One More Frozen Costume: Elsa

I made 2 Halloween costumes this year.  The first was Anna, and the second was Elsa.  Both were made using Simplicity 0733/1233.

Elsa:

Where to begin?  Let's start by calling this pattern "Recommended with Modifications".  It makes a cute dress, but if you want something that will last past Halloween, take it upon yourself to line it. 

I made a size 8 in this dress and since my daughter is a rectangle, added width at the waist.  One of the biggest things that irks me about girls' patterns is the assumption that little kids go in at the waist like a woman.  They don't.  They are rectangles. 

The sleeves, cape and yoke are made of chiffon.  Like the Anna costume, the instructions for Elsa's dress involved appliques.  As I said before I am not an applique person, and so I bought sparkly polyester chiffon for Elsa's cape instead of fussing with appliques.  I could have purchased chiffon that already had snowflakes on it, but I bought the cheaper sparkly stuff instead.  I was also extra cheap and only bought 2 yards instead of 2.25, which only made the cape shorter- no big deal.

In order to hide bra straps, I lined the yoke with cotton that I dyed with tea to make it blend in with her skin tone.  The bodice and skirt of the costume are a turquoise sparkly knit jersey.  To stabilize the bodice, I lined that too.  All of the seams are enclosed and I assembled the bodice and lining before attaching the cape.  (full disclosure: I forgot to sandwich the cape in between the yoke and bodice before sewing them together, and had to topstitch it on afterward.)

The armhole seam was very scratchy and uncomfortable, even after serging the edges with a dense stitch.  So to remedy that, I zig-zagged some ivory colored lingerie elastic to the seam allowance, turned it toward the bodice, and hand stitched it down. 

Soft elastic at armhole seam for comfort

I did use bias tape to finish the neckline, but I folded it down to 1/4" to minimize its appearance. 

 

I topstitched the cape and covered the stitching with white lace trim.  I used my serger to make narrow (3-thread), dense seam on the free edges of the cape.  The rolled hem setting was a little too dense and a little too narrow on the chiffon; it kept pulling away and simply didn't look nice.   

The last change I made was to lengthen the sleeves and add points to make them more like Elsa's.  My daughter says that the sleeves are too narrow; she couldn't bend her elbow more than 90'.

So that's it for Halloween 2014.