Belated Photos

Yes I know it's the middle of February, but we finally have photos of Maleficent and mermaid costumes!  Better late than never.  Possibly.

First up we have the lovely Charlotte as Maleficent.

We think we need to add some kind of strap to the headdress to keep it on the poor bairn.  It's a wee bit wobbly.  It's a bit like Charlotte's trying to do posture exercises by balancing it on her head.  It's also slightly out of proportion but I'm sure she'll cope.

And then we have the ever charming Katie as Ariel.

She really did fit into that ridiculously sized tail.  That's her sitting on a rock pose by the way.  Fetching, don't you think?  I'm particularly loving the massive white bandage/plaster on her thumb.  Knowing Katie she probably had a paper cut,or something equally as dramatic!

I'm waiting for a parcel of fabric as we speak.  It's Katie's birthday in a couple of weeks (Yikes!).  When asked what she wanted her first reply was a rabbit.  I'm afraid Auntie Sandra can't oblige there, but we settled on Anna's winter outfit from Frozen.

                                              

And we definitely need the cape.  Fortunately I've found a fantastic tutorial.

Flippin' your fins you don't get too far

When asked what she wanted for Christmas, Katie just kept coming up with the same answer.  A mermaid tail she could wear in the bath!  Back to that old chestnut again.  Obviously more thought had gone into it this year.  She'd even worked out how I could make it (a mini Auntie Sandra in the making?).  Apparently I could just get some of that black stuff (scuba material) and attach some flippers to the bottom!  I mean, how stylish would that be?  She was determined that she be able to wear it in the bath.

After looking online I discovered many people selling mermaid tails suitable for swimming, not just for use in a bath!  We thought this was going a bit too far.  She'd look really great pitching up at the local leisure centre!  And I know we live right next to the coast, but it is the North Sea we're talking about.  Turns out that Katie wasn't too far wrong.  People tend to enclose flippers in lycra rather than scuba material though.

The tail was easy enough to make.  I got some green sparkly lycra and some purple lycra (for the shell bra).  I did think about getting a contrast for the waist band and the 'flipper' but just used the wrong side of the sparkly stuff.  I drew around Katie's legs and added a seam allowance.  I put a zip in down one side.  That was another problem with the first tail.  As well as not being able to go in the bath wearing it the poor bairn couldn't zip herself in to cover her legs completely.  The tail part is stiffened with a couple of sheets of craft foam glued together and cut to shape.  It's all high tech in my house!

At this point I took it along for Katie to have a try on.  Mainly because it looked so long and skinny I didn't think anyone would be able to fit into it.  I did tell her that there was plenty of time and fabric to make another one if it didn't fit.  She insisted that one was fine.  One of her little friends was along to play that afternoon and got a sneak preview.  Her friend's verdict was promising.

'Ooh Katie, it's like you've got real scales.'

Katie's was more practical

'At last, I've got a zip!'

After that I just added a waistband.  I made a pattern for the shells for the bra from one of Katie's crop tops.  The straps are just white elastic dyed with tea.  I expect after it's been in the bath a few times they'll be back to white.

Such a tasteful shade of lime green don't you think?  Apparently when Katie's been in the bath the water turns the colour of the sea!  I'm not sure whether it's the dye coming from the lycra or the foam.  Mind you, I think if it was coming from the lycra it would look more like there'd been an incident at a nuclear site!

Making Maleficent

Happy New Year Everyone!  It's been quiet on the craft front in the Auntie Sandra household.  There was a mad rush before Christmas with outfits for the girls, a table runner for their Mam and bunting with photos on, among other things.  Since then I've been really lazy though and just doing jigsaws that Santa brought, and I don't think I can really count them.

So, after Charlotte's Halloween experience of being a character no-one would recognise (see here) she decided she wanted to be Maleficent for Christmas.  Very festive.  Originally she asked for a dress with the wings and horns, but we compromised with the Christening dress.

So we still needed horns and a train, but no wings.  Thankfully.  I found some black, crinkly fabric to try to get the texture and the 'V' pattern down the centre front and back.  I've never attempted to make anything on the bias before, so why not go for something high profile like the centre front of a dress?  I adapted Simplicity 5520.  When I say adapted, I mean I took out some panels, narrowed the whole dress massively, altered the sleeves and how they were set in the dress, added a big collar,changed the neckline and stuck a big train in the back.  Otherwise it's exactly the same!  After I'd made the changes to the pattern I worked out how much fabric to buy.  Because it was going to be cut on the diagonal of the fabric I ended up doing lots of diagrams and Pythagoras' Theorem came into play.  I also had to hunt out a protractor.  Does everyone do things like this, or is it just me that's that sad?

I remembered to take photos while making, so I'm afraid I will be sharing them.

Front piece pinned on fabric on the bias.

Fronts and backs cut out.

Fronts and backs attached.  You can just about see that I remembered to add interfacing at the neckline.

A close up of the 'V' effect down the centre front.

The sleeves on the original pattern weren't big enough for my purposes.  In the original Maleficent costume the sleeves are attached down the sides of the dress.  If I'd left them as they were the poor child wouldn't have been able the lift her arms up.  Although that might not have been such a bad thing!

The original pattern is on the right.  You can see I basically just stretched the shape out.  Once Charlotte had tried on the dress we discovered the sleeves were too long.

By several inches!  So the sleeves had to come back out to be altered.

I also changed the shape while I was on.

This photo was from before the alteration, but you can see how the sleeves are attached all the way down the side seam.

I did an awful lot of rolled hems on this dress.  On the plus side, I now quite enjoy doing them, although I do still tend to have a couple of false starts each time.

Next up was the the train.  I ended up putting a big triangle into the centre back each side of the zip.  I believe the technical term is godet.  Each triangle was split into three sections and each section has a contrast fabric across the bottom part.  It looks dead easy.  It took me about two days to figure out what I was doing!

  

The contrast is supposed to be leather.  Charlotte's obviously isn't.

Then came the collar.  Ah, the collar.

Each side has two separate 'petals'.  These petals join at centre front and back.  I thought I needed some sort of triangular shape.  After much experimentation I came up with this shape.

The curve down the right hand side is where it fits to the neckline.  I needed two of those for each top and bottom, in fabric and in stiff interfacing.  Thirty two in all.  Seems a bit excessive, doesn't it?

I did think to start with that I might need to put wire in them to keep their shape.  I didn't in the end.  It would have held the shape better, but I wanted it to be comfortable for Charlotte to wear.  That is after all what it is for.

One side of the finished collar.

After that the dress itself only needed a zip putting in.  So here we have the finished dress.

Front.

Back.  And close up of train.

I'm hoping that if I don't mention to anyone, that they won't notice that some of the grains in the triangles are going the wrong way.  But you're not going to tell anyone, are you?

On to the headdress.  I got to do papier mache.  I think I was about ten when I last did that.  I made some twisted horn shapes out of tin foil.  And blew up a balloon to the size of Charlotte's head.

I then spent several days covered in flour and water glue and newspaper.  After everything was covered and dry I tried the headdress on Charlotte and cut it to shape.  I attached the horns with tape and covered in yet more newspaper.

The horns are slightly wonky and I think they're too big, but I'm proud.

It was then time to get out the glue gun and cover it in fabric.

All ready in time to open on Christmas morning.  I'm just waiting for photos of Charlotte wearing the outfit to show you.

And what did the other niece want for Christmas?  Followers of this blog will know Katie has a bit(!) of a mermaid/Ariel obsession.  This year I caved.  She now has a tail and bra to wear in the bath!  More on that to follow.

The Terrible Tutus!

Christmas 2013.  The girls both wanted the same outfit (oh how I wished they hadn't).  They'd been watching 'Barbie in the Pink Shoes'.

How tasteful?  All pink and sparkly.  And tutu-like.  I wasn't even sure I could get a pattern for a tutu.  Because I was certain I wouldn't be able to make anything up for this!  Turns out you can get tutu patterns.  Mainly made to measure ones.  But I did find a commercial tutu pattern.

Jalie 2915.  The leotard and skirt are separate.  The leotard has a flap running all the way around to hide the waistband of the skirt.  While I was looking for a pattern I started reading all kinds of advice on making tutus.  It all seemed very complicated.  But the girls had faith in me.  Bless them!  It was then that I came across the website for Valorose Tutus.  I don't think these tutus would have been made without the help and advice from the wonderful Suzanne who runs the site.  In fact I know they wouldn't have been made, and they certainly wouldn't have looked half so impressive.  You see, Katie wanted hers to stick out a lot, and I had no idea how much net I would need.  I plagued the life out of poor Suzanne for about two months with questions and updates.  It turns out that you need A LOT of net for a tutu.

I started with the leotards.  I was amazed at how much easier they were than I thought they would be to make.  The only thing was there was a lot of panels in each one and I got a bit sick making two at a time.  The centre panel I made from shiny lycra, and the rest was made from a velvety lycra.

  

The straps were made from white elastic that were dyed with teabags.  Again following advice from Suzanne.  I also added lots of sparkles to the front of each leotard.  It's Barbie.  Apparently things can't be too pink or sparkly.

When I took photos of these I kept making sure I had both in the shot at the same time!  I wanted to make sure everyone knew I was making two tutus!  I do apologise to everyone I know about how much I went on about that fact.

On to the skirts.  When doing research I found conflicting advice about how much net I should use in each layer.  It varied from two widths to four widths, each width being 150cm (approx 5' wide).  When I asked Suzanne her advice was 6 widths for the top layer and 5 for the other layers.  That's an awful lot of net.  It basically meant for the top layer I had to gather a rectangle that was 1'x30'!!  This then had to be attached to what was basically a pair of pants with a waist of about 20".  It was a complete nightmare.  When I was trying to gather, my machine kept having a hissy fit and snapping thread.  Then sewing the gathered layers to the pants was even worse.  A low point was the day I snapped 3 needles in ones afternoon.  It's amazing my sewing machine still speaks to me!  We didn't get on well for quite some time after that.  I also needed regular hugs when it wasn't going well.  My usual threat when a project isn't going well is that I'm going to throw it out of the window, I can't tell you how many times I threatened that.

I added yet more sparkles.  I'd like to say that the wide band of sequins was for decoration, but it was more to hide some very dodgy sewing!

With the skirts upside down it's easier to see the different layers and colours.

Both tutus were completed before Christmas.  They did take a roll of wrapping paper each to wrap though!

The girls were definitely pleased.  Here they are doing some 'ballet'.  I know, I know, but they think they look really good.

You just can't beat the combination of tutus and socks can you?  Unless it's Katie's tutu, socks and red ballet shoes comination!  I think you'll agree that Suzanne's advice made much more impressive (and more sticky out) skirts!  Thank you again Suzanne.

Now I suppose I should go and work on this year's Christmas presents...

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.