More Frozen: Costumes for Elsas

2 Elsa dolls

The Elsa costume actually came first.  Many years ago, my sister had sheer fabric with flocked snowflakes draped around her bedroom windows.  When she got tired of the snowflake motif, she passed it on to me.  I made these curtains with it. 

Snowflake curtains. Fun for cats to pretend to be brides with

I had been charmed by the idea that these curtains would make it look like it was snowing since we usually get very little snow around here (compared to Western PA, for instance)  And then we had the winter of 2013-2014. We were socked with unrelenting snowiness from November to the end of March.  (Most of the time I count on the first real snow to come around my birthday in the third week of January and it's always gone by St. Patrick's Day.)

After a winter like that, I didn’t hesitate to channel my inner Maria von Trapp and make clothes out of  snowflake curtains.  (I suspect the charm of snowflakes as a motif will probably be lost on me for years to come.)

So my design ideas started with the curtains.  I thought if I made Elsa’s cape removable, the girls could just wear the blue dress as a generic princess costume rather than being limited to performing Frozen. 

I found these old buttons in my grandmother’s collection.  They were kind of snowflakey (and by now are probably antiquey too)  The cape can be buttoned on or off.  I used a tiny iridescent rick rack to trim the gown and the cape to give it a little shine.  

Snowflakey button and iridescent rick rack trim

 I left a couple of one-inch sections of rick rack unstitched on either side of the cape as to serve as buttonholes so the cape can doubled up and shortened if the long train is getting in Elsa’s way. 

Doubled up snowflake cape

The gown is McCall’s M5498   without the peplum or scarf.  I like the nice A-line it provides. 

Lily lets it go.

As you can see, Lily can completely channel the Elsa attitude. I would not mess with her. I made both costumes approximately the same size so they can take turns being each princess.  Their mother assures me Maggie will never get to be Elsa until Lily outgrows that costume.

Let it go! (Eat your heart out Adele Dazim!)

Here is the doll’s matching gown, complete with tiny buttons at the shoulders.  I used Butterick 5661 for it. 

Elsa for 18" doll

Here again are the 2 Elsa dolls:

Lily and an 18" doll whose name I don't know.

Maggie just needs a white streak in her hair and the two of them are dead ringers for the sisters in Frozen.

Annas and Elsa. Do you want to build a snowman?

Day 3, 97 to go. Embroidered tea towel

Stamped Towel waiting for me to  find the floss.

Today’s project was embroidering this tea towel.  Way back in 1870, a fad for the embroidery which came to be known as redwork took hold because a cotton thread called Turkey Red became available.  It was colorfast, so ladies could embroider to their hearts’ content, bleach the heck out of their linens and still have color. Better yet, it was CHEAP.  So everyone could afford it.  Pretty soon, you could buy 6” squares of cotton fabric stamped with an embroidery design for a penny and then spend another penny on the Turkey Red.  The redwork moved from tea towels to quilts with those squares. 

"Limework" Sounds catchy, right?

I think there is something charming and kitschy about the iron-on stamp designs you can get from AuntMartha's.  I came across a set of days-of-the-week kitchen designs featuring cute little bunnies.  (I have a thing about bunnies I blame Peter Rabbit for)  I thought it would be fun to do the set in colors I love—shades of hot pink and lime rather than the traditional red.  (Heaven forbid I do anything the way someone else did it.)

I stamped these a few months ago, but couldn’t find the embroidery floss I had bought for it.  Today I discovered it in its cubbyhole exactly where it should have been (but hiding behind some spray adhesive and turpentine…)  So I stitched this one.  I also started noticing there are a lot of unfinished projects around here that I should really finish.  I came across a cross-stitch I was working in wedgewood blue and dusty rose.  That puts it into the 1986-1990 time period.  Just finish it already.  Those colors should be "in" again soon, along with hunter green and the inevitable country stencilled duckage of the period.

I also remembered today why I end up choosing sewing over all the other things Grandma taught me.  IT GOES FAST.  I can make a pair of pajama bottoms from cutting out the pattern to finish in about an hour and a half.  I can make a dress in a day or less. Everything else seems so tedious and time consuming by comparison.  I got a late start today, but managed to stitch through and finish this one towel.   

Felicity stood watch and/or napped through much of the stitching. Here she comments on her annoyance at being awakened when I finished. 
 

Here is the towel, pressed and hanging with its predecessor.