Anna versus Elsa

I was driving home from work not too long ago and heard on the radio how Disney underestimated the popularity of their latest mega-hit movie Frozen.   As a result the Princess Elsa dress, retailing regularly for $50, quickly sold out driving prices up on eBay as high as $1500.  Really, folks?  Fifty bucks is already a bit steep to pay for a kid's costume in my opinion (I know I know, just wait until Adam is older) but then to turn around and pay thirty times that amount?  Madness.  Here's the dress that drove people nuts.

Well my friend's daughter is celebrating a birthday in just over a week and I have heard that she, like every other little girl around us, is obsessed with the movie Frozen.  Her school is even having recitals featuring several songs from the movie's soundtrack.  So as I continued sitting in rush-hour bumper-to-bumper traffic it occurred to me that I should just make her the dress for her birthday!  Couldn't be that hard right?  (Actually at the time I was hearing about this on the radio I had no idea what the dress looked like in the first place).  Anyway after consulting my friend about the idea he suggested making the dress for Anna instead of Elsa.  I think it was based more on the character's integrity rather than the coincidence of his daughter being named Anna but I'll have to see the movie to know for sure.

Here's what Anna's dress looks like.  Less fairy-princess and more peasant-style which I think is actually quite nice.

And here's what I came up with.  Now I took some artistic liberties with the detailing, especially in the skirt, but hopefully it will do.  Mike warned that sometimes children can get really upset if it's not exactly like the "real thing" but there's only so much I can do with ribbon!

Here is the vest which I made with black velvet and outlined with gold ribbon.  You'll probably recognize the ribbon detailing of the green stems which is similar to some of my past projects.  I also had black beads left over from the Easter Weekend top I made for my mom's birthday two years ago.  I cheated with the roses though - those were store-bought.

I made the skirt with four panels to get the full shape I wanted and put in an elastic waist.

Then I became paranoid that fully-stretched the skirt might still be too tight to pull up over the hips so cut the back panel in half and inserted a zipper.  Whew.

Finally after completing the final touches on the vest I closed off the back with an invisible zipper. Here I debated whether to put it so that the vest opened from the top (typical) or opened from the bottom.  In the end I went for the bottom since I thought it would be easier for Anna to get her shoulders and head through the vest which has zero-stretch.  I'm no longer so sure why I thought that was such a good idea and have become paranoid once again.  I think the vest will fit once it's actually on but getting it on might prove to be a challenge. I ran out today to buy a fully separating zipper which would solve the problem entirely....only the shortest I could find was 10" and of course the length of the back is 9".  

Now, I could go ahead and modify the zipper with some pliers, rip out the old zipper, and put in the new zipper to avoid any chance of disappointment.  BUT I think I'll sit on this for a while.  And to be honest the invisible zipper is so much nicer than the separating one which doesn't glide all that well.  

Ok.  I'm going to chance it.  Anna can try this on the way it is (at the risk of completely delighting a young child only to then completely disappoint her) and if it really is too difficult to put on, I'll take it back and change out the zipper.

Oooh...seems kinda harsh now that I've said it aloud.  What to do, what to do....