Elsa Play Dress

Elsa has been Abby's favorite since we watched the movie when she was probably 2.5. I knew without a doubt I would be attempting an Elsa play dress. 

The details I knew were important included snowflakes, sparkles, and some kind of cape; plus a waistband if I could make it work. 

Base dress from Primary.com with matching shorts.

 

The hardest part of this dress was deciding how to place the snowflakes and jewels. It's very symmetrical which I usually don't like in design but it works here. The best part is I could keep playing with them until they looked right before ironing them down.

 

Here is the happiest accident! I sewed a finished edge around 3 sides of this stretchy, sparkly fabric to make the cape. Then I lined up the bottom edges, gathered the top edge and pinned it just below the buttons in the back.

I sewed a straight line across and planned to cut off the extra fabric and add some detail with some silver iron-on tape to hide the shoddy job (hehe) but when I picked it up, I absolutely loved how the top part of the cape fell down and looked so cute!

 

Not sure why I felt the need to include a close up of that edge- probably because it looks semi-decent and I don't think I've ever done one of those before. Clear thread for the win yet again!

 

After letting this one sit awhile I decided to add the waistband. I cut a tessellation design out of that iron on fabric tape and ironed it on. So simple- the hardest part was cutting it out!

In case you aren't familiar a tessellation is where the shapes in a pattern meet up perfectly. I created a shape that when I cut it out of one strip I was able to line up the edges with the flat edge at the bottom and they matched up.

I remember doing a tessellation project in probably 3rd grade when I went to another school for the day for GT; and we did a tessellation project in Design 1 in college. I'm a big fan! :)

 

I ironed that tessellation strip down (it goes all around the waist, even under the cape), and the girl was excited to try it on.

 

She has worn this since we've been home also. I've been able to machine wash the dresses (I flipped them inside out to be safe) and they came out great! 

This one needs a little touching up with the fabric glue- the snowflakes are coming lose as well as the waistband. I guess sometimes there's not enough glue on the iron on transfer stuff.

I've gotten compliments on these dresses and as I was making them I wondered if I would enjoy making them and selling them on Etsy or something but I decided that I wouldn't. 

It's like painting a room- generally I love to paint, but if I had to do it for a paying customer, I think my nerves would get the better of me and I wouldn't charge enough for the work it took. The time and materials for these dresses was about $40-50 each. I don't know if someone would be willing to pay $75 for one but that's what I would have to charge to make it feel like it was worth the effort. 

I really did enjoy creating something new for my girl though!