Once Upon a Time...

I love dress-up. I especially love historical dress-up, but any time of dress-up is fun for me. Therefore, Halloween is an excellent holiday. This Halloween, I decided to go as Rapunzel, from Disney's Tangled. She is one of my favorite princesses, and I love her dress. Purple is one of my favorite colors, and there are a lot of elements of colonial clothing in her outfit. So, I was off!

I sewed a ton of Halloween costumes for my friends in the two weeks leading up to the holiday, and I only left a few days to sew my own costume. Luckily, it came together very quickly. I used Butterick pattern B5662 as the bodice of the dress, and I used the sleeves from one of my favorite Simplicity patterns, 4055, to make my Rapunzel sleeves. The skirt, petticoat, and long sleeves were drafted myself.

For fabric, I have a ton of darker purple silk taffeta in my stash, so I used that for the petticoat, and I was able to find the lighter purples I would need on sale at Jo-Ann Fabrics, along with a lining cotton and sheer pink for the long sleeves. I needed boning, lace, string for laces, and grommets for my notions, and ended up having enough coupons and finding enough good deals that this turned out to be a fairly inexpensive project. I also purchased two blonde wigs online, but I haven't done much with those yet.

My fabric, lace, patterns, ribbon, grommets, and wigs.

To begin, I cut out the bodice and sleeves from the lining fabric, and made my mock-up. After a few slight adjustments (it was wayyy too big), I added the boning, and cut out the fabric.

The sleeve linings and the lining/mock-up of the bodice, ready to be cut out.

The boning added to the lining...

...and the fabric attached, with the lace sandwiched at the bottom!

As I sewed the lining to the fabric, I inserted the lace trim along the bottom edge. I was really pleased with how it turned out.

Then, it was time to add the sleeves and the grommets. For the sleeves, I sewed ribbon onto the fabric to achieve the striped look.

Pinning the ribbon to get the spacing and lengths right...

...and the final result! I'm especially pleased with how this portion of the dress turned out.

For the long sleeves, I cut out rectangles a little bigger than the circumference of my arm, and fitted them accordingly. I then added lace around the bottom edges to finish them off.

Carefully sewing the lace onto the sheer long sleeves.

For the grommets, I marked the holes, and then pinned the lining to the fabric to ensure that my holes would be in the right places in all layers. Using my wonderful pink tool kit that my parents got me, I punched the holes, and hammered in the grommets.

Fabric and lining pinned, all ready for holes!

My pink tool kit, such a useful and fun gift!

The completed grommets. The boys in the apartment upstairs later asked if we had been building furniture because of the hammering noises (don't worry, it wasn't too late at night!)

Finally, I sewed the skirt (a few trapezoids sewn together) to the bodice, and sewed the petticoat (two trapezoids with ties and a placket so I could wear a pocket). I attached the sleeves, and I was ready to go!

The last thing I needed to complete my outfit was Pascal, but I had already made him this summer. When I was working in the costume shop for the Arkansas Shakespeare Theater, we were allowed to play with the scraps in our free time. So, I amassed some scraps from a fun green lining fabric that had been used for a dress in Merry Wives of Windsor, and during some downtime I drafted a pattern and whipped up my little Pascal!

A few of my drafted pattern pieces - I ended up making the feet bigger so they would look better once they were turned.

The body, head, tail, and frill all stuffed, just waiting for the limbs to be sewn on. Some day I'll probably add a tongue and eyes too...

With my costume completed, I was able to wear it for Halloween, which meant getting half-price Chipotle for coming in costume and making a little girl's night, and then going to Colonial Williamsburg's "Haunting on DoG Street". However, I wasn't able to get any pictures of my dress on Halloween, so a few days ago I asked my good friend Kirsten to help me with photos so that I could finally publish this post. When I originally sewed this dress, my hair came down to a little below the bodice, but in January I cut off 17 inches to donate to Locks of Love, and so I am now Rapunzel from the end of the movie!

I am so happy with the finished product! Walking across the street to take pictures I got a few curious looks, and some of the people driving by smiled and waved excitedly - college kids like Disney just as much as kindergarteners!

As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or just want to say hi, please feel free to leave a comment! :)