Frozen Princess Anna Dress by Joy2Sew
/Today we take a look at a beautiful pattern with a great stencil for creating the perfect Anna dress for your little girl from Joy2Sew. Read through to the end to see a glimpse of Elsa too!
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Today I'm here to tell you all about Joy of Joy2Sew Princess Anna Inspired Dress pattern. My girls are Frozen 24/7. If it's not playing on the tv, we are singing the songs in our car, oh yes... lucky me!! Joy started out with Princess Sofia, then made Anna into a pattern, and this year added Elsa to her pattern collection.
Princess Anna features:
For my Anna, I will be showing you how to turn it into a one piece dress, taking the vest and skirt and combing them.
Materials I used: I went to my local Joanns and found all my fabrics, trims, and paint. If your Joanns doesn't have a wide selection of paint, I recommend going to Hobby Lobby or even Walmart. For my skirt portion I found a lovely ombre blue print fairly new to Joanns and the perfect shade of blue for the look I desired. For my bodice I went with knit glitter black. You can use either woven or knit for the vest front portion. The back needs to be knit for stretch. I have spent many hours playing with fabric paint and I found the best brand that works for the vibrant pigments and washing over time is Tulip. For my trims, I went with ricrac to show a fun spunky twist, but you can also use ribbon or bias in gold.
I must tell you this pattern and the way you assemble it is quite different from what most of us are used too. It is nested, but there aren't any markers to provide an accurate taping to put your pieces together. So you do have to spend some extra time lining up everything and trimming off just the right amount to get all the pieces correct. I think for some of mine, I might have taped a little too low in order to line mine up. Keep at it, the end result is well worth it. Also, I found the front bodice vest to be too long for my daughter, and I ended up cutting 3" off the length to create a custom fit. So, you will want to check out the length of the front bodice vest compared to your daughter to choose whether to go with separates or with a whole dress.
This pattern comes with a stencil as well. I actually took the whole skirt and made a one piece skirt stencil so I didn't have to move the stencil as I painted. It took a little extra time cutting out, but it provided me with a much more accurate stencil design on my skirt. There are great embroidery designs if you are lucky to have a machine - I envy you. I found some blue stencil paper from Martha Stewart that works on your cameo and if you can turn Joy's stencil into SVG files you can cut out a stencil template that way. I'm going to try that soon. When I paint, I prefer to paint flat, so I did my one side skirt seam and hemmed my skirt. As you see in order to make the vest and skirt a solid piece I cut a small semi circle in the center of one of my skirt panels so it would fit the V of my vest. As you can see in these pictures there is a small semi circle cut out on one of the skirt panels this is so that the V shape in the vest can go in the curved area so when you sew the vest to your skirt you have the proper fitting. When I sew the V shape, I slightly curve the V over sewing the actual V. It seems to have a less bulk in the seams.
In these photos, you will see a large continuous skirt stencil I made. In the tutorial she made just one and moved it as she painted. I didn't get the most accurate results doing this and I ended up with paint smears. This way I could do everything all at once and wait until some of the paint was dry to lift up my stencil from my skirt. For this stencil I choose to use freezer paper. I really loved working with the freezer paper. You can iron it in place it doesn't shift or bleed through your fabric unless you over saturate the fabric with paint. I use natural bristle stencil brushes they have seem to yield the best results.
I loved spending the extra time making this large stencil because this is by far the best skirt I've painted. For the vest I used Magic Spray, if you don't own this, it is a must have and here's the awesome news- Walmart sells it for .99 cents. It's a light spray starch that works so well. I found the center points in my vest and then ironed the freezer paper stencil to my vest and painted.
I've taken a photo of the paint colors I used. If you can't find the glittered green, I found the puffy paint lime green works great as well. One thing you must do after the paint has dried is heat seat it with the steam from your iron. If you use the puffy paint you will go from a shiny paint to a puffy paint. As shown.
The glitter green added a nice extra touch to the vest.
After you have spent all that time painting and it's all dried the real fun begins.... It is time to sew up this beauty!
For the vest you will follow the instruction pretty much the same as indicated by Joy, however you don't need to sew your V shape and you don't need to add the interface to the V shape. Once you have sewn your neckline and armholes and have turned it to the right side you can add the gold trim to the armholes and around the neckline. You will hold off if you make a one piece dress doing the V shape until you've sewn your skirt to your vest. When you are doing the elastic on the back, please baste it to the neck casing to see if you need to adjust this. Mine ended up being very snug! I should have made the neckline a little deeper on my back bodice than what it was on the pattern piece. Now, you will sew up the other side of your skirt to finish it up so you can attach it to your vest. For this you will start in the front. Find your center points of the V on the vest with the curve on the skirt. Pin in place, then working from one side to the other pin the vest to the skirt until you have reached the side seams of your front vest piece and stop. You will then set your machine to a gathering stitch and gather the rest of the skirt to attach to the back of the vest.
You will now sew your skirt and vest together then top stitch and finish off the trim on the V shape.
This is an amazing pattern for making separates or making a one piece dress.
For my shirt I choose the rounded neck option and went with a glitter knit. We wanted extra sparkle and shine.
I hope you enjoyed learning some new techniques with painting and making a dress from separate pieces.
I just wanted to touch a little on Elsa, because I love Elsa and I have enjoyed creating Ice Princesses using Joy2Sew's Elsa inspired dress pattern.
The main fabric in this Elsa is the Fairy Frost Wave. I also used a sequin ribbon trim from Walmart on the cape pieces. This pattern currently includes:
Sizes 18/24 month to 8/9 but will be coming in larger sizes soon 10,12. Option for sewn in cape or detachable cape, Side slit option, Velcro to close the dress. (I must tell you I didn't use this I went with buttonholes and buttons! You can also use a zipper as well)
Sheer upper bodice front and back pieces, Sweetheart neckline. On this pattern you will have indicators to better tape and match up your pattern pieces.
You can also choose to do some shirring on the entire back bodice. I gave it a try and loved the end results of it. Here is a close up of what that look likes.
I've had a lot of fun creating and using lots of different fabric combos. I got all my fabrics from Joann and Hobby Lobby to create all of these Elsa dresses except my Fairy Frost Wave by Michael Miller; I got that from Breanne of Mama Made and Beautiful.
On these two I used all knit for my littlest one and a combo of a sequin fabric and brocade silk for the skirt,with sheer organza upper bodices.
I can't wait to see what you ladies create for your Frozen princess lovers!
Until next time!
xoxo
Nicole
For more inspiration please check out shop http://www.facebook.com/onceuponaprincesses?ref=bookmarks
- Sizing: 18/24 months to 6/7
- Five separate costume piece which includes:
- Skirt and stencil
- Vest and stencil
- Hat
- Cape and stencil detailing
- Two shirt options woven and knit along with two collar option- v and rounded
For my Anna, I will be showing you how to turn it into a one piece dress, taking the vest and skirt and combing them.
Materials I used: I went to my local Joanns and found all my fabrics, trims, and paint. If your Joanns doesn't have a wide selection of paint, I recommend going to Hobby Lobby or even Walmart. For my skirt portion I found a lovely ombre blue print fairly new to Joanns and the perfect shade of blue for the look I desired. For my bodice I went with knit glitter black. You can use either woven or knit for the vest front portion. The back needs to be knit for stretch. I have spent many hours playing with fabric paint and I found the best brand that works for the vibrant pigments and washing over time is Tulip. For my trims, I went with ricrac to show a fun spunky twist, but you can also use ribbon or bias in gold.
I must tell you this pattern and the way you assemble it is quite different from what most of us are used too. It is nested, but there aren't any markers to provide an accurate taping to put your pieces together. So you do have to spend some extra time lining up everything and trimming off just the right amount to get all the pieces correct. I think for some of mine, I might have taped a little too low in order to line mine up. Keep at it, the end result is well worth it. Also, I found the front bodice vest to be too long for my daughter, and I ended up cutting 3" off the length to create a custom fit. So, you will want to check out the length of the front bodice vest compared to your daughter to choose whether to go with separates or with a whole dress.
This pattern comes with a stencil as well. I actually took the whole skirt and made a one piece skirt stencil so I didn't have to move the stencil as I painted. It took a little extra time cutting out, but it provided me with a much more accurate stencil design on my skirt. There are great embroidery designs if you are lucky to have a machine - I envy you. I found some blue stencil paper from Martha Stewart that works on your cameo and if you can turn Joy's stencil into SVG files you can cut out a stencil template that way. I'm going to try that soon. When I paint, I prefer to paint flat, so I did my one side skirt seam and hemmed my skirt. As you see in order to make the vest and skirt a solid piece I cut a small semi circle in the center of one of my skirt panels so it would fit the V of my vest. As you can see in these pictures there is a small semi circle cut out on one of the skirt panels this is so that the V shape in the vest can go in the curved area so when you sew the vest to your skirt you have the proper fitting. When I sew the V shape, I slightly curve the V over sewing the actual V. It seems to have a less bulk in the seams.
For the vest you will follow the instruction pretty much the same as indicated by Joy, however you don't need to sew your V shape and you don't need to add the interface to the V shape. Once you have sewn your neckline and armholes and have turned it to the right side you can add the gold trim to the armholes and around the neckline. You will hold off if you make a one piece dress doing the V shape until you've sewn your skirt to your vest. When you are doing the elastic on the back, please baste it to the neck casing to see if you need to adjust this. Mine ended up being very snug! I should have made the neckline a little deeper on my back bodice than what it was on the pattern piece. Now, you will sew up the other side of your skirt to finish it up so you can attach it to your vest. For this you will start in the front. Find your center points of the V on the vest with the curve on the skirt. Pin in place, then working from one side to the other pin the vest to the skirt until you have reached the side seams of your front vest piece and stop. You will then set your machine to a gathering stitch and gather the rest of the skirt to attach to the back of the vest.
For my shirt I choose the rounded neck option and went with a glitter knit. We wanted extra sparkle and shine.
I hope you enjoyed learning some new techniques with painting and making a dress from separate pieces.
For more inspiration please check out shop http://www.facebook.com/onceuponaprincesses?ref=bookmarks
