This year's costumes are
Silvermist (a Disney Fairy)
Snow White
Mister Sulu (oh the irony!)
Silvermist & Snow White are Simplicity patterns.
I made some changes to both patterns for a couple of reasons. One, Simplicity is an oxymoron. Simplicity patterns are some of the MOST difficult patterns I've ever had the pleasure to sew with. I'll take a a vintage pattern that is unprinted with sketchy instructions over a Simplicity. I promise!
For Silvermist, I completely omitted the "tulle interfacing" because I wanted it to have a more drapey feel. I also omitted the pantalettes because the dress is so long when made in my child's size (7/8). I used horsehair braid in the underskirt hem to give it some lift and movement. I feel like my rendition is actually closer in feel to the actual Disney Fairy. Also, rather than make myself crazy trying to *make* wings, I bought some for 50% off at my local JoAnn's. Her shoes were panne' velvet fairy slippers from the Dollar Tree. For $1. I added some leftover ballet shoe elastic to keep them on her feet for the photo shoot. For tomorrow night, she'll wear her regular shoes inside them for walking down 1st Street to Spooky Hollow. As an aside, the peanut gallery is telling me I could've sold this or Snow White on ebay for at least $70. What say you?
As for Snow White... While the costume is probably the most accurate as far as the original film costume (even compared to licensed product available), it had some really confusing bits with regard to the slashes on the sleeves. It called for two pieces of blue sewn together as sleeve and facing and then a red piece sewn to that then trimmed, THEN an additional lining. If I were to make this dress again, I'd make the lining in red, and then just make the teardrops open so the red shows through. That would be more historically accurate anyway. I made this in a 4, thinking it would fit my 5.5 year old fairly well. WRONG! It runs a little low in the bodice. Another thing that I didn't do was make the "dickey" and "collar". Technically speaking, the collar belongs to the dress, not an underpiece that snaps into the dress. If I were to make it again, I'd make the collar as one with the dress and not as BIG as shown. the huge-ass collar is NOT accurate to the film. I think the newer pattern is more accurate in that respect. I didn't "hem" the dress. I added red cord/bias thingy trim after serging the hem. It adds a little "punch" to the hemline and saves me having to hand hem the almost 3 yards of skirt at the bottom edge. I also did not hand make the cord trim in the bodice. I used purchased trim instead. Why reinvent the wheel?
Now Mister Sulu. This one is a plain white t-shirt from Dharma Trading Co. that I dyed using... iDye. Yeah, I know. Cheesy. The thing is, from a costuming purist standpoint, the Original Series of Star Trek's shirts weren't gold at all. They only looked that way on TV. And if this shirt were to be hit with the mega-lighting for TV or film, it too would look more yellow. On this shirt, the insgnia is sewn down. Normally I'd attach with velcro for laundering purposes. I also would have made the shirt long sleeve for accuracy's sake, but the shirt was free. And who am I to quibble over details when I don't have to spend anything? You know you'd do the same. I used regular gold rick-rack instead of the super-expensive more-accurate style braid since it's for a 3.5 year old boy. You know you'd do the same. Think of the life expentancy of more fragile braid when it's being worn by a boy who is... well... ALL BOY. And considering that I have to pry this shirt off his dirty little body forcefully... Well, it NEEDS to be extremely sturdy.
