The Singing Costumer

  Today, it is my distinct pleasure to debut not one but two Belle costumes. Her blue so-called Village Dress is a project I’ve been wanting to do forever. And her casual outfit from Wreck-it Ralph 2 is pretty cute. I decided pretty early in the Halloween season that I would do both. These two projects bring my Belle costume count to 5 (3 canonical outfits from the movies and 2 alternate universe concepts.) I can’t decide whether I want to continue with Belle looks or if I should move on to Ariel costumes. For Belle outfits, I still need to do her pink dress with the long cape and the green library dress. I do want to do Ariel’s pInk dinner dress at some point. All of these projects were made from fabrics from my stash. First, I’ll talk about the casual outfit. It’s a pretty simple look, with a sports bra, a shirt, and a pair of leggings. I bought the BFF (Beast Friends Forever) shirt on shopDisney a couple of years ago. It comes down super low in the arms. So I decided to make a s...

  Finally, the time had arrived. It was time to begin work on my Snow White costume in earnest. I think it took a work or two to finish all the underthings. I spent as little money as possible on those so I could spend a bit more on the clothes that will be seen. I used Simplicity 8489, an out of print Snow White pattern. Unfortunately, I had only bought the smaller size envelope. I needed size 16 which was in the larger size envelope. I had to resort to Amazon to buy it. At a premium price, I might add. So annoying. I didn’t like the gathered skirt as shown on the pattern. So I instead made a full circle skirt, with a hem length of 35 inches. It was tedious, but straightforward. Because the fabric wasn’t wide enough,  I had to cut 1 half circle and two quarter circles. I cut those pieces of the satin and the lace. For each piece, I placed the lace on top of the satin, then serged them together all around. I could then treat them as one piece.  The finished skirt has side...

     I first watched Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas as an adult. It's so charming and sweet. I was inspired in 2019 by Sally's signature patchwork look. It's more of a Disneybound rather than a cosplay. A full cosplay will be coming someday, but for today, I present my Sally-inspired sweater. I decided to make a sweater to coordinate with my future costume. Most years in Oklahoma, October 31 is cool enough to at least require a light sweater. And I can't wear a mundane, everyday coat or sweater with my costumes. Oh no.      I bought 4 sweaters at the thrift store. They were carefully chosen to have different textures in the knitting, and also to match a specific color palette of muted traditional “fall” colors. From the beginning, I knew I wanted a pumpkin orange, a mustard yellow, and a green. Funny enough, those are all also my least favorite colors. But the more I thought about this project, the more I convinced myself that no other colors would...

My Youtube video associated with this blog post  I am very pleased to present my Tiki Room dress. The Dress Shop brand from Disney has a 1950's-inspired sundress in this fabric. I do like it, but I don't wear sleeveless dresses. So, I thought I would make my own in a slightly different style. I still wanted a vintage dress, with a tropical vibe as was popular mid century. After much deliberation, I decided on Butterick 5880. It's a reprint of a 1951 pattern. I was so anxious to begin this dress. I don't know why exactly. It's not like I'm heading to Disney any time soon. But sometimes I just “get a bee in my bonnet”, as they say. And I can't do anything else until I scratch that itch. So I thoroughly cleaned my sewing studio, AKA the corner of my bedroom, and set to work. For my first run, I used a 101 Dalmatians bed sheet from the thrift store. It's old and worn, but it was less than $2 and it's a big piece of fabric. For my mock-ups, I don't ...

Thrift stores are a wealth of treasures, waiting to be found. True, you have to dig deep sometimes, but these gems do exist. Take for example, this wonderful Walt Disney World sweatshirt. The bold, gorgeous blue! The adorable embroidery of Minnie Mouse! And in brand new condition, too! Love it. I would've worn it proudly, but it was an XL. Which I am not. It never was worn and eventually, I just put it away. It sadly languished in my fabric stash for way too long. Recently, I was reorganizing my fabric stash and I really wanted to do a quick project to get my creative juices flowing. And then I recalled seeing free patterns for fleece warm winter accessories on recent favorite patterns websites; Patterns for Pirates and Made for Mermaids. The two are sister companies, both literally and figuratively :-) One sister owns one, and another owns the other. I love it. I made a neck warmer. https://www.madeformermaids.com/product/neckwarmer/ Some sweet littl...