The Easy Rapunzel Dress

When I told my oldest that we were going to go to Disneyland, her immediate concern was that she be properly dressed.  What does that mean?   Well, to a 3.5 year old it means having princess attire. She quickly (and politely) asked begged me to take her to the fabric store so that we could pick out some fabric to make her a dress.

Figuring that buying a dress at Disneyland would be rather expensive, and since I don't usually make things like this for the girls, I figured that maybe it might be fun to oblige.

At first I thought that I'd make T shirt dresses that resembled princess dresses.  They'd be comfortable after all.  After our last trip to Disneyland I was amazed at all the kids that thought wearing a fancy princess dress to the park was a good idea.  But no, this wasn't what my little snugglebug had in mind.

That's right, my kid wanted to be "that" kid. Why?  I still don't get it.  I don't remember ever dressing up to go to Disneyland. 

Of course I could say no, but I really didn't want my little bug sulking through Disneyland where lots of other kids' mommies let them dress up.  Disneyland was supposed to be a VACATION.  It is supposed to be fun.

So I decided we had to come up with a more comfortable dress that would meet my daughter's shiny-frilly requirements.

That meant using the right pattern.  To my daughter's dismay, that meant NOT the Rapunzel one in the fabric pattern book at Joanns.  For my daughter, a comfortable dress has 1) no tags 2) no zippers or buttons and 3) is about knee length or a little longer.  Her absolute favorite dresses have elastic around the neck and arms. (BONUS:  These patterns are much simpler than the Disney approved ones.)

We picked out fabric that was 1) machine washable and 2) not scratchy.  My older daughter was over the moon excited about being able to help pick it out.  My little one grabbed the fabric when we got home and held it up to herself and asked "me?"  as though she wanted to make sure that she too wouldn't be left out.  So yes, I had to make two dresses.

I am very happy with out the dresses turned out.  Keep reading below to see how I modified this simple pattern from simplicity into these great Rapunzel dresses.

 I added some ribbon to the sleeves.



I added a small amount of trim to the very bottom part of the sleeve.

You can see how it just is sewn to the very bottom of the casing for the elastic.(This is the reverse side).

I added a bit of ribbon to the front of the dress:

and here it is all sewn up.

Here's a picture of the bodice before the elastic was inserted in.

and here it is after. 

I cut out duplicates of the skirt, (both in the sheer fabric and the purple fabric).  However, I rotated the skirt and didn't sew it together in the front, so that it was open.

 After that I just attached the top to the bottom.  It all came together pretty easily, and I definitely recommend this pattern for making easy and COMFORTABLE princess dresses.