Finished project: Simplicity 1233 - Elsa dress from Frozen

Do you want to build a snowman?

I did finish Eva's Elsa costume several days before Halloween. Unfortunately, I never did get "good" pictures of her in her dress. I did, however, get a few cellphone pictures of her trick-or-treating at my office on Halloween:

Eva as Elsa

I talked a bit about the construction of this dress in a previous post, back when the dress lacked a yoke, sleeves, and a zipper. Seeing Eva's reaction to the glitter organza of the cape, I opted to use it for the yoke and sleeves, as well. The neckline appears to gape a bit, I think, due to the stiffness of the organza and the fact that the dress is slightly too large on her (as intended so that she could use it as a play dress in the coming months). I'd considered using a chiffon for the sleeves and yoke for comfort, but with my OCD toddler daughter, I decided instead to sacrifice slightly stiff and less comfortable chiffon for a more Elsa-like look with the organza.

Pattern drafting notes

I found the pattern to be well-drafted in that everything lined up as expected, and I didn't encounter any weird fit issues.

Fabric

• Cape: Glitter/snowflake organza from HelenEnoxFabrics on Etsy
• Bodice: Sequined fabric from JoAnn's.
• Skirt underlayer: Costume satin from JoAnn's. I also lined the bodice with this same fabric.
• Skirt overlayer: Iridescent organza from JoAnn's.

Pattern sizing and alterations

Height-wise, my daughter is on the cusp of size 2T/3 on the Big 4 size charts. I sewed a size 3 in this dress, knowing that it would be slightly big, but figuring that she'd be able to wear it to play dress-up for at least a few months after Halloween. Outside of the skirt/cape running very long, the dress fits true-to-size.

In the reviews of the equivalent McCall's pattern, I've seen people mentioning that there is a (fairly typical with the Big 4) large amount of excess ease. I did not find that to be the case with this pattern.

I also tapered the cape so that it didn't drag on the floor in front, but was left long in back, just like the "real" dress.

cape shot

Pattern instructions

I complain about the instructions for Big 4 patterns a lot, but these were actually quite good and suggest appropriate construction methods for the garment. For example, the instructions actually have you use French seams for Elsa's cape, which is intended to be made from a sheer fabric. I think that this is the first time that I've ever seen French seams mentioned in Big 4 pattern instructions, regardless of the recommended fabrics. The order of construction is logical, as well.

Another complaint that a lot of us have about Simplicity patterns is that the instructions jump around a lot when a pattern has more than one view. That's not the case with this pattern--the instructions for Elsa's dress and Anna's dress are kept completely separate.

Final thoughts

I enjoyed making this dress a lot more than I thought I would, and I'm ecstatic about how excited it's made Eva. She'd probably wear this dress every day if we let her. I was so impressed with the pattern and its results that I'll probably snap up the other Frozen patterns from Simplicity. I think that an "Anna" dress for dress-up might make a good Christmas present. ;)

This week in patterns (31-Oct-2014)

Happy Halloween!

This post is a bit late in the day because I've been crazy busy at work this past week and haven't been able to have my usual lunchtime writing sessions. And, uh, there's been more interesting happenings in the sewing blog world this week than my little pattern recap posts. ;)

Onto the new patterns...

Simplicity - more Frozen costumes

Someone at Simplicity must have missed a big deadline because four days before Halloween, a new set of Frozen costumes appeared on the Simplicity website. These were not part of the set that showed up early in the app or on PatternReview. When Simplicity released the initial set, I was really surprised that they didn't include a pattern or views for Anna and Elsa's coronation dresses or adult versions of the costumes. Now I know why--they were simply still on their way. There's also a pattern for 18" doll (e.g. American Girl) costumes in this bunch, too. Still missing from this collection are costumes for Olaf and Kristoff, and in my mine, there should be a dog costume for Sven, too.

S0747 - Frozen Costumes for 18" dolls

Eva doesn't have any American Girl dolls yet but, I'm going to buy this pattern and stash it for when one or both of her grandmothers inevitably buy her an American Girl doll.

S0747

S0748 - Frozen costumes for girls - Coronation Day

I'm buying and stashing this one, too because I've always liked Anna's coronation dress. Plus, you never now when your daughter might want another dress from Frozen, right?

S0748

S0746 - Frozen costumes for women - Elsa's Snow Queen and Anna's Coronation dresses

So these are my two favorite dresses from the movie. I should own this pattern for that reason, right? Because I wear costumes so often, too.

S0746

S0745 - Frozen costumes for women - Anna's day dress and Elsa's coronation dress

At this point, I might as well buy this one to complete the set, right?

S0745

McCall's - Holiday collection 2014

M7058 - Misses' jackets and coats

This is a great-looking basic jacket pattern with the option of a hood! And you know that I'm all over anything with a hood.

M7058

M7057 - Misses' Vests, Jacket and Belt

Annnnnd here's a shall-collar coat that looks promising from the line drawing, but ugh, the styling for the photo shoot! This looks like a bathrobe in this fabric.

M7057

M7055 - Learn to Sew for Fun Misses' Vest and Cardigan

M7055 is a kinda cute easy cardigan pattern. I'm only pointing it out here because the illustration for View C (pictured below) reminds me an awful lot of Anna's cape from Frozen. Sure, it's not an exact copy, but I could see it as an "interpretation". Or maybe I just have Frozen on the brain.

M7055

M7045 - Misses' skirts

I predict that we'll see View D (the maxi skirt view) in Pattern Review's fabric stash contest next year at least once. Why? Because if you're using 45" wide fabric, this skirt will eat nearly freakin' 10 yards!

M7045

M7070 - Handmade Appliques, Trims & Instructions For Purchased Sweatshirts

 Ugh. And here's a pattern to re-fashion a couple of your old sweatshirts into a coat that Dr. Evil would wear, and then applique flowers all over it. This is why home sewing has an unfashionable reputation to many outsiders:

M7070

M7065 - Frozen costumes for 18" dolls

If you don't have access to Simplicity patterns but still want to make a Frozen costume for the American Girl doll in your life, McCall's can help you out:

M7065

By Hand London - Kim dress

So By Hand London pre-released another party dress, the Kim dress:

BHL - Kim dress

As I've mentioned before, I have zero need for party dresses these days, but in my younger, single life, I could see the appeal of this. I do have to wonder, though, should BHL maybe bite the bullet and just re-brand themselves as the "party dress indie"? Outside of the jumpsuit and the blazer, haven't all of the rest of their patterns been party dresses? I'm not trying to be bitchy, I'm just wondering why they don't just go ahead and embrace the niche that they're clearly leaning towards being.

Final Thoughts

My own picks out of this group are the new batch of Frozen patterns and McCall's 7058 (the hooded jacket/coat).

BTW, feel free to snark or gush over any of the patterns discussed in these posts in the comment section. And just because I happen to like or dislike a particular pattern doesn't mean that I expect everyone else to feel the same way. ;)

In Process: Simplicity 1233 - Elsa dress from Frozen

As I think I've mentioned about a half dozen times over the past month, my daughter adores the movie Frozen, and like many, many other little girls wanted to be one of the characters from the movie for Halloween. The funny thing is that every time I asked her, she'd change her mind as to whether she wanted to be Elsa or Anna, so I made the executive decision to make her an Elsa costume, figuring that would have the greater "wow" factor to a 2-year old.

Both Simplicity and McCall's have released their own versions of patterns for the already-iconic dress that Elsa's coronation gown transforms into during her performance of "Let it Go". From comparing the line drawings, the only difference that I can see between the two versions is that the Simplicity version has decorative trim at the waist seam and yoke seam. Even though the "real" version of the dress lacks this trim as far as I can tell, I went with the Simplicity version because, hey, it was the "officially licensed" version.

Elsa from Disney's "Frozen"

I started working on Eva's version of this dress about a week ago. I have to say that I'm quite impressed with the Simplicity pattern so far. Whereas I've seen complaints about the McCall's version running very large, when I pin-fit the bodice to Eva for the Simplicity version, it appears to be slightly on the roomy side of being true-to-size. The skirt is quite long, but obviously, hemming a skirt is much easier than having to take in 5-6" of excess ease throughout the dress (as some reviews have mentioned doing with the McCall's pattern).

Here's what my version looked like before I attached the cape:

Elsa dress in-progress, pre-cape attachment

And close up to get a better view:

Close up of the Elsa bodice

Because I can't leave well enough alone, I am making a few changes to the pattern:

• I'm lining the bodice because the wrong side of the sequined fabric I'm using seemed like it could be scratchy. Actually, what I did is a hybrid between lining and underlining. I stitched the side seams of the bodice on both the sequin and lining fabric, then basted the lining to the sequin fabric. I would have love to have done a traditional lining with everything clean-finished, but because I hadn't completely walked through the construction in my head, I'd already constructed the cape at that point and would have had to rip out French seams from the cape side seams in poly organza. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.
  
  

  

  "Guts" shot of the Elsa dress

• While most of kids' costumes you see show a solid satin skirt on this dress, the "real" dress's skirt has something sparkly going on. I found an iridescent organza at JoAnn's and overlayed that on the satin skirt. While this doesn't have the ombre look of the "real" dress, I prefer this look to a solid skirt.
• Rather than applique'ing snowflakes onto the cape, I found a fabulous glitter snowflake organza on Etsy that I'm using. (It appears to be sold out now.) Yes, my house is now covered in glitter.
• I'm using a narrow hem on my serger on the cape, yoke, and sleeves.
• I'm undecided on what to make the yoke and sleeves out of. I have the pieces cut both from the glitter organza and a white chiffon. I'd love to just use the glitter organza, but I'm a little concerned that it might be a little stiff and uncomfortable for Eva, even though it would look fantastic. I'm currently leaning towards lining/underlining the organza with the chiffon.

The pattern is well-drafted in that so far, all of the seams and notches have lined up perfectly. The construction methods are pretty sound, as well; they have you use French seams on the sheer portions of the costume. 

Here are two shots of the dress after I attached the cape:

Elsa dress with cape

Close-up of the Elsa dress with cape

I may swing by Hancock on my way home from work in another attempt to find a light-blue chiffon for this dress, in which case I will likely underline the snowflake organza for the yoke with the chiffon, and just do the sleeves in the chiffon. I feel like just going with the white chiffon is too much contrast. Plus, I don't want to use just chiffon in that yoke--with all of that fabric between the lined bodice, lined skirt, and cape, the dress is starting to feel a bit heavy.

How is everyone else's Halloween sewing going? What costumes are you making for yourself and/or your kids?