Friday, October 8, 2010

Costume's Part Two - Little Bo Peep

Another Toy Story costume for the 2 1/2 year old of the house.
After making this, I decided I want to be Little Bo Peep. "Better get crackin'," as my mother would say.
Here is the picture we used to model this cute little dress from.
I had an old pattern from Simplicity (9089).
I found some light pink upholstery fabric with darker pink polka dots at my favorite fabric store.  (Yes, my suitcase was FULL when I came home from my August trip to Colorado/Utah.) This fabric was perfect. Not the usual type that I use for childrens wear, but reminiscent of Scarlet O'Hara's drapes.

I then purchased some peacock blue satin with matching cut chiffon from an online source. This chiffon comes in 30 colors and several widths. I'm going to make some pettiskirts out of it for my granddaughters.  "Such a lot of fun stuff to make, so little time." VKHodgman
So I cut out the pants pattern, and sewed front to back.
I left the inseam of the leg open and then attached 3 rows of 2 inch wide matching chiffon to the lower leg. I used 3x the width of the bottom of the pants for each row of chiffon. (the bottom width of the pants was about 15 inches so I gathered (15 x 3) or about 45 inches of chiffon for each row) Gathering them in the center of the strip, pinning in place, then sewing with a very small zig zag stitch was the easiest way to go about this.
I had to try the pants, and other parts of the costume, onto the wearer at some point, so I made up as much of each thing as I could before taking it over to their house.
Have I mentioned that it is a dream come true to live close to all these little buggers. So fun!
Then I sewed up the inner leg seam, hemmed them up and put one last 2" strip of chiffon on the very bottom edge of the pants.
These little pettipants will go under Bo Peep's dress. Didn't they turn out cute?
Next up .... the actual dress.
First the bodice is sewed up, using some matching satin, some leftover lace that I have had for 15 years, some ribbon from my EXTENSIVE supply, and some sleeve liners to keep the poof from getting flat. I haven't ever used a sleeve liner, but I am now sold on the concept and it wasn't hard. You just gathered the bottom of the sleeve and sewed it to the liner, then sewed the sleeve into the bodice, and finally hand stitched the liner around the shoulder seam while turning under the unfinished edge.
Cool, huh?
Then I gathered the skirt and the peplum, and the tulle skirt underlining, and the tulle peplum underlining so that it would be ultra poofy.
A lot of layers.
Pull it all together and sew it onto the bodice.
Put in the zipper, and go try it on.
It was a little long in the skirt. I think the pettipants wouldn't have poked out of the bottom, and her mother didn't want her tripping, so I shortened it, and then the peplum seemed too long.
I was going to cut the peplum and refinish it with my handy dandy rolled hem foot, (which I LOVE) But, instead I just turned it under and hemmed it to the tulle, making it poof even more.
Woo Hoo, nearly finished.
 But the bonnet.  I couldn't find a pattern that I envisioned looking like I wanted, so I looked at how the baby christening bonnets are made in my heirloom baby book from Sew Beautiful, and I just figured out how to make the brim so it would circle her little, cherubic face.
Wait till you see her in this. It will be so cute.
No wonder "Woodie" looks at her with his big bug eyes. She is adorable.

3 comments:

  1. LOVE it! Lena is going to be the cutest bo peep around! I can't wait to see her and her little sheep :) Thanks for your hard work and time!

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  2. What a cool grandma you are!

    And you have famous quotes, too.

    ;)

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  3. 'No wonder "Woodie" looks at her with his big bug eyes. She is adorable.'
    hahaha yes! you're too cute! this is DARLING!

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