Our little Elsa

 I know we are not alone with a Frozen obsession but lately our house has been ringing with the song 'Let it go' again and again and...

The other day a friend asked me to make her daughter an Elsa dress up for her birthday and I took it as a really good opportunity to make my daughter one too. I have been very much appreciated since and today has been spent twirling and leaping and singing... you get the picture.

I love how it turned out and so does she the only problem being I now have to call my daughter Elsa.

Here is my sweetie in action. Undershirt, powder blue sparkly dress and white sparkly cape. It is amazing how much time you can spend in a fabric show finding just the right combination to look right. I went for all knits for ease of fit. Together they are quite heavy which slightly worried me but since an all say concert has been performed in it I am sure I needlessly worried. I think she loved the drape and how it falls back into place after a spin and you can throw the cape in one direction and then it will swirl back in place.

So what did I do. I may have been tempted to buy a pattern for this but I could not find one that did not attach a skirt to a bodice and that wasn't the look I wanted so...

Step 1: I got Rae's Flashback Skinny Tee and made one out of a sheer white fabric.

Step 2: I measured my daughter from back neckline to ankle (I made 34 inches for size 6, this turned out a little to long as my fabric is quite heavy and has dropped a little after a hard days play). I then used the same pattern from step one and made it into a big rectangle that was 34 inches long.

Step 3: I then measured from underarm to where my daughters hips start and marked it at the side seam.

Step 4: At this point I drew a line at a 45 degree angle to create a 1/2 circle skirt and drew in a smooth curving line to join the bottoms.

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Step 5: Back at the top again I drew that shell shaped neckline. Follow the arm curve around and made the top curves 1 1/2 inches from the top of the original pattern, this was important for modesty as my white fabric was see through.

Then I cut this pattern piece on a fold.

Step 5: For the back a straight line starting at the under arm.

Then I cut this pattern piece on a fold.

Step 6: I did this step on the overlocker (serger). The two pieces of fabric pinned right sides together sewn down both side seams. Then hem the bottom once again I lazily just used a rolled hem on the overlocker and that is the blue dress finished.

Step 7: The cape. I used the back pattern piece and drew a long straight line from under the arm to the outside skirt point. Cut one on fold.

Step 8: Repeat step 7 but this time I only made it just wider than where the arm hole finished about 2 inches. Cut 2 reverse pieces.

Step 9: Pin the two front sections on the back at side seam a serge. And that is the cape finished with assembly the only thing still left.

Step 10: Next I pinned the cape to the cape starting at the side seams and then pinning the rest. I then sewed around the top of the cape with a three step zig zag so it would stretch.

Step 11: Finally I pinned the bodice onto the sheer t-shirt once again starting at the side seams. For the front I lifted it as high as I could smoothly make it sit to make sure we could have maximum modesty. And finally I used the three step zig zag again to secure them all together.

And that is how I made my Elsa dress. It only took me about 3 hours this lazy Saturday to make two of them and every one in this house is very happy and liable to break into song and dance at any moment and now it is time to 'let it go...' Talk to you next time.