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