I have a Little Red Headed Girl.
She's our youngest and therefore a tad spoiled.
She is one of my favorite photographic models and I love to sew for her because she gushes over everything I make for her.
It buoys my self esteem.....a lot.
On occasion though, I stun her.
The brand new Practical Princess pattern from Peek-A-Boo Patterns is a dress that gave me the occasion to stun her!
Ever since she was little, she has loved Merida from the movie Brave. She has red hair and it’s curly just like Merida (although not quite as curly as Merida’s), so in her opinion she should always be Merida.
The brand new Practical Princess pattern from Peek-A-Boo Patterns is a dress that gave me the occasion to stun her!
Ever since she was little, she has loved Merida from the movie Brave. She has red hair and it’s curly just like Merida (although not quite as curly as Merida’s), so in her opinion she should always be Merida.
The testers who were testing "Princesses" dresses/peplums were given the freedom to "hack" away. And I did! I was lucky enough to test the pattern for “Merida”!
(*Note: if you’d like to read how I hacked the sleeves and the neckline please see the end of the post....I’ve put the instructions there.)
(*Note: if you’d like to read how I hacked the sleeves and the neckline please see the end of the post....I’ve put the instructions there.)
I had enough teal cotton lycra to do a peplum. However, Merida calls for a dress! So, my oldest daughter and I searched every aisle of Joann’s for fabric that would match. Because you can use a light weight woven for this dress, it really didn’t matter what the fabric was, as long as it matched! We came upon this fabulous fabric.
For the life of me, I can’t remember what it is. I do remember that it said it had some stretch. The label lied. It has zero stretch. Not that it mattered. However, after some consulting in the testing group because the dress was hard to get on because of the lack of stretch—although fit FANTASTIC once it was on, I was given the advice to take a larger seam allowance at the waist to solve the problem....and it did!
Amy from Peek-A-Boo has done it again!
The circle skirt it so twirly, the bodice fits very nicely and the sleeves are perfect (even before I changed them. Ha!).
Once this dress went on, she started twirling. I had to make her stop twirling to get the pictures taken. Thankfully she loves modeling for me, and loves the promise of hot chocolate so she happily modeled away. Not to mention that she got to use her sister’s bow for pictures.
Overall, I foresee her requesting this pattern for dresses even if it’s not to be a “princess”. I do also plan on making my tiny little nieces dresses. Every girl deserves to have a twirly Practical Princess dress!
Don’t forget to pick up your pattern here: http://www.peekaboopatternshop.com/practical-princess/?aff=414 (This is an affiliate link)
Teal Fabric is from: https://purpleseamstressfabric.com/product/solid-teal-4way-stretch-cottonlycra-blend-knit/#.WdZ8PHNlCfA
Stretch Lace (in the sleeves and neckline) along with the teal fabric in the skirt) is from Joann fabric.
How to do the Hack on the Sleeves:
I debated what would look best, cream Cotton Lycra or stretch lace. I decided in the end that the CL wouldn’t have the ability to lay quite as nicely as I wanted it to because it’s thicker than the lace is, so I went ahead with the lace. After I did step 5 in the tutorial and attached the front and back bodices together; I measured the neck opening and then multiplied the number by 2.5” (because I wanted to I gathered it before I attached it). I cut the lace so that 1/2” would show above the neckline and I folded it in half so I wouldn’t have any unfinished edges; which meant I needed to add an inch for seam allowance. So, I cut my lace 1.5” x 46”.
I gathered the lace before I pinned and basted it onto the bodice. (If I make this version of the dress again, I will pleat the lace at the top. That method worked a lot better with the rest of the construction of the dress.) When I pinned it on, I made sure the raw edges were put together with the raw edges of the neckline. I started pinning at the front part of the dress where it dips in the front (I’m sure there is a technical name for it, but I can’t remember right now). I chose to do this because I felt it was easiest to hide the start and finish there rather than somewhere else. It worked well for me, but don’t feel like you have to if you have a better solution!
At this point you continue on with the construction of the bodice with step 6. Although, I didn’t use a regular sewing machine at this point, I used my serger and didn’t have to trim.
Now the sleeves!
I looked at a lot of pictures of Merida from the Movie to see where would be the best spot to put in slivers of what you would be the cream colored stretch lace. According to the pictures, they should technically be higher up closer to her shoulders. However, I didn’t want to mess with the armscye, so I chose to do them lower where the short sleeve would have been cut.
I cut the sleeve in two spots; the short sleeve length and the 3/4 length.
Once I had that done, I cut my lace. I made sure I did stretch lace because I wanted it to not be itchy at all and this stretch lace isn’t. I also needed it to be easy to work with and I have found this to be great to work with. I measured the teal fabric of the top part of the sleeve where I was going to attach the lace as well as the top part of the middle section of the teal fabric of the sleeve as I was going to attach it on both sides. Then I multiplied each number by 2.5” to get how long I wanted it. I multiplied and then I figured out how far apart I wanted the teal sleeve pieces to be to be and added an inch for seam allowances (1/2” on each side for the seam allowance.). I did this for both the top lace section and the bottom lace section. THEN, because I didn’t want to measure out pattern pieces as long as I needed them to be, I divided my length number in half and cut it on the fold to save myself time! When I made my pattern piece I angled the pattern a little from top to bottom knowing I would likely end up trimming off some in the end before finishing the sleeves. I don’t have both pattern pieces here, but you need to make a pattern piece for both the top and the bottom lace insert.
Once you have your lace cut out, you need to cut 16 pieces of fabric or ribbon (I chose fabric) to have it look like stitching that is holding the sleeves together of what they would have called the “Kirtle” in Merida’s time. (That’s the outer dress for those of you who don’t know. I had to research to know that much!).
I wanted mine pretty thin. So, I cut them 3/4” wide and 2.5” long.
If using fabric: sew each of these in half (Length wise) and turn them. Iron them and make sure the seam is in the back so it will face the lace when attached to the sleeve.
At this point, you want to measure where to place four of the fabric pieces on the sleeve. You want them to be even, and you need to be able to make sure they line up all the way down the sleeve with the ones that will be in the next lace section. I marked the middle of each teal section of the sleeve so I could be sure they were all lining up.
Once you have the fabric pieces placed, you can put the lace on. I pleated the lace on because I wanted it to be nice and even on both sides. To make sure the lace went all the way to the edge, I didn’t quite line up the points of the edge with the end of the teal fabric, I came in just a little.
You’ll do the same to the middle piece. And then once you have that piece done, you’ll want to try it on your model to make sure the bottom lace section is going to sit where you want it to on her arm. (Note: you should probably iron it before you try it on...I didn’t.) The second lace section was going to sit too low for my taste and so I ended up taking 2.5” of each of the middle sections before I did the second lace sections.
Once you have both sections done, measure the bottom of the sleeve and again multiply that number by 2.5” and cut out a a piece of lace that is 2.5”x the length you got. Then pleat it onto the bottom and serge it on with the right sides facing so that you can turn it and top stitch it in place.
Make sure to top stitch around all of the lace sections after you iron as the lace doesn’t hold it’s shape very well and doesn’t look terribly nice until it’s top stitched.
At this point you can put your sleeves on the dress!!
Don’t forget to post your photos on the Peek-A-Boo Pattern Shop Facebook Group!
I look forward to seeing them!
If you have questions, feel free to comment here or message me on Facebook!
Happy Sewing!
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