For Halloween of 2017 (I know, I know, some of these posts are WAY overdue), my cousin’s daughter wanted to be Cinderella. Who was I to say no? Also, I was pretty psyched to make her an awesome costume.
One of my favorite parts is the back (above). I love the giant bow although it’s not actually part of the pattern. I used McCall’s MP551. I think it was actually intended for mimicking the 2016 Cinderella movie outfit even though it’s a white dress (the fairy godmother, maybe?) on the package. But that costume only goes down to child size 3-4 and my little model was slightly under those measurements. So this bow would let mom pull it in a bit tighter and let her wear it a bit longer if she wanted by letting it out.
I started off with the bodice. I did actually take in the sides just a bit extra since my Cinderella was slightly smaller than the measurements. But otherwise, no alterations. Technically I didn’t need to do anything special with it — it was pretty enough on its own, but I was gonna make this the best Cinderella costume ever. So I decided to embroider it.
The 2016 Cinderella has butterflies on her shoulder wrap and I wasn’t going to do that because I felt they would be too overpowering on a small child. But I went with the butterfly motif for the embroidery.
And I did it with glow in the dark thread! I figured if she was going to be trick or treating at night, this could be a fun surprise. I mean, I would have loved it as a kid. Who am I kidding? I would totally love this now. I’m definitely going to do this on one of my costumes at some point.
The bodice went together easily. Kids’ costumes are so fun since they have no darts 😀 The shoulder wrap is a bit weird where you do these twisty bits, but it works. I embellished the twists with rhinestones instead of butterflies (you can see it in the first picture of this post).
For the hem, I used a really thick horsehair braid. I think it was 3 inches. And then I folded it up twice. But, twice is so unnecessary, you say. Yes, it is. However, I wanted her to get a couple years out of this so I added the extra fold thinking I would let it out in a year or two when she was taller so she could keep wearing it.
Unfortunately the same trick didn’t really work for the iridescent top layers. Those I just cut off and hemmed.
I did add a silver trim to the top iridescent layer figuring that I could use some of the extra iridescent fabric (there was plenty left over) to attach a ruffle there and no one would be the wiser. That being said, it’s 3 years later and I still haven’t done so. She’s probably grown out of it, but she does have a little sister so it may still come in handy for her if she ends up taller than her sister.
Originally, I was going to make her a little petticoat to go underneath, but with horsehair and the two layers of iridescent top fabric it wasn’t really necessary and probably would have been annoying for her to run around in. I ended up using the petticoat tulle for myself and I’ll have a post about that later.
Now to take a look at the lining. Even though no one really sees it, I’m pretty happy with how that turned out. I hand sewed it down myself.
And I love the clean finish. So worth it.
Just because I’m proud of it, let’s take a look at that zipper.
And the finished shots. Super happy with how it turned out and my little Cinderella loved it and it fit her very well. I hear she even won a local costume contest in it.
Of course I sent it with some appropriate jewelry:
Every princess needs a crown and some bling.
