Ok, so my 5 year old is in love with Disney's Tarzan. So, she wanted to be Jane for Halloween. Not Jungle Jane. City Jane. In the enormous, poufy yellow dress. So, great! What was the problem? There is no costume like that to be found ANYWHERE! There is not even a pattern for that costume! So, I basically had to Frankenstein the whole thing. But here it is!
The main body of the dress (remove collar, neck tie, front swoop, and bustle) began life as Butterick B5705 - a kids flower girl dress. I began with the petticoat. Now let me just say that I hate scratchy tule against my legs. My kiddos don't like it either, but that was what this pattern called for - an attached tule petticoat. Well, I decided to make mine with muslin fabric and gather the crap out of the thing and do two layers (piecing, sewing, hemming and gathering took a combined 5 hours of work. Yikes!) And I wanted the petticoat separate so that she could wear it underother dresses. So, I did not stitch it to the dress, put some elastic in the waiste and then gave her attached elastic "suspenders" since the underskirt was just plain too heavy to keep on without the extra support.
After that, i began work on the actual dress. The original pattern didn't have a front swoop (drape) or bustle at all so I needed to draft my own. The front swoop was easy enough and I basted it to the top of the pleated skirt, pleating the sides as I went along. The bustle was a little more complicated. It needed height which it couldn't get if I put it below the back zipper so I made it an attachable one with a velcro edged belt that could go on over the zipper and be removed easily. The Jane dress had a dark colored yellow belt anyway, so this totally fit the bill.
The sleeves I needed to be longer than the pattern called for, so I just added an extra 4 inches and made sure the bottom was reversable in case my daughter wanted the "rolled up" look that Jane sports frequently.
The collar and necktie, I drafted myself and made them completely removable for comfort sake (my kiddo doesn't like constricting clothing like turtle necks or anything). It wasn't too hard - had to make the collar a few times, but it's so small that it didn't take very long.
And I think that's about it! Here's one last picture so you can see the width and pouf of the dress (I think I used a combined total of 10 yards of fabric for it):
Thanks for having a look!!
