Have you decided what you or your little ones are going to be for Halloween? I’m more excited about Halloween this year than any other year in the past because I have my little girl to play dress-up 🙂
This Minnie costume is not for Kiko, but I borrowed it for the sake of taking the photos. I made this for my friend’s daughter. She has a tradition of going to the Tokyo Disney Land with her daughter every fall, and dresses her daughter with a little Minnie mouse costume. Last year I made this dress for her. This year, she sent me her sketch, so I made a dress based on it. Her sketch has a white round collar, big polkadot baby doll dress with puff sleeves and tutu underneath of the dress to fluff it up.
I didn’t use any patterns; I traced an existing dress that fits Kiko well and added a bit more room and seam allowances. For round collar though, I did make a paper pattern so that they fit accurately. I like this tutorial on how to draft round collar patterns.
I added a sash in the back, and invisible zipper for closure. I made it a bit short so that the tutu will peek out at hem.
One problem I came across was pre-washing the fabric. I almost always pre-treat the fabric before I work on it, so I soak this polkadot fabric in a cold water first. Then I realized that the red color dyed the white dots! I wash it for three times, tried the detergent but the color did not come off. So the white dots are dyed in pink! I did a quick internet search on how to fix/avoid this problem, but no reasonable solutions were found.. Anyone has any advice? I think it was the right decision to wash the fabric even though the dots were dyed in the process, because if I hadn’t, the white collar would have been pink too.
My friend emailed me that her daughter loved the dress. I’m thrilled!
Emily says
Adorable! I hope I have a little girl someday to dress up 🙂
This might be a long shot, I don’t know if they are available in Japan, and I haven’t used them, but they sell something called a “Shout Color Catcher” here which is a little piece of treated cloth that is supposed to absorb dyes in the wash. The reviews say they work, maybe it’s worth a try!
http://www.shoutitout.com/en-US/Products/Pages/shout-color-catcher.aspx
Chie says
Wow that’s great! Thank you for the tips. I have to see if they sell this in Japan.
Ginger says
Yay! This is SO cute! Kiko needs one, too! 🙂
Chie says
I’m making her a Tinkerbell costume for Halloween! What are you going to be?