Queen Elsa Costume

Frozen! If you haven't seen it watch it. 

These days everyone loves Elsa and singing about letting it go. Believe me - I certainly do. Recently, I made an Elsa costume for a friend (I'm also working on Anna - have been for a year - but there's just too much detail work it's taking forever).

Here's it is:

I didn't use any of the Elsa sewing patterns available through Simplicity, I kind of combined a couple other patterns to make it.  

I used Butterick 4827 for the skirt and sleeves and New Look 6480 for the bodice:

I picked these mainly because I already had them. To figure out where to cut the dress pattern to insert the corset top I overlayed the pattern pieces over each other matching waistlines and drew in where the skirt seam and neckline + sleeves would start. 

Because I used a stretchy power net for the sleeves I had to do a lot of altering to get them to work since the sleeves and neckline needed to be more form fitting than the pattern allowed for. I don't know what would have worked better but that was definitely not the easiest way to go. 

I ended up buying a lot of fabric online because they kept coming in the wrong color. The bodice is taffeta with rain sequins and coutil underneath for support and boning. The skirt is satin and the train is a glittery organza. Like I said before the sleeves are power net. 

I made the corset first and, other than the pattern issues with the sleeves, it was the most difficult part. Working with sequin fabric takes a lot of time. 

Here's my process: I started with white, silk organza and transferred the seam lines and pattern markings on to it using wax transfer paper. 

I then used those pieces to cut out the sequin fabric:

I then basted the organza and sequin fabric together to both secure the fabrics together and to mark the seam lines:

When sewing with sequin fabric you have to remove all the sequins from the seam allowance and the seam lines to sew them together.  Otherwise the sequins get sewn into the seams and poke out in all kinds of ugly and uncomfortable ways. 

Fortunately the sequins were pretty easy to remove. The were sewn on in small groups so I just removed them by pulling out the bobbin thread. It took some time but it could have been worse. 

It's also important to keep some of the sequins to use later either filling in gaps along the seams or as replacements if some fall off. 

Once all the seam lines were free of sequins I sewed the corset together. Then I sewed the train over that before combining the bodice, sleeves and skirt into the final dress: