So I meant to post this yesterday – for flashback friday… But better late than never! I thought every so often I would do a post on things I have made in the past, in this case only June last year.
Friends of mine, Hollie and Jordyn, were looking to dress up as Ana and Elsa from the Frozen movie for Comic Con, and hired me to make them custom costumes. 7 months pregnant and renovating our house at the time, this was no small feat, but they turned out great! Here’s a few pictures and details on how I made them:
Sorry for the blurry pictures; who knew I would need them for publishing one day.
Early on I decided to try and make the dresses as close to the animated characters as possible, while still being realistic. While I think they turned out great, I learned a few things on fabric choices with this job – I always chose colour over fabric type, which was a mistake. The green shirt for Ana (Hollie, on the right) was a bit fiddly, and I had chosen a thin muslin, which wanted to gather and fray at every chance it got. Super frustrating. On the upside of fabric choices, the blue skirt of Ana’s was the perfect colour – and a type of felt, so it fit well.
Both dress bodices have boning, which was a task in itself as I had never done it before, but once I had watched a few online tutorials and practised it wasn’t so bad – much easier on Ana’s dress (yet again), because the silk of Elsa’s dress just wanted to crumple and gather all the time.
ANA (Hollie’s) Costume
I made a mint green undershirt from a muslin, reinforcing the collar with interfacing, and using a matching mint green silk ribbon around the edges of the front hook & eye closures and cuffs (not pictured). The dress had a black cotton drill bodice, with back zip and boning, trimmed in a gold ribbon around all edges. I then used fabric paint from Lincraft, and painted the flowers directly onto the fabric, last.
The skirt of the dress was a blue felt, which I also painted directly onto (a few times, the paint fell through the fabric like water). Last but not least was the maroon cape – made of a suiting material, I then painted on the decoration pictured. I also made small baubles from a matching wool, and the closure is actually kids air dried clay, which I painted black and silver, and embedded a hook & eye into for closure also.
ELSA (Jordyn’s) Costume
I used a thin silk for the bodice and skirt of this dress, lining the skirt with a polycotton. The bodice has hand stitched sequins, gathered at the bottom of the bodice for effect, and zip closure. I cannot for the life of me remember what the name of the material I used for the shirt & train – definitely a polyester, kind of a close knit mesh, and it had a lovely sheen to it – it was however, ridiculously hard to work with, fraying everywhere.
The top of the shirt is edged in a lovely white & silver sparkle bead, and it was a keyhole one button close at the back. The train I managed to attach with hooks & eyes to the top of the bodice – and all the snowflakes were painted on by myself. Note – don’t paint on meshy type fabric… especially without anything underneath. Lucky we were renovating!
All in all, I was very happy with how they turned out, and cannot wait to make more!
Until next time 🙂