'11 Happy Happy Joy Joy Dance #21: Ren Fair Dress Re-make

A few years ago my best friend passed this dress on to me.  It quickly became Blockette's favorite play dress.  It made a wonderful fairy outfit with the addition of some pink fairy wings (also given to Blockette by my best friend.  Gee...she must be a cool best friend or something.)  This summer, it became painfully obvious that the dress no longer fit.  While the dress had adjustable shoulder straps and laced up the front, the dress had reached its limits.

Blockette was actually the third little girl to own this dress.  It was originally purchased at the Bristol Renaissance Fair for one million dollars.  OK, so it wasn't for one million dollars, but it was an insane amount of money for a toddler dress.  I looked to see if the company sold their merchandise online, but I had no luck in that department.  I did find that they are still at the Ren Fair, but then you have to figure the price of Ren Fair admission onto the one million dollars for a dress.  Of course that was nearly 10 years ago, so with inflation, a dress in Blockette's current size is probably two billion dollars.

Since I am all out of two billion dollar bills, I thought I might attempt to make the dress myself.  The dress in theory is quite simple.  The bodice is a rectangle and so are the straps, and the skirt is a 3/4 circle.  It would have been a piece of cake to make the dress in the exact same size, but alas, I was making the dress bigger.  Since I was making the bodice bigger, that meant that the circumference of the circle that was the waist on the skirt needed to be bigger.  I was also making the skirt longer, which meant that the circumference of the circle that was the hem also needed to be bigger.  Oh and remember, these are 3/4 circles so...aaaaaaaaaaaaaah.  Together, Mrblocko and I worked it out and I was able to draft a pattern.

My mom was nice enough to help me pick out the fabric while we were up at her house in July.  I was hoping for something metallic like the original dress, but we couldn't find anything that wasn't white.  White.  HA!  Not for my child.

I have to give a big shout out to the lady who was working at the fabric counter at Joann Fabrics that day. She helped me figure out how to lay the skirt out in such a way so that I only needed about a yard and a half instead of the five I feared I'd need.

Since we're giving thanks, a la the Oscars, besides the Academy, I'd like to thank my best friend.  In July, Blockette was at a reading program in the morning, once a week, at my best friend's church.  It was during this time that I was able to get this dress sewn.  You see, I needed to be sneaky, as this was one of Blockette's birthday presents. 

This time, I measured correctly.  Thank goodness I didn't mess up on this dress like I did with the petticoat skirt/apron.  The dress is just a tiny bit too big for Blockette, which is exactly what I wanted.

YAY!