For the First Time in Forever...

"...I finally understand" the ridiculous patience and practice that it takes to make fabric paint look decent.

Seriously, this Princess Anna costume is finished and (I think) looks pretty good but is the result of 2 loooong weeks of work.  Princess Anna's "adventure" dress from Frozen is beautiful but has a daunting number of details.  We've got a scalloped skirt with embroidered details in and on top of each scallop, an embroidered vest with gold edging and an aqua undershirt.  Yeesh.

I used this fantastic tutorial from Coletterie on how to create a scalloped skirt.  The inside points of my scallops definitely left a lot to be desired, but at least I know how I would improve upon them if I had to do it all over again.  I used Royal Kona for the topskirt and a lavender Fairy Frost for the underskirt.  After studying online photos and the kids' plush and action Anna dolls, I made my own stencils on thin plastic template sheets and then filled in the details with Tulip slick fabric paints.  It took a couple days to work my way all around the entire hem and some of my details are way more sloppy than others.  But even at a few steps distance, the mistakes aren't particularly noticeable.

With the Queen Elsa costume, I made a frankenpattern using some designs that I already had on hand.  For the Anna vest, I had nada.  Instead I kept on creating muslin pattern pieces until I came up with the right design that a) captured the different shapes of the neckline and waist and b) actually fit over her head without being too tight in one spot and too loose in another.

It took 3 attempts - not too, too bad!  A black Fairy Frost gave the top the appearance of texture with a very subtle sheen.  Instead of using fabric paint again on the bodice, I created more templates on construction paper and did some raw edge applique using Wonder Under and as small of a zigzag stitch as I could manage.

The lines still looks bulkier than on Anna's costume, but that's the difference between embroidery and applique, right?  Actually, I did use more fabric paint here but only for the small dots that didn't seem worth the effort to applique.

I bound the armholes, waistline and neckline like you would bind a quilt with gold satin.  It was super slippery to work with and ended up (again) being bulkier than I wanted, but overall it looks okay.  This was the part where I was least happy with the results, but that doesn't seem to bother little sis in the slightest.

Just ignore the golfball sized snowflakes streaking past....

By far the easiest part of the costume was the aqua undershirt.  I found a long-john style 3/4 sleeve white t-shirt on clearance and just dyed it to match Anna's shirt.  Shortcuts, people!  Take them where you can!

As if on cue, we received another snowstorm yesterday - looks like Mother Nature thought that Anna needed her own truly Frozen photoshoot.  I couldn't help but take a picture of the two sisters all dressed up...they look pretty good if I do say so myself.  :)

Linking up:

Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday!