Blue Simplicity Disney Fairies Costume 1792

Poor Chloe’s Yellow fairy dress has now ended up with the tulle all tattered and torn around the bottom of the skirt. The spotted tulle is losing it ‘s spots from washing.

I had some blue fabric left over from Jessica’s Elsa costume so today I made Chloe yet another fairy dress. This time I made view A in blue satin and crystal organza in a size 2.

Instead of using tulle for the skirt overlay I used white organza, in the hope that it won’t get as tattered and torn as quickly as tulle. I only used I layer of organza instead of two, also because of the width of the fabric it was cut smaller in width than the pattern. I also only used two pieces of the skirt back and side back overlay piece 10 instead of 3 because I ran out of fabric.

After sewing it all together it looked more like a princess dress than a fairy costume, so I didn’t add the Velcro for the wings on the dress and I’m not making the another set of wings.

I now hope that this lasts a little longer than the yellow one, although it’ll be hard to get her out of it.

Vogue 7593 Girls Smocked Apron and Dress.

I have always loved smocked dresses. I find them easy to make and love the look of them. Although have never owned a smocking pleater and have always completed my smocking by hand sewing.

I have had this Vogue pattern for quite some time, unfortunately over time the instruction sheet has gone missing and for some reason the dots for the smocking also went missing. I did make the apron once before without the smocking for an Alice in Wonderland costume which turned out lovely. This time for Chloe I made the apron and dress a size 2 with the smocked apron.

The Fabric I used was a poly/cotton blend Fabric.

The Dress:  Chloe’s dress is made from Dress A and Apron E. Since I didn’t have the iron on transfer I marked out a 1/4″ by 1/2″ grid using a water erasable fabric pen. I hand sewed  the thread through the fabric then pulled the threads up to pleat. I used the template for the bodice to stretch out the pleats to the right width, and tied the threads of.

 

Since I didn’t have the instruction for the embroidery I drew up my own pattern. I counted the pleats to find the middle and started sewing from here (left to right, and right to left). My pattern is pretty much a diamond pattern. (Embroidery photo). I embroidered bullion roses across the bottom where shown from my pattern. Three Bullion roses were embroidered on the top with a couple of forget-me-not flowers and leaves.

After the pleating and embroidery was completed I started to sew the apron together. I found this pretty straight forward to do. I sewed the smocked front to the top bodice without the piping.

I found that everything lined up well and was pretty straight forward. On the packet it said that it was advanced I think this is just because of the smocking. Without the smocking it is quiet easy to sew.

 

Theses are the photos of Jess when I made this for an Alice in wonderland Costume. This was sewn using the pinafore D pattern without the pintucked front and the embroidery.

Simplicity Disney Fairies Costume 1792

 After making all of my girls costumes, my two wanted her own special little costume. With her being so small it was hard to find a pattern in my stash that would fit her, so I went out and bought the Simplicity Fairy Costume Pattern 1792.

Pattern Description: Disney Fairies costume for toddler & child. Dress with tutu, pants and wings depicts Tinker Bell, Fawn, Rosetta, Silvermist and Iridessa.

Pattern size: 1/2 – 3. I made size 2.

The Fabric: Satin, Organza and Tulle.

The dress:  When I showed Chloe the pattern she picked the yellow Iridessa Costume. Going to the my local fabric store I had to find try and find the fabric. Trying to match colour was difficult as there wasn’t much choice in yellow, without going for hideous bright colour. I ended up picking up a lovely gold colour satin, an ivory satin for the center panel and a white and yellow organza. The tulle I bought from a different store there was one layer of plain white tulle with the top layer being a poker dot tulle. White because I couldn’t find a nice yellow.

Sewing the dress together was relatively easy. I liked how full the skirt looked and the petals above the skirt. I didn’t add all the trimming on the top and around the skirt, the little one was a little impatient.

The wings were a little floppy but I didn’t add the chenillle pipe cleaners, I don’t think it would have stopped them from flopping over though.

If I was going to make it again I would most probably try and add some wire or something to try and stiffen it up.

McCalls M7000 – Frozen Princess Dress

I am glad to say my seven year old has been running around my house saying that she is Elsa. Since the movie was created and premiered in the cinemas my girls have be in love with it. They have been singing Let it Go everyday and have watched the movie so many times that they know all the words.

 

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa Bodice Close up

My girls absolutely love the frozen movie and are always bugging me for costumes. Jess has been asking for an Elsa dress for many months. The McCalls pattern M7000 I would say is an unofficial Elsa and Anna dress, meaning that it doesn’t seem to have a Disney stamp of approval like some of the Simplicity patterns have, who have countless patterns saying Disney on them. But this doesn’t matter to a seven year old so I bought the pattern and the fabric and started sewing.

The Dress:

For this dress I made up a size 5-6. I bought a light blue satin, light blue crystal organza and an aqua sequin fabric. I also purchased a light blue glitter fabric paint and an all glitter fabric paint with a couple of paint brushes for the snowflakes.

I made up the bodice first with some cheap cotton fabric  to see how loose it would be on her. So I made a size 5-6 and but  then had to take it in at the seam allowances to fit her. I had to take it in by a couple of inches before I got a nice fit then I started to make the bodice.

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa

My sewing machine was sticking on the sequins so I ended up placing a piece of greeseproof baking paper over the pieces to try to remove any extra glue from the needle.

Jess wanted to help with the sewing so she ended up sewing the skirt pieces together and unfortunately she had trouble sewing the organza so I had to see the organza overlay for her. After we had sewn the organza overlay we decided to paint the snowflakes on. We printed several snowflakes shapes from the computer and laid these under the organza also using greaseproof paper as well. Jess then traced over the snowflakes with fabric paint, going around the outside and then using the paintbrush to spread the paint towards the centers.

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa snowflakes painting

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa Snowflake Painting

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa Snowflake Painting

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa Snowflake

For the thinner design snowflakes with used the all glitter paint and just did a thin line down the middle and spread it out to a wider width with the paintbrush. We painted the snowflakes on before attaching to the dress. We also didn’t paint the same snowflake twice.

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa Snowflake detail

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa Snowflake detail

After this Jess was in a creative mood and decided to make a cotton wool snowman while I finished her dress, but while I was trying to help her out with a snowman I accidentally forgot to sew the organza overlay to the bodice before sewing the front yoke on. When I tried to unpick this the organza looked like it was going to fray so I decided to sew the overlay on after. I just added a rolled hem to the top edge and attached this to the bodice after it was all sewn together.  But I’m pretty sure no one would notice this.

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa Back View

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa Front View

Frozen McCalls M7000 Elsa Side View

After all of this she absolutely loves it and is really happy with it. I have one happy seven year old. This is one pattern that I would definitely be sewing again and I would recommend it.

McCalls M5731 Princess Sewing Pattern Review

My gorgeous little 4 year old has been bugging me lately for a costume. She has seen her older sisters getting costumes made for their school book week dress up day, school fundraising events and birthdays. Today she got her wish.

I had started to make an Elsa (Frozen) costume for my seven year old, but I ended up putting that on hold for the time being just to make her this dress.

The pattern: Dress, close-fitting through bodice has princess seams, gathered skirt, back zipper, sleeve variations and purchased trims; costume A, C have front lacing, optional purchased wand. I made view C.

Sizing: 3-8. Of which I made size 3-4.

The Fabric: A Cotton fabric with no print in purple and white, with lace for the sleeves and a silver trim.

The dress: This is actually  my second attempt at making this dress. I had first tried to make it for my daughters book week costume earlier on in the year. Unfortunately it didn’t really work out all the well for her. It was loose the center panel was way too low, and it wouldn’t sit on her shoulders. The whole thing just frustrated me, and I hated it. I had tried a smaller size but it still didn’t work.  I was a little worried that I would have to redraft the whole pattern to get this to work for Mia.

After my first attempt I had figured out what was going to work so I made some small modifications to it. Originally the front panel was too low so this time I increased the length of the front panel at the top by 2 inches. Because I the increased height I added an extra ribbon crossover as well. For the shoulder I increased the width at the neckline by 1 inch so that it wouldn’t slip of her shoulders. I also increased the back neckline by two inches to match the front.
For the sleeves I only added one lace ruffle instead of two, I just made this from a strip of 9cm wide lace trim sewn end to end then gathered slightly.

The rest of the pattern worked out fine. The skirt is gathered suit the bodice width and is pretty simple to sew together. I used a silver trim around the back neckline down to the front skirt seams. which is also used for the trimming around the sleeves.

As a recommendation to other sewers and mums, this is a good pattern that is relatively simple to sew but may need some modifications to the bodice to get it to fit.

I was worried that because it was plain cotton with no pattern that it would be a little too plain and boring but in the end it looks pretty good. She absolutely loves it, and it worked out better then what I was expecting.