Made for Mermaids Sophie Dress

I just love the newest pattern from Made for Mermaids.  I have already made 3 of them.  This one pictured I made for my 3 year old niece for Christmas.  I made this using the Sophie pattern.  It can be purchased here. 

This dress has several different options.  First, you can choose between 3/4 length sleeves or long sleeves.  I made this one with 3/4 length sleeves.  The center of the bodice is the perfect backdrop for embroidery.  I used a Disney princess design of Aurora from a Brother card for my embroidery machine.  For this design you must have a Brother machine that can use Disney embroidery cards.  I purchased my machine and this card almost 8 years ago so I don't know if this card is available for purchase anymore.  I choose to do a flat piping on the bodice and the instructions for that are also included in the pattern.

For the back there are 3 different options for closures.  The options are buttons, zipper, or exposed zipper.  I did an exposed lace zipper on this dress.

Now for the details on the fabric used.  For the main fabric I used a brand new Disney Princess fabric called I Am Princess.  It can be found on my website here.  For the center of the bodice (white) I used Michael Miller Fairy Frost in Snow.  It is white with a subtle shimmer to it and is a great back drop to the embroidery.  For the flat piping on either side of the bodice I used Riley Blake's Floriography Branches in Pink.  The zipper I bought on etsy from a shop called Fabricmade.  She is located in China so it took about 2 weeks to get in the mail.

Halloween Costumes, Frozen Style

I know it is a little late to be sharing Halloween costumes.  But, considering the extreme popularity of anything Frozen these costumes would also make excellent Christmas gifts for dress up play for the Frozen obsessed.  I made everything shown above, with the exception of the Olaf hat.

I will start with Elsa first.  For the pattern I used the Create Kids Couture Elise pattern in the tween sizes. They also offer this pattern in girls, women, and doll sizes.  I made the size 7/8 and added length.  I would say the sizing is spot on for the size I made.  Each fabric used in this was from a different source.  For the main blue fabric I used Michael Miller Fairy Frost in Caribbean.  I sell it in my fabric store and it can be found here.  A lot of people were using satin for their costumes and I absolutely hate working with satin.  What is so great about Fairy Frost fabric is that it is cotton so it is easy to sew with but still looks fancy at the same time!  This color is perfect for Elsa.  For the sheer knit on the top of the bodice and sleeves I used a fabric I found at Hobby Lobby.  It has small circles of silver sparkle all over it.  It was kind of a pain to sew with but it turned out great.  The cape fabric I found at Joanns and I got lucky finding it.  I bought it probably a month and a half before Halloween and it was jammed in between 2 other fabrics hiding in the wrong section.  It is an organza with silver foil snowflakes on it.

Next is Anna.  I made this dress way back in April for her birthday.  She loves it so much that she literally would wear it as soon as it was clean.  For the summer I made her a short sleeve peasant top to go underneath.  I just used plain boring Kona cotton for this one as I made this before I started carrying Fairy Frost fabric.  But, I have made this same dress using Fairy Frost fabric and the results are stunning.  I have made it easy for you and now offer a kit to make an Anna dress here.  The embroidery designs on the bodice and the skirt are both from Frou Frou by Heather Sue.

Now for Olaf.  I decided to go the route of a crochet hat rather then the type that you see with the mass produced Olaf costumes you could find at Wal-Mart.  This way he could wear the hat more then once.  Maybe there will be a few days here in California that will warrant wearing a hat this winter and he could wear it again.  Since I do not know how to crochet I bought the hat on etsy from this wonderful shop.  The hat's craftmanship is fantastic and her service was excellent.  I bought the hat way back in September (I was planning ahead for once) and at the time I didn't know what I was going to do for the rest of the outfit.  Then peek-a-boo patterns came out with a free tutorial for the body!  I had to upsize it to a 2T but it was not difficult at all.  For the brown undershirt I used Patterns for Pirates deep sea v neck shirt.  I love her patterns and now this brown shirt is used for pajamas paired with Olaf flannel pants.  The white pants were made using the pants pattern from the Alex and Anna pajama pattern also by Peek-a-Boo patterns.