Cinderella Costume

Today is April 3rd, that means it's time for C! Thanks for joining me again in the A to Z Blogging Challenge!

I have a tradition of making my daughter a Halloween costume every year, something sort of carried on from my mother, and in line with my love of costumes and my daughter's love of getting dressed up. For Halloween 2012, she and I decided on Cinderella for her costume. Now, I'm a stickler for costume accuracy - I really don't like the store bought costumes that add silly details but forget important ones. As you can see in the dolls above, Disney added a bow on baby Cinderella, a rose and collar trim on the toddler doll, and tiers in between the skirt puffs on the Barbie size doll. They're fun for my daughter to play with, but for me they just don't work (and you can tell she plays with them from the messed up hair, will fix that someday...).

In previous years, I have used different patterns, sometimes mixing elements of two patterns together, or adding my own bit to a pattern. But for Cinderella, I decided to get the Disney brand pattern, since I could get it for a dollar on sale, and I had never done skirt puffs before and didn't want to try and figure that out on my own. And the fabric had to be perfect, a light crystal blue with some glitter, not the stronger blue used in some costumes. Off to the craft store, and this is what I came home with:

Pattern, baby blue organza for the sleeve and skirt puffs, baby blue glitter satin for the dress, and a baby blue lining fabric for inside (please pardon the wrinkles, I just found these scraps in a box last night!). I didn't take many progress photos of the dress making because I was in a big time crunch, but here is a photo of the bodice with sleeves before adding the skirt puffs:

So sweet and simple! Then on go the skirt puffs:

I did cheat a little on the sleeve cuffs - the pattern called for making a narrow hem for the elastic to go through, but I used white satin ribbon folded in half for the hem and casing. Without that, the elastic would probably show through, so my way was better!

Onto the skirt, finishing the dress: 

Yes, those are light up Cinderella shoes, that's the one thing I bought from the costume section because they're just so cute and fun!

Here is the dress hanging up, front and back:

My zipper installation isn't the best, but it has improved a lot since the first few zippers I tried. In case you are wondering, I started sewing in 2007 on my own, after a few barely remembered lessons from my mother in my early teens. I haven't taken lessons since 2007 and haven't watched any how-to videos, just follow the patterns and learn from those and have also used some techniques from other patterns in new patterns. Simplicity patterns are my favorite! They go on sale the most, and are very easy to understand, with lots of different styles to choose from - especially costumes!

Finally, the princess herself! She loves this dress (along with her two other princess dresses, but those start with R and S).

We didn't have an orange pumpkin coach, but the combination of a yellow school bus and giant bunny works, right? The dress still fits her now, six months later, and I hemmed about 5 inches of length in the skirt, so if she gets taller but not too much wider, I can let out the hem and she'll be able to keep wearing it!

Do you have a favorite costume, or a favorite princess? Share with me in the comments! I hope you enjoyed this entry in my A to Z Blogging Challenge, join me again tomorrow for D!

Don't forget to check out some of the other great blogs participating in this challenge: http://www.linkytools.com/wordpress_list.aspx?id=181381&type=basic