Tiny Tinkerbell

Today is the day for the letter T! My daughter wants a Tinkerbell party this year, and I'm making her a dress for the party! And one for a friend - so two dresses! These aren't finished yet, missing hems and zippers. Soon...

 Going through my pattern stash, I found these two patterns - decided to follow the one on the right, Simplicity 2237, but getting ideas for a jagged edge skirt from the one on the left.

Here's my sketch (with paint! couldn't find markers and colored pencils didn't get the idea right) with the jagged edge skirt idea.

 When I got out the paper and fabric, I thought I would just cut the points as I felt, then realized no, that's not a good way to do that - measured, planned!

It helped I was watching Project Runway while I did this! Here you see the skirt folded in quarters, with a point on I cut to fit it. Then I used it for a template to draw four points to edge the skirt with.

 Draw...

 Cut...

 Attach to pattern!

And ready to cut the fabric with it! Downside... this actually made the skirts quite a bit longer. More on that later in the post.

 Here's a bit on the rest of the dress...

 The front of the halter bodices - the straps could be longer. This is a step of the sewing where I'm making them fully lined, it worked well!

 These are the backs of the bodices, before adding elastic in to make them stretchy.

 Skirts sewn together! I forgot to make the white underskirt longer, but since I have to shorten the whole skirt, I won't shorten the white as much as I shorten the green.

 Sewing on the dining table... I miss my basement! But it was fun sewing while my husband worked on computer stuff, we were in the same room talking!

 This is what the halter tops looked like, before sewing onto the skirt. Aren't they all cute and symmetrical?

 Almost finished dresses!

The back of one on the left, the front of one on the right.

 And here's my Tiny Tinkerbell, trying on her dress!

She was making funny faces in it, silly girl! I'm taking at least 3 or 4 inches off the green part of the skirt, it's a light summer dress, not a long one! I'm trying to decide on any embellishments or a ribbon belt... haven't decided yet.

Overall I would say the pattern has worked pretty well, except the halter straps would be nicer about 4 inches or more longer, for easier tying. Making the halter bodice took some re-reading of directions, but then I got it. I almost think the dresses don't need zippers, since they're for four year olds, but I will still put them in. Looking forward to trying to make another halter dress sometime! I have fun finding new things to learn on my daughter's dresses, costumes or not. I tackled darts on the Cinderella dress, pleats on another of her birthday dresses, now halter!

Now I just have to do the trimming, add in the zippers and hem those fun jagged edges somehow! Wish me luck, parties on Saturday and Sunday, and we're doing a lot on Friday out of the house...

And I still need to plan the party! Thinking about making paper fairy/bird houses for the girls to decorate with stickers and markers, maybe like this one I made tonight. What do you think?

Who is your favorite fairy from stories? Share in the comments! And please join me tomorrow for something that starts with U!

Radiant Rapunzel

 Last A to Z Challenge post of the week! Today's letter is R, for Radiant Rapunzel, the first character costume I made for my daughter.

 We're big fans of Tangled in my house, so when I asked my daughter what she wanted to be for Halloween, she picked Rapunzel. I might have encouraged the choice a little bit... and then she tried to change her mind after I bought the fabric and started planning the costume - no turning back then! (If you look above, this dress is one of the items in my logo banner!)

I stubbornly refused to buy the Disney brand Simplicity pattern for this costume, partly because I thought I could do better without it, and partly because I do not like single-style patterns, and there were no other dresses it showed as options. The Cinderella costume pattern from last year was different - it can be Snow White also. Instead, I used a formal girls dress pattern my mom had handed down to me. I think she got two copies of it by mistake one time. Free patterns can sometimes be best patterns, and Simplicity 4764 was a good fit!

Pretty flower girls, aren't they? I liked the skirt and sleeves, but the bodice needed work to be Rapunzel's.

This was my sketch, to get an idea I could draw and scribble on, not one of my daughter's books or her play table with Rapunzel on it! I decided to just make the bodice wider, and fold over and sew for the corset parts - it didn't need to be supportive or shaped around breasts, not for a two and a half year old!

 I did a lot of this work in a marathon sewing session, staying up all night watching The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition, finally - after probably five or more years of having those dvds and never watching them. (I watched all of our Star Wars dvds while sewing the Cinderella costume [original trilogy]) Remotes can make handy pattern weights!

My first attempt at widening the bodice for the corset inlay wasn't quite wide enough... the wider one was actually my third attempt! Good thing I got extra fabric, and this didn't take much yardage.

This is a little bit of the steps I took - figuring out how far apart, fold, pin, sew, iron, sew more!

The sleeves weren't too complicated, once I discovered the ribbon I thought would work for stripes was too sheer and wouldn't show up. Extra bit of pink satin to the rescue! I cut the pink satin close to the shape of the sleeve - narrower because there wouldn't be stripes in the underarm area, taller because I wanted them caught fully in the seams. Then I cut strips, ironed down both sides, pinned to the purple sleeves in rows, and stitched them on. Adding the lace at the bottom is just the perfect little touch!

For the skirt, I made the main front panel a lighter purple, with two overhangs of darker purple coming over that on both sides. Gathering the skirt together to attach to the bodice can be a pain when it's a full skirt, but that rectangle sure does look pretty when it's all together, doesn't it?

Here you can see the dress almost finished... with sleeves, then the grommets! I love my grommet presser, it's so nice to come up with a project like this, and know I can add in grommets with ease. This dress also has the MOST trim I've ever put on a single dress - but it's all costume-appropriate. Since in the movie, Rapunzel makes her own dresses, I think she just has a thing for lace.

I may be a snob when it comes to store bought costumes, but I can be a sucker for licensed accessories... This year, she didn't get the princess shoes (they were sold out anyhow), but she got a light up crown that came with a musical necklace and a purse - mainly I wanted the iconic crown! And she already had the doll, I can't resist taking a photo of doll and costume!

 And here, the princess herself in her dress! She still loves it, even though the satin snagged early on. Maybe it's because I let her sit on that bridge? There is a lot of length hemmed up in the skirt with the idea of letting it out as she grows taller, but with the snags I'm thinking that's a no-go. Oh well, she can have fun with it now!

Thanks for joining me again on the A to Z blogging journey! Check out the other bloggers in the challenge and come back next week for more!

Gypsy Girls - A to Z Blogging Challenge Week Two

Welcome to week two and day seven (already!) of my A to Z Blogging Challenge! Today's post focuses on Gypsy Girls, some of my favorite costumes.

Back in 2007, I decided I was going to sew, dangit! I had a lot of patterns and some fabric my mom and I had chosen when I was in high school for various costumes, but due to different issues (time, motivation, et cetera) I never made the costumes with her. There was some lack of communication as well - I think I expected HER to make them, and she expected ME to be guided by her but mostly making them myself. Then I moved to Wisconsin, where I worked full time and didn't have a good sewing machine, so the fabric and patterns sat in boxes. Fast forward three years, and I was living with my husband and only working part time, with an unquenched love of costumes. 

What's a girl to do?

Make costumes!

This was my dream costume for years, a gypsy! I had drawn the design over and over, patterned a character after wearing it even. The pattern and fabric was just waiting... well that really pretty print fabric was. I got the black silk from a friend's destash, and the bronze, gold, and red from remnants at Joann when I decided to really make this already!

 I wore the costume at GenCon 2007, I was lucky to have the costume! I stupidly forgot ALL my hanging costumes, waiting by the door, when we left for Indianapolis. But this costume was folded up in my suitcase, so I still had it!

 There's a billowy peasant blouse with two puffs and dangle sleeves, a corset-vest, and a skirt with an overskirt. The scarf on my head is just a folded over piece of scrap fabric - sometime I might hem it so I don't worry about it rolling out and showing edges! I pulled the jewelry from my own collection (this was before I started making jewelry big-time), and the belt was a great find on the convention floor! (My funny pose was an idea from the pattern model, looking back, I don't like it much, but can't change old photos!)

Three years and a baby later, and we were planning on going to a renaissance festival for the first time. I had made a few things for my daughter by then, and decided on a whim - baby gypsy costume! I had a pattern that would work, as a miniature of my costume. Instead of two pieces, I decided on a dress with an elastic waist I could hide with a little corset-belt, in a style that would make a cute dress, then transform as she grew taller to work over leggings.

 I didn't have enough gold fabric for the middle layer of the skier, so I bordered two corners with the print fabric - perfect!

 Here's my little model trying it on for the first time!

 I even covered a headband with gold, to match my scarf! This was on the way to our first renaissance festival, but the princess fell asleep in the stroller and we didn't get any good photos.

 These two photos were taken at and after Halloween events of the same year, matching costumes are fun! And she does look like a gypsy baby, stolen from another family, since our hair is so different!

 The photo below was taken the next year, 2011, I just love this photo of us! She's not looking at the camera, but the scenery is so perfect. I miss Michigan's Renaissance Festival already...

 Here are the costumes on their own, first hers, a little close up of my jingly belt, then both of ours together

My costume could use some modifications - the corset doesn't fit as well as it did before I had a baby, and her skirt needs steaming. I have also considered making a different skirt for my costume - but I am not changing that shirt for the world! I love it, always so much fun to wear! I wonder how the costume will look on my daughter this year?

Do you have any favorite matching costumes? Or a favorite piece of gypsy-style jewelry? Share in the comments!

Thanks for joining me, come tomorrow for something that starts with H!

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