Trick or Treat!

   Hello blogging world! I've been considering joining your ranks for a while now and finally decided that today is the day. I recently came up with a catchy blog title (which I will elaborate on eventually) and also today is the last day to link up my children's halloween costumes (it is All Hallow's Eve after all) to one of my very favorite blogs to read, project run and play. And I am just so proud of one of these costumes in particular, that I couldn't help but procrastinate a bit on some other work I should be doing and try to link it up.
    So, I present to you my little Rainbow Princess and her trusty stead, the little sister Unicorn.

    Please pardon the scratchy Iphone photos and wrinkled dress. She has been wearing it for almost a week straight. I literally couldn't get her to take it off long enough to put it in the wash the other day.
    Here is another picture of the dress when she first tried it on:

I love this dress as much as she does. It was inspired by* a couple dresses that I saw on Pinterest (some of them don't thread to a viable link for some reason though), but it is all self drafted. The entire dress has french seams except for where the sleeves attach to the bodice. It has a peasant style top (I have been using this tutorial for peasant tops) with the front of the bodice split so that I could insert the rainbow panel with gold lame ruffle trim. The front of the bodice is fully lined with muslin so that it wouldn't be itchy along any of those seams. The liner connects to a facing that circles around the top of the sleeves and back bodice; together they make a casing for the elastic that draws it all together. 

I think the rainbow ruffled skirt (seven tiers; she loves to sing me the rainbow song from cat in the hat: red, orange, yellow, green, what about blue, indigo and violet, that's a rainbow song for you!) is probably my favorite part. I have to thank the Spring Fever dress pattern, which I used to make the girls Easter dresses this past spring, for preparing me to make all of those ruffles.

But don't miss the bulky sunburst rainbow pockets on the top skirt pieces: 

I pieced them together (with french seams of course) then added the elastic to the top with a strip of facing to make the casing; hemmed the pocket piece and then zigged it on to the skirt panel. They are HUGE pockets and she loves stuffing them with treasures. 

I used the gold lame that lines the top skirt pieces as a form of bias tape as well (I say a form of bias tape because the liner is just one piece that wraps around to the front if that makes any sense.) There's also the large gold lame band that is hand sewed to the front of the dress and ties in a large bow in the back to cinch it all in. 

The sleeves have four rows of shirring at three intervals along them to create some puffiness. It's great, because if you notice in the first picture, the dress fits her but has enough stretch to fit over a sweatshirt plus multiple other layers to keep her warm on a chilly Halloween night. The awesome purple patterned fabric is a corduroy that she spotted on the clearance rack at Joann's. The rainbow colors are all cotton solids. 

The crown was pretty fun to make as well. And it came together quickly because it is entirely held together with.....duck tape! Yes! Rainbow duck tape, thank you to whoever created this stuff! I cut out some shapes with stiff interfacing that I had from some fun bonnets I made the girls this summer; covered the pointy crown shape with the lame fabric and secured it with duck tape in the back; covered the cone in the duck tape with some ribbons sprouting from the top and attached those two pieces together with, you guessed it, more duck tape. There is also a piece of elastic that goes under her chin to keep it on. It's a little top heavy though, and tends to slide back on her head a lot so she doesn't keep the crown on for too long. But she thoroughly enjoyed glueing all the rhinestones onto it!

 
     I will try not to forget about "Glimmers" (Unicorn name bestowed upon her by her big sister). She got a fuzzy little white hat made out of a fun craft felt that was WAY cheaper than fake fur. It is lined with an old waffle knit baby blanket. I based it off of this pattern, but I added details to both seams instead of just one, so I had to make four panels instead of two and so had to alter it a bit. The horn is the lame again and stuffed with polyfil. Rainbow yarn mane and fuzzy little unicorn ears finish off the details on top. There is some elastic stuck in there around the bottom to cinch it a little because the felt wasn't that stretchy and I made it a little big. As an afterthought I added the band that goes around under her chin (secured with a button). It helped the awkward shape of the hat that I ended up with a little bit.

She also has a rainbow yarn tail hidden back there:

   So there you have it! I will be back to tidy up this blog mess soon. Until then, Happy Halloween!

*We had tossed around a few other Halloween costume ideas but I was unsure exactly how we would execute a Tiny Pteranydon costume. Then she suggested a princess outfit. I had been wanting to make her a fancy dress for her October birthday, so it seemed fitting. I just couldn't bring myself to spend a lot of time sewing a pink dress though, which seemed inevitable if she had free reign of the color palette. I had been picturing a layered ruffled underskirt (and also I've been reading Sew Chibi lately) which led to my suggestion of a rainbow princess dress. Now that seemed like something that would be fun to sew. Luckily, she loved the idea as much as I did (what little girl doesn't like rainbows?)