.  I just thought it was a bit odd when you'd be able to see them through the sleeves.

I can't really remember much about constructing these dresses.  I know it took me a few weeks, but that was just because I was only learning and I was petrified of making mistakes.  With all that spare fabric I don't know why!  I thought the red on Snow White's sleeves was going to be really hard, but actually it was easy.  Bondaweb to the rescue.  The points at the front of the dresses aren't that good.  It's mainly because although the pattern told me too I didn't trim as much seam allowance as I should.  I've since learnt that you can snip right to the sewing line and the whole dress won't fall to pieces.  The only major problem I can remember was the organza.  How I hated it.  I vowed I would never use the stuff again.  You just had to look at it and it frayed all over the place.  I had to cut it with ordinary dressmaking shears because my pinking shears just ate it up.  I kept pulling threads in it when sewing it on the machine, but I think that was probably to do with the machine settings.  I was a nightmare.  It was probably the first bit of the project where I threatened to throw it out of the window.  It's a threat I now make on a regular basis.

When the dresses were almost complete I had to change the length of the skirts.  I had to cut a good foot off the length to get them about right.  Again with these oddly shaped children.

I also covered hairbands to match the dresses and added the padded 'bow' on Snow White's.  I'm sure there's an easier way of covering a hairband, but it always seems to involve me sticking loads of pins in it and then trying to manoeuvre around them (you've seen nothing like me trying to spell manoeuvre!).  I also put some velcro on some black ribbon to make Cinderella's choker.

And here are my first proper princess dresses.

We couldn't find any pictures of Katie in hers, so we just have the lovely Charlotte modelling both.  I know after Christmas the cloak was quite controversial.  Cinderella wanted one too!  

You know you should get out more when...

you're sat watching 'The Great British Sewing Bee' on a Tuesday night (LOVE it by the way, that's not the sad part) and you get genuinely excited when you see one of the contestants is using a pattern you own.  Not your copy of the pattern I hasten to add, just one of the other thousands of copies in circulation.  Not only that but you feel the need to disturb your other half by clutching at his arm and shouting 'I've got that pattern!'.  And then to compound matters you then rewind the programme so he can see the one-second shot of a sewing pattern packet.  You can imagine how thrilled he was.  I got an eye roll and a pitying head shake.  Notice how I don't say I've actually made anything from said pattern either!

Back to the beginning...

Way back in about September of 2010 it was decided I should make Halloween costumes for the two nieces.   I can't remember how it came about.  I've obviously blocked it out.  Witches dresses were decided on.  I found and ordered a pattern.

Sizing on the pattern goes from 4 to 8.  Great, I thought, Charlotte was aged 6 1/2 and Katie was aged 3 1/2.  I thought I would make Katie size 4 as it was the smallest and Charlotte somewhere in the middle of the pattern sizes.  Seemed reasonable to me.  Oh how innocent I was!  I then measured the girls.  Turns out the pattern was too big for either of them.  It was one of my first "real" projects and I was scared about altering the pattern (I would soon learn!) so I think I made just the straight sizes.  I might have made Charlotte's slightly bigger than Katie's but I can't remember.  I think it says something about either the sizing of the pattern or the sizing of the children that they both still fit into them today!  In fact, they're probably nearer the correct size now 3 1/2 years later.

Back to the pattern.  I could just imagine them running around in two little versions of view D.  I had visions of Charlotte in a green and black version and Katie in orange and black.  Unfortunately they didn't agree.  I don't know why I gave them the choice really, but I still use green and orange when colour coding patterns for them.  Charlotte decided she wanted red and Katie wanted purple.  I used crepe backed satin, tulle and crushed velvet.  I couldn't get tulle the same colour as the satin for Katie's, but I quite like the two-toned effect.  I also used some black ribbon and some trim which I only remembered about when I started looking through the old photos.  I get completely lost when doing that.  I can't believe how young they look.  Anyway, here's some photos.  Please bear in mind that I hadn't really sewn anything but quilts until this point.

I particularly like how the dresses are supposed to be knee length if you look at the pattern picture!  I also like how the dresses hang off the poor bairns' shoulders.  I promise, I have got better at making the dresses fit them.  At least they were young enough not to be bothered by my mistakes.  The extra length makes twirling much more fun though.

I think the photo above shows just how much too big Katie's dress is.  It also shows the dresses were made pre me being brave enough to try sewing in invisible zips.  Once I tried I don't know why I was so scared.  They're awesome!

That's their proud faces.  Bless them.  Unfortunately for me this was just the beginning.  Every birthday and Christmas since they've had dress up outfits made.  I think this year we're due another Halloween outfit each too.  Watch this space!

Bling-tastic!

I think it's just about there! I've come to the conclusion that perhaps Friday night after work wasn't the best time to try to trim the cloak. But surely it's better slightly shorter so that Katie doesn't stand on it or trip over it. Am I convincing anyone that I cut too much off on purpose? No? Oh well. It's not too bad. Just not quite as long as the skirt of the dress. And she's short anyway so no one's going to notice her feet! Now I've just got to convince Katie that the cloak doesn't need to be long enough to trail behind her.

I did manage to sew the trim around the bottom of the cloak on Friday as well. I was hand sewing and I only pricked my finger once and didn't draw blood at all. I think that's a new record. Also started sticking sequins and gems on. I'm afraid with things like that I just clag them on with Gem-Tac. I love it! I do end up covered in the stuff but it's so worth it. It seemed to take ages though. Finished sticking stuff (the technical term) on today but again I was on ages. And it wasn't totally because I kept being distracted by awful TV shows. Mainly, but not totally.

So here it is, the finished Elsa/Frozen dress

Front

and back

Close up detail.  You can see where the cloak's a bit short.

An attempt at a snowflake!  I tried.  I think that's the best that can be said for it.

And a bonus picture of the card I've made for Katie's birthday.  I wanted to keep the blue princess theme going.

I'll take some proper pictures after Katie's birthday.  I might end up sticking more sparkles on before then.  She's definitely a more is more kind of girl.  I always worry that I'm going to overdo the bling but I don't think that's actually possible in Katie's world.