Princess Dress for My Princess: Sofia The First Edition

We are just a few days away from leaving on our vacation to Disneyland (!!!), but I had some time to make this sweet little dress for my Sofia The First fan.  My youngest looooves the color purple and requested a Sophia Dress for the trip.  Of course, I said yes :o)  Since there aren't very many tutorials for a Sofia The First Dress out there, I thought I would show you a how I made it.  Ready?  Grab some purple fabric and get ready!

To start, I used the same pattern for this dress that I did with the Belle Dress.  I used two shades of purple Kona cottonFor this dress, the only change that I made was the double the width of the skirt (for a size 6, it was two pieces that were 40 x 19), and to add the overskirt.  To make the overskirt, I cut it 5 inches shorter than the underskirt (so, 40 x 14).  Then I took each piece of fabric and cut it in thirds, width-wise.  I ended up with 6 rectangles that were 13.3 x 14 inches.  I folded each rectangle in half lengthwise and drew a rounded shape at the bottom of one:

It looked like a petal after:

And I used it as a template to cut the rest:

Then, to mimic the pearl trim on Sophia's dress, I pinned extra large white ric-rac along right side of the rounded edge of each petal.  I didn't finish the edge because I was lazy low on time, but you should totally serge or zig zag your edge.

Stitch the ric rac down with a 3/8 inch seam allowance. 

Then, turn under and press.  Voila!  A sweet "pearl" trim!  This is by far my favorite way to hem a skirt, BTW - so easy!  Be sure to top stitch too!

For the flower design on the skirt, I used iron on material and my Cricut - I used cut basic ovals and circles and placed them how I liked them.  For iron on material, my best advice is to put a towel under the fabric that you are ironing onto, then make sure to press the iron on for at least 45 seconds.  I just use my cell phone as a timer.

For the bodice detail, I just sewed lines of ric rac on either side to mimic the pearl detail on Sophia's bodice, and then I coiled some purple trim in the general design on the original version.

 The final result: A cute, comfy, twirly dress perfect for my little princess!

I said in my Belle Dress post that my girls never really liked the dresses that you can get in the parks and at the Disney store - they are itchy, tear and run easily, and drop glitter all over the house!  With a few dollars of fabric and about 2 hours, you can make your princess her own custom gown - try it out and let me know how it works!

***This post contains affiliate links***
***ALSO: the Cricut Expressions 2 is ON SALE on Amazon right now!!  That's an awesome price!***