Halloween starts to creep into my mind around mid August. I love Halloween. Not just for the costumes and candy, but also because it signals the start of crisp air, vibrant color changes and the start of family centered activities.
It is really starting to feel like fall today. The sky is overcast, it's drizzling rain and the air has cooled to a nice crispness. I started thinking about Halloween costumes for Princess ZaZa weeks ago. I wanted something age appropriate, yet fun and suitable for Arizona's fall weather.
The Princesses costume is going as a Fairy. More specifically an Autumn Fairy.
I decided to bring ya'll along for the journey of making her costume. So this will be a 3 part tutorial; dress, tutu, and wings. Why both a dress and a tutu? Well, firstly, I didn't want a tutu that was attached to the top so that I would be able to fit her into her car seat. Secondly, She's 2, she may at any random minute decide that she does not want to wear the tutu and strip it off in public venue.
Part One- Moss Dress
I found some beautiful moss green fabric at Joanns that I think would be perfect for the dress.
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| This picture really doesn't do the fabric justice. It's a beautiful dark moss green with little silvery bits that make it look like it has some frost on it. |
I could not find a pattern for the type of dress I wanted to make, but when has that ever stopped me?! I did have a pattern that had the type of neck line and sleeves I wanted her dress to have.
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| A pattern I bought to make a party dress for her earlier this year. |
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| The Party Dress |
I pinned the chest and back pieces to the fabric and using a ruler and fabric marker created the body and skirt of the dress in the shape that I desired.
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| I followed the pattern's line and extended it so that the torso would equal 7 inches and then flared the skirt portion from there. |
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| The shape is more visible in this picture |
The moss fabric is a very stretchy knit, so a stretch stitch is needed to sew the dress together. On my Brother XL5500 sewing machine stretch stitches are 6 and 7. I choose to use a short stitch lenght on the number 6 stitch to reduce the chance of the fabric raveling past my seam and to keep the thread from snapping when the fabric stretched.
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| The stretch stitch can barely be seen, but it allows for the fabric to stretch with out breaking the thread |
After assembling the body of the dress I realized that the fabric had so much stretch that it would pretty much hang off ZaZa's small frame. To remidy this issue I put a dart down the middle of the back to where her bottom should be.
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| The dart |
After trying it on her to make sure it fit, I made the shoulder straps. The material is a beautiful metalic mesh that changes color depending on how the light hits it. Lots of pins had to be used to keep the fabric from rolling up on itself and shifting during sewing.
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| Very Autumn inspired. |
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| Very slippery fabric to work with. |
A trick to keep mesh fabric from snagging on the presser foot while sewing, is to put a piece of tape on the bottom of the foot.
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| Just plain ol' tape. |
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| Now the fabric shouldn't snag. |
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| I used a very short stitch length and small zigzag stitch width for the sleeves, then top stitched close to the edge once they were turned right side out. |
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| pleating them will make them "cup" her shoulders. |
I created a small liner for the inside of the dress out of scrap material. I did this to create a neater seam, as well as to have something the help secure the shoulder staps in place.
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| Attaching the sleeves and lining. |
Once the liner and sleeves were attatched the hem needed to be finished. At first I was going to sew a narrow hem, but changed my mind a made it tinkerbell-esk. My hope is that once washed once or twice the raveling of the edge would lend itself to the moss like texture of the material making it look more realistic. I stay-stitched about half an inch from the raw edge to keep it from raveling to far.
Stay tuned for the tutu and wing tutorial, as well as pictures of the finished costume!
~Knotted
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