Little Rennie Princess Dress

cost - $20.00-30.00

One of my friends asked me to make Halloween costume for her little girl. Like I would say no!  A chance to make a little girl a dress to make her into a little princess. Ummmm yea that is always fun!  It started with her mom and me sitting down with some of my commercial Halloween patterns. We had the generic witch and what not costumes, and then we had my passion, the Renaissance patterns. Though anything would of been fun to make I was happy she choose the Ren patterns. So I had an idea of what she wanted and after getting permission I was able to alter and change everything to how I wanted to make it. I didn't want to use the pattern because it designed everything into one piece. Though even my own drafting wouldn't be historically accurate I couldn't bear the thought of making something all one piece.... now that I know better.

Her mom gave me one of her summer dress to use for sizing. That was a new challenge/first for me but I think I did a fairly good job of it. I first made a chemise using eyelet embroidery cotton. I thought that would look better on a little girl then a plain one, and I wanted to give the mom the option of using the chemise again as PJ's or a summer dress. I paused for a fitting after I made the chemise and its a good thing I did. Right across the chest underarms area it was just a bit to tight. I still haven't figured out how to do that without the help of gussets. So I added gussets to chemise and from what I have been told it fit well after that. The neckline was rolled and hemmed by hand.  I cheated a little and instead of hemming the sleeves or hem I added binding tape. I thought it looked nice and tied it to the over dress so I don't think the cheat was to much of a cheat.

With the over dress I was going for a generic Italian look, short waisted bodice with long flowing skirts over an under dress. Luckily I have a blue patterned velvet in my stash that I got long ago and have used for a few projects, but still have gobs of it left.  It was crying at me to use it so It became the over dress' fabric. The bodice was a simple strapped bodice that was really easy to make. I cut out the fashion fabric and lining fabric rather quickly. The part that help me up for a few days was joining them together. I miscalculated what seams I would need to keep free to turn it and ended up ripping out the shoulder seams and having to redo them by hand. I had to rip out a few other seams at the same time because they wouldn't lay flat. Sometimes working on a small scale is good other times it makes for a challenge.

The next step was attaching the skirt. This was thankfully the easiest part! Everything went together really smoothly. I wanted to try something new so I box pleated the skirt. I love how it looks and can't wait to try it on a bigger scale in my costumes.  Using a ale I poked holes into the bodice and then I hammered in a few grommet holes. Some white lacing thread to match the chemise and TA-DAAAA!!!!!!