Sleeping Beauty - A Costume for the Panto.

As Christmas (aka pantomime season) and my daughters birthday are close together, her godmother takes her to a pantomime in Cork, our nearest city. As part of this treat, my daughter likes to wear the costume of the main character. So in the past I've sewn an Alice dress, a Cinderella dress (not blogged), and this year it was Sleeping Beauty's turn.

 

Pink is the colour most associated with Aurora/Sleeping Beauty's dress, but in the film and books, she wears a different dress before she 'falls asleep'. Though my daughter hasn't quite left the 'pink phase'! she didn't take much convincing when I showed her pictures of the other dress worn by Aurora.

An online search for images of the dress, led me to pick View 2 of this vintage Advance pattern 5816 that I already had, because of its v-shaped bodice and skirt.

The main additions the skirt pattern needed was length, and extra fabric added to the centre front and centre back to create pleats. I also curved the top of the bodice at the front and back armholes and cut a centre front seam so that I could create a lace-up bodice.

The sleeves and upper bodice were adapted from Butterick 5890. I recently used this pattern for the Elsa Coronation dress which I sewed for Halloween. I had to draft the white collar myself using a flexible ruler, then measuring the neckline curve once I had sewn the shoulders of the front and back bodices. I've never drafted a collar before, so was surprised and pleased that it lay flat and looked so good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dress turned out exactly as we both imagined, especially the centre front which has eyelets and is laced up with narrow grosgrain ribbon.

The fabrics are all from Vibes and Scribes, a well-stocked fabric, wool and haberdashery shop in Cork that now delivers online. The top bodice is cream cotton jersey, the main bodice is a soft-textured black polyester, and the skirt is a medium-weight sateen which was the last piece on the bolt.

 

Though it seemed like I was cobbling together parts of patterns, and making up pieces and instructions as I went along, the dress worked and most importantly she was delighted with it.

 

 

 

 

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