I made my godchild a Belle princess dress: DIY princess dress for children

I made my godchild a Belle princess dress for her birthday (Beauty and the beast).
Little creatures in order of appearance:
- housecat
- holly blue (Celastrina argiolus)
- alpine newt (Ichthyosaura alpestris)
- lime hawk-moth (Mimas tiliae )
- cockchafer or maybeetle (Melolontha melolontha)
Creative process:
I started with asking my godchild which dress she would like to have. I gave her a few example and she grew fond of the dress from Disney princess Belle. But she asked me to make some adjustments. She wanted it to have puff sleeves, and a soft, tulle skirt.
Fabrics:
- stiff tule: for the structural underskirt
- soft tule: layer above structural underskirt, to make the dress fluffy
- polyester satin: underskirt, a shorter overskirt and the puff sleeves
- cotton jersey: for the bodice (I ended up using a store-bought cotton t-shirt in order to save some time)
I colored the soft tulle so it would match the rest of the fabrics better. Nylon is easy to dye, it soaks up color pretty well. I just followed the instructions on the packaging… Kinda….(hehe)
The yellow turned out very cold and bright, while I preferred a softer, warmer yellow, so I gave it a second short bath in black tea to adjust the color a bit.
Plan:
I would make the dress in two parts: a bodice and a skirt, so it can be worn however needed and it’s more forgiving to the speed that kids grow in.
For the bodice I worked with a store-bought t-shirt where I planned to attach the puff sleeves onto. For the skirt, the bottom layer would be a simple satin skirt, made out of two thirds of a circle skirt. On top of that would come structural underskirt made out of the stiff tule. This structural skirt is made with 6 thirds of a circle skirt (double circle skirt). On top of that would come a layer of the soft tule (two rectangles that would be gathered at the top). And finally there would be a shorter overskirt, made from a smaller circle skirt pattern, gathered up on 5 points to make it look like Belle's dress.
Making process:
First I made a pattern for the structural underskirt.
I attached all the 6 pieces to each other with my sewing machine. The fabric was not very stretchy so I didn’t need to put special settings.
Since I used double the waist length in the pattern calculations, this skirt needed to be gathered at the top, which I did by hand.
The rectangles of the soft tulle were very stretchy so I decided to gather them by hand with a simple running stitch.
For the final underskirt I used the pattern again from the structural underskirt, but this time just two thirds.
Because my godchild is rather sensitive to seams touching her skin I decided to make a French seam, these are the softest to the touch and not very ticklish. If you wonder how such seams are made, you can find many in dept tutorials on youtube. I finished off the bottom of the skirt with a rolled hem. Then I attached all layers to each other, one by one and went over it with my sewing machine.
Now that all the longer skirts were cut out, I adapted the pattern that I used until it was fit to cut a shorter circle skirt. I quickly used a zigzag stitch on the waist to stop it from fraying. And then I realized that, since the fabric is 100% polyester, I could use a little flame to finish off the edges, this gave a clean look to this fabric. When you use a fire in your projects, always make sure to have anything by your side to put the fire out in case it catches on something else. (like a fire blanket)
And then with the leftover fabric I made a waistband. I left enough room inside to run an elastic through. In all my calculations for the waist I added an extra 10cm so that there would be room to grow in this dress. In the beginning it can be worn with an elastic, later when a bigger waistline is needed the elastic can be removed and a zip can make sure that she can put the skirt on and off.
I attached the waistband with a zigzag stitch to make it extra sturdy
Then I gathered up the overskirt on 5 different spots to make it look like Belle’s skirt.
The t-shirt that I would use as the base of the bodice was white, so first I died it yellow to match the rest of the dress.
For the sleeve pattern I worked with a regular sleeve pattern that I could find on the internet. I adapted this pattern: the sleeve needed extra length and width in order to be gathered on the top and bottom to become a puffy sleeve.
Then I gathered the fabric so it would fit around the sleeve on the t-shirt, I turned it inside out and stitched it to the t-shirt on the shoulder seam and turned it right side out again.
After that I gathered the sleeve on the bottom of the t-shirt sleeve and attached that with a zigzag stitch in order to keep the stretch.
Next I made some bows out of ribbon and attached it to the dress with a pearl on top.
My godchild was very happy to be wearing her new princess dress
Thank you all for watching and I wish you a lovely day.