Elsa’s Ice Dress

I’ve healed enough from my recent eye surgery, finished my taxes, and made enough progress on my grandmother’s biography project that I am finally allowed to finish my costume for Elsa the Snow Queen! This time I’ll make updates as I make progress on each portion of her magical ice ensemble, including the ice dress, ice shoes, snowflake accessories, and sparkling snowflake cape…

First the easiest part of the ice ensemble…the mesh shirt. Sewing stretchy fabric is tricky, so I searched online a bit and scored an aqua mesh long-sleeved scoop-necked shirt on eBay for only $9, free shipping and no tax! When it arrived it was the absolutely perfect shade of aqua to go with the aqua sparkle satin I had already bought. Not only was the color perfect, but even though it worried me that large was the largest they sold and I usually need XL, the sleeves were even plenty long for my super-long arms, and the shirt was well past the bottom of the bodice. I couldn’t have made one any better, definitely not for that price in fabric and time!

How do you make an “accurate” reproduction when every public image is slightly different? The dress is pretty consistent, but the designs on the mesh shirt change from image to image! In the song Let It Go, there are big chunky sections sparkling in the sunlight, but on the posters there are thinner and more delicate designs, and the Disney Parks costume is different from either of those, so I decided on my own interpretation, combining elements consistent to all those designs but with large enough sections to sparkle at a distance.

As you might have already seen with the fabric paint on the stretch velvet coronation shirt, painting on stretchy fabric can be tricky, so I wore the mesh shirt as I painted the clear iridescent glitter swirls and designs. Since I’m right-handed, I painted the left arm and across the front as far as I could reach on my right shoulder, taking about 45 minutes, then let it dry as I did other projects. When it was dry enough I put on the shirt backwards to paint the back and the other arm, so about an hour and a half painting time, plus about an hour more drying time for each side. The paint won’t glue the fabric to your skin permanently, it just peels off, and any paint residue will come off after a shower or two, even though some glitter might hang around for a while. 😉 Since this is stretchable fabric paint, when pulling it off my skin, it puckered and the mesh stretched out more than when I first put it on, but I’m hoping that a quick tumble in the medium-heat dryer recommended on the fabric paint bottle will shrink it back into shape, like a stretchy pair of jeans.

The basic dress is the reverse side of the coronation dress, and you can read the making of the coronation dress here, so that was already finished, but it needed the ice “shingles” added to the bodice. I didn’t want to use anything hard like sequins so it would still be comfortable to wear as the coronation dress when the ice was on the inside, so I decided on overlapping fabric rectangles. I couldn’t find any fabric the perfect color AND the correct glittering ice effect, so I laminated my own using clear double-adhesive iron-on interfacing between the same blue translucent iridescent fabric as the snowflake cape, and the same aqua glitter satin as the skirt.

Cutting all THOUSAND rectangles from the laminated fabric took over 2 hours! I used my trusty metal square to mark out 1.5″ and 1″ lengths vs. 3/4″ widths on the back side of the laminated fabric, then cut them all out, leaving them in separate piles to keep track. I thought that two sizes of rectangles would be enough variety to stagger them to be random rectangles, but while gluing I realized I only really needed one size after all.

Because of the curve of the corset boning I couldn’t glue the bodice while flat, so I laced it tightly on my dress form so there would be support behind the fabric and I could pin where necessary while the glue was drying. I propped the entire form up on a crate so I wouldn’t have to keep leaning over so low to reach the bottom of the bodice. I also set it up in my living room to use my drop-leaf table and see my TV. 😉 Since I was overlapping the shingles for the random rectangular effect, I started with the bottom row where the bodice meets the skirt. I originally sewed the skirt to the bodice from the aqua side, but then covered the raw seam edges with the bronze ribbon trim, so there were two lines of aqua stitching I needed to cover with ice shingles. These required all my teal pins to anchor them so they would bend around to cover the stitching properly, so it took a couple hours just to get the single row around the entire bodice. It took overnight for this stretchable fabric glue to dry, but it dries clear and the sparkle shines through, so I gave it a whole coat of glue when it was done so I don’t bend any shingles when wearing it as the coronation dress.

The next night in about 2 hours I got a lot more progress done since the glue usually holds without pins as long as it’s completely flat. I started overlapping by testing various methods of trying to be random and showing different sizes and shapes of rectangles, so here you can see a closeup view of the overlapping. I refined my technique as I went along. After I had my technique settled and had handled the curves up to where the rest of the design would be only vertical, I went up the trickiest seams first since that boning pokes out making an angle so those are all folded over. I also covered between the lacing holes in back so all the under-layers were done before the next evening’s session.

Several more hours gluing on the third evening got the front up to just under the bustline, but I was already almost out of stretchable fabric glue! I’ve always wanted to do a fancy mermaid costume with individual fabric scales, but now I’ve been thinking that this project might scratch my mermaid scales itch…at least for a few years? 😉

About four more hours gluing on evening four, I was getting closer to finishing the ice shingles, and getting tired of sticky fingers and glue everywhere. I had to stuff the bust with paper towels so the corset would be stretched properly for gluing. My dressform obviously isn’t as busty as I am! 😉 The plan for the top edge is to trim everything even from the other side so I know they won’t show when wearing the coronation dress. Even in decent shoes my feet hurt from standing up for 5 hours straight!

Finally on evening five, I finished the back too…whew! Each morning I have done some touchup gluing and pinning where certain shingles have curved up too much, but the majority stay flat enough I think it should work even worn as the inside of the coronation dress. I like the reflective texture of having some of the shingles not completely glued down, but we’ll have to see how it wears.

Now that the ice dress is ready to wear, stay tuned for the ice shoes and the snowflake cape! 🙂