Pocahontas costume

Pocahontas costume, a photo by saffronbee1 on Flickr.

It's my first ever costume made for my daughter. She had this ice-skating performance that required the West Indies theme. I was told she would need to be dressed as an Indian. Since her song choice was Pochahontas, I looked up from the internet what other people have done for some ideas. I have managed to dig up a yellow fleece fabric off cut my stash. I had to make a trip to Spotlight for some gold fabric. Managed to find this Japanese Tissue Lame in Whitegold colour under $10 a metre. I was going to buy only 20cm of it for these trims but Ellie insisted to buy 30cm. OK. More is better than less. Then, the fun part began with how to draft a pattern. I rummaged her wardrobe a bit and found a perfect Esprit top/dress that I think it will be a good base. So, I folded the top in half and traced the front and the back onto paper. Cut out my pattern. Then, cut the fabric. Lots of trial and error to at the shoulder area to make this one-shoulder top not too low. Ellie must have tried the dress 7 to 8 times that her smile has gone from great big one to not-so-excited one. ;) After I put all the things together, the costume looks real good. I should have put together a pocahontas costume tutorial while I was making it. It would have been fun to record the making process.

I also made the body suit from a lining fabric from Spotlight. The fabric is very stretchy. When the salesgirl in Spotlight asked me if I had a pattern for it, I said "No, but it's all stretchy fabric. It should be ok?". I kind of cut and sew and try on and cut and sew and try on a few times to finish the final product. I think it looks ok especially the spectators are at least 10 metres away. 

Back to the sewing side, I learnt a few things in this project:

1. Japanese Tissue Lame was great and very light but it frayed so easily. I had to cut diagonally in the end. For the wrong cut, I used no-fray glue to save time. Need to look up what else stops the fraying if I will do something similar again. I do like this fabric as it's very affordable.

2. The curve at the front (from the neck to the armpit) was done twice because the length of the seams was not long enough that stretched the fleece too much. Changing to a longer length seam makes the finishing very perfect. Perfect after 2nd attempt. A big pat on my shoulder!

3. I can sew stretchy fabric! Hurrah!