Snowflake Dress a nod to Elsa from Disney's Frozen

I recently had a private sewing student who wanted to make a holiday dress for her granddaughter. She wanted a dress made with  Navy blue, organza, satin, and a large bow sash. For our project, she chose to use McCalls 5795.

Mccalls 5795

This dress is fully lined, has a skirt overlay of organza and a flower and bow sash. It was tricky project for a newbie but, together, we ended up with a very satisfying result. Sorry for the picture quality on this one. This was a test size picture on my daughter, but you get the gist.

Mccalls 5795

Her project got me thinking about making a lovely holiday dress for my Little Miss. The McCalls dress was a lot of work with a lined bodice and three layers of heavy gathering in the skirt. This last fact made inserting the zipper more trouble than I wanted to venture into again. I chose instead to use Simplicity 5704 from my stash. I chose this pattern because it did not require full lining, but also gave various sleeve and neckline options. It was shorter than I wanted but that was easily remedied.

   

Simplicity 5704

On a recent trip to Walmart, I found snowflake organza in Turquoise Ice. Given that Frozen mania is still alive and well here, I knew I had to buy it. I paired it with white satin from my stash, I went to work.

Snowflake Organza

Taking inspiration from the McCalls dress I chose to use the organza as an overlay for the skirt and sleeves. I lengthened it to the length of the size 8 and made the rest of the dress is size 5. I also chose to use the sash from the McCalls pattern. The McCalls dress uses facings for the bodice rather than full lining. Here is the completed dress.

Snowflake Dress

Sleeve Detail

I cut the overlay 3 inches longer than the skirt.

I finished the hem with a 3-thread rolled napkin edge.

Every princess needs a tiara.

Best of all, it is great for playtime!

Project Breakdown:

Pattern and Fabric cutting time: 45 minutes.
Approximate Fabric Yardage: 2.5 Yards
Approximate Sewing time: 3 hours

Additional Elsa Inspired Dresses Seen here: 1 

Grateful hugs, kisses and cuddles: Endless

Happy Sewing,
Bianca

O-Laf with me at the lenghts I go to amuse my children.

Summer is winding to a bittersweet close. In a little more than a week, my daughter will begin her first day of kindergarten. I am a whirlwind of emotion balancing productive preparation and feats of distraction. Little Miss is undecided if she wants a purchased backpack or for me to make one for her.  I have given her many options but she does not know yet what she wants. 

As she deliberates, and in an attempt at distraction, I have decided to make a new diaper bag/backpack for Little Man.  He is a huge fan of the movie Frozen and delights in all things Olaf. He is usually indifferent when I sew for him, but I am hopeful the delights of summer snowflakes will sway him.
             

For the body of the bag, I chose denim fabric from my stash. For the lining, I chose the same denim and added an interior pocket. There are two kid-sized straps on the back and a magnetic closure in front. To make Olaf's face, I used felt to appliqué the features of this hilarious snowman. The details are made using pipe cleaners for his hair, embroidery thread for the spot in his eyes, and variegated thread for the coloring of the carrot nose. I added a bit of depth to his eyes and around his mouth using a silver colored permanent marker.

Details of Olaf's face.

Olaf on a summer bike ride.

It is large enough to hold the necessities of a toddler's day.

Back of the bag.

Olaf swinging in the summer breeze.

I am very pleased with this first draft of a backpack of this kind. I imagine I will be making more of these as there a birthday parties on the horizon. I may try a larger re-positionable nose and a larger capacity backpack. 

Little Man is thrilled to have Olaf on his back, though he did not want to be photographed. Little Miss loves this bag, she thinks he is fun to wear. She believes I can do anything and has requested an Anna or Elsa version, or maybe a Hello Kitty, or maybe a Tinkerbell, or Minnie Mouse or…

When she makes up her mind, I will be sure to update you. 

Happy Sewing,

Bianca

Do you want to build a Snowman? Elsa Inspired Dress from Frozen

Our Little Miss is in love with Disney's Frozen. I do not know any five-year old who is not obsessed with it. We have gone to a few Frozen themed birthday parties, seen her Pre-k graduation perform songs from the movie and seen the movie in theater in 2 and 3D. We have kept the Frozen mania at bay in our lives.We did not own the movie until last week and that purchase was packaged as a meaningful gift. Even on our recent trip to Walt Disney World we avoided Epcot Center altogether. I am not standing in a line for four hours to see ANYONE.

That being said, when Mccalls Patterns debuted their version of the pattern last week, I knew I had to make one for our darling. Mccalls 7000 has the Anna and Elsa inspired dress and Little Miss insisted on the Elsa dress.

                        
After checking my fabric store flyers, I saw that Mccalls pattern were on sale for $1 for the Memorial Day Holiday. When I arrived at the store, they did not have it in stock. I guess they are waiting for the sales to end before shelving it. If you know five-year olds, you cannot promise something and then delay delivery. I knew I had to find a substitute or live with being ask 100 million times per hour, "When are you going to make my Elsa dress?" I chose to modify Mccalls 6829.


                        

I bought my fabric got started on making an ice princess.

             

Ice blue satin (the fabric of the Devil's underpants) Knit Sequins and Organza

For this dress I made the following changes:

• Lengthened the skirt to the floor.
• Gathered the skirt instead of pleating it.
• Added long sleeves with a triangle point and finger loop (she insisted on the point on the sleeve and and did not want it to shift when her hand moved.)
• Added an overlay to the front and back skirt to create a train. This was tricky to maneuver because my pattern has the sequin area and upper bodice the reverse of what I needed. I had to flip it and add the overlay. I hopeful it is clear on the M7000 pattern, if you want to make one, wait a week and buy it :) 
• Added lace trim to the seam separating the skirt from the bodice.
• Added iron on teal snowflakes to the train (made in a desktop publishing computer program)  

Technically, this is an easy dress to make if you use basic non-specialty fabric. Specialty fabrics made this a horse of a different color.These fabric choices required serged edges and seam finishing. They also needed to be pressed with care and on the proper settings to avoid damage. These factors simply meant an increase in time to complete the dress. Additionally, novelty sequin fabric usually requires waxed paper on the seam to prevent the adhesive from gumming up the needle. I had no problem sewing this fabric regularly.

Here is Little Miss, I mean, Elsa, in her new dress.

Let it Go!

What is the point if we cannot play in it?

Perfect for twirling!

When all was said and done, she said she loved her dress more than the M7000 version and the one in the Disney store. She said she liked that no one else would have one like this. She says this will be her Halloween costume this year. It is May and with the way she plays, this will not make it. The joy on her face is motivation to make this again and again.

Update: I have also made an Olaf Backpack. You can see it here.
And another Elsa inspired Dress that can be seen here. 


Happy Sewing,
Bianca