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.   

Frozen: Anna Costume Simplicity 0733/1233

It's Halloween time again, and the costumes are done!  First up is Anna.  I used Simplicity 0733 which is also known as Simplicity 1233.  Weird--the envelope has one number and the pattern pieces have the other.

I'm going to cut to the chase:  the dress is cute, the cape is easy, but the pattern's finishing methods really left me scratching my head.  Several times I looked at the instructions, looked at my fabric, looked back at the instructions, and said "Well, that's stupid. There must be a better and cleaner way to do that"

Lets start with some finished photos:

Cute right?

Here are my complaints:  The bodice piece is the black and the aqua-blue at the neckline is an inset piece sewn to the top of the bodice piece.  The instructions tell you not to finish the edges, just baste it on and then sew trim over the raw edges.  Ummm...no.  I made lining for inset piece, sewed them together keeping the neckline (at the collar) free, and turned them right side out keeping all of the raw edges inside.  Then, I sewed trim over the edges.  Much cleaner.

There was a similar lack of finishing at the scallop trim at the bottom of the skirt.  Again this is a piece that is meant to be sewn to the skirt without finishing the edges first.  Here are the directions:  "Turn band to OUTSIDE; press.  Pin edges in place.  Stitch close to raw edges of scallops or zig-zag (satin) stitch along raw edges."  Sounds like instructions for some serious sloppiness. 

This is what I did:  I interfaced the scallop band as instructed.  Then I cut another set of scallop pieces out of white cotton.  I sewed the scallop edges of the aqua-blue and white cotton scallops right sides together. 

Then I turned it right side out and pressed.

 Then I sewed the scallop band onto the skirt as directed.  Much much neater:

This costume also called for lots of appliques.  I am not an applique person.  I did it on the bodice, but that was it.  For the bodice I cut out felt per the applique pattern and used fuse-n-bond to stick it on.  Then I sewed some glass beads on for some bling.  The skirt appliques were just too numerous, and I could not cut them out without them looking like crap.  So I went to Walmart and found some pink felt flower shape buttons and used them instead.  I fused them on first, then I sewed around the edges so they wouldn't fall off.  I sewed glass beads to the center of each flower to cover the 'button holes'.

Here's a close-up of the bodice:

The cape was simple.  I used 72" wide felt and left the edges raw.  I was a cheapskate and didn't buy the pom-pom trim.  The over-cape gives my little one linebacker shoulders and if I really cared, I'd take in the shoulder seams.  But I don't, so I won't.

There you go: one Anna costume.  It came out cute, but man, those instructions are really meant for something that will only be worn once and not scrutinized too closely.