Princess Aurora

It was book week again recently (is it really only once a year??) and with nearly a week's warning, my daughter decided to dress up as Aurora (otherwise known as Sleeping Beauty). Her shop-bought costume from a few years ago was getting too small, so the order went in for a new costume - one that matched the dress in the book, and one that didn't have any scratchy bits. Here's what she ended up with:

 
And here's the "pattern" (really more of a design, isn't it?) I was asked to work from:

Surprisingly, my ridiculously large pattern stash didn't include anything that exactly matched this design... so this piece of sewing turned out to be an interesting little exercise in pattern modification and drafting:

Speaking of which, I REALLY need to have a giveaway soon - to pass some of my stash on! More on that later :)

We started by making a muslin using Burda 9534, the closest thing I had to the desired dress shape, to which I added a zig-zaggy peplum. This gave the Princess confidence that her slave mum knew what she was doing, so the Princess decorated her muslin and decreed it appropriate for Cinderella* dress-ups:

* that's Cinderella the drudge, not Cinderella at the ball

I love the decorations... wish I was brave enough to do this to my clothes!

Here's the tech drawing from the Burda pattern - which gave me a bodice, long skirt and long sleeves to play with:

I took a day of annual leave from work. Fabrics were hunted and gathered from Spotlight (I couldn't get quite the right shades of pink), and then the modifications to the muslin began:

• changed the neckline from round to V-shaped
• drafted a self-lined collar to extend to the width of the shoulders and sit a little above the dress (which meant a different shoulder seam shape)
• lengthened the bodice for a lower waistline

• re-cut the waistline from a horizontal to a V-shape, echoing the new neckline
• modified my initial peplum to match the shape of the downwards pointing waistline and to include a self-lining

 

It worked so well from the Princess' perspective that I'm encouraged to start drafting a few little details for my own sewing projects!

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Now, if you've read this far, thanks for your attention - how about advance notice of a giveaway? I'm coming up to my 200th post and 3rd blog anniversary, so I want to hold a "shop my stash" giveaway to celebrate within my next few posts.  I'll either post photos here or on Pinterest of what's up for grabs - which may be fabric, sewing books or patterns - and you can comment to let me know what you want.