Frozen

Last weekend, I made up a Frozen Anna winter travel dress outfit for my niece. Here are a few in-progress shots from Instagram...


I took the bodice shape & the cape from a Snow White costume, Simplicity 2817. It had the pointed bodice shape that Anna's travel dress has, and the cape's wrap around shape worked pretty nicely as well.

The blue "shirt" under the top is improvised, as is the skirt's lavender band at the bottom (I thought for a minute about doing the scallop, and decided it wasn't going to happen), and the hood. The bodice is all cotton, and the skirt is a cotton/poly broadcloth. The cape is wool inside, from a leftover remnant I had, and poly crepe on the outside. The pink tulips are felt, and the gold trim is a 3" knit band.



Here's the dress in action, at her Halloween parade at her horseback riding therapy school.

I also made her sister a kimono costume, to avoid the "why does she have a costume and I don't"'s ;)

Work clothes

Caroline posted a while ago about sewing bloggers who post "work clothes" and how rare they can be. So this is my little addition to that genre, which started with a black elastic waist skirt. I know, you can see nothing in this photo other than that I'm wearing something vaguely skirt shaped in black.

I had a meltdown the night before my first day as a law clerk intern this summer in D.C. - I've only ever worked as a software developer (blue jeans every day), but law in D.C. is a pretty formal field, even though my dress code was going to be business casual. I used Simplicity 2211, which has now become my go-to skirt pattern, as you can really fine tune the fit with all those seams.

This one was made out of a mystery black material in my stash, which has an almost faille like texture to it. No idea when or where I bought it. I zig-zagged in an elastic waist, wore it to work the next day, and have worn it several times a week since then. It's a workhorse.

I also ended up making two versions of Cynthia Rowley's dress pattern, S 2281. The pink dress was the first real outfit I made on my new serger! I really like this pattern, but then I'm very partial to raglan sleeve styles.

I used the lining bodice front pattern piece as the outer bodice front for this one, because I wanted to try it without the neck gathering.

I love the pleating on the sleeves, although it's hard to get a good photo of. Basically you pin in two tucks, then top stitch to hold the tucks in place.

So, there you go- a smidge of business casual work appropriate sewing.