Her Lakeside Padme Dress

We knew we were having a Star Wars Party for Halloween, but my 2 year old was insistent on being a princess. Why not Princess Leia you ask? Well... 

been there done that. ;)

So I started looking for other female character costumes for toddlers and there's just not much out there.

Looking at all of the different Padme dresses, I thought this would be the easiest to pull off.  

After looking at several fan renditions of this dress, I decided it looked like I could make her a pillowcase dress in yellow satin as the base.

 I know the back of the dress doesn't really have any ties hanging down from the neck, 

heh, but give me a break, it's a costume for a toddler, and it was easier this way. 

I knew I would want the shawl to be removable in case it ended up being too cumbersome for her to get around in, so I sewed a few pieces of velcro onto the front of her dress to hold up the chest plate, and another in back to hold on the medallion where the shawl gathers there.

For the chest plate, the back medallion, and the arm cuffs, I took a piece of stiff felt and covered them with silver crushed velvet, adding velcro as needed for attaching it to the dress. Note: if I had been smart about it, I would have done that step before covering it in velvet so the sew lines from the velcro wouldn't show through the front. 

This shawl thing is what freaked me out most about the project because I wasn't exactly sure how to cut the fabric. I could tell it was essentially a rectangular poncho with an oversize center hole.

I also hate sewing blanket binding on, but since this sheer material I'd bought wasn't RIT dye friendly, I figured it was the only way to add the purple the costume needed. After 2 or 3 tries and some help from my lovely little model, I was finally able to gather the fabric and pin it to the undersides of the chest plate and back medallion (that I don't actually have a picture of... it's just a 2-3" circle made like the chest plate)

When I pinned the sheer to sew it onto the wrist cuffs, I thought, there's no REAL need to sew it down. That way she can use those cuffs again for other costumes. You can kind of see the cuffs on the right here, but the arms on this are just pinned along the top with a big safety pin.

Whenever she was ready to take the shawl off, I would undo the velcro on the wrist cuffs, and then pull off the chest plate and back medallion. She absolutely LOVED her princess dress. I guess technically, this is her first dress up dress. There's been many added to the collection since then, but what can I say?! She's a girly girl through and through! NOT like her Mommy!