My niece is really into Frozen, the Disney movie, so I thought I would surprise her with an adorable little dress of the blondie ice queen. It was a spur of the moment decision I made when I spotted a pattern for the dress. I already have yards of blue satin, so I figured I already had the materials.

$40 later, I discovered I did not have all the materials, but now at least I do. It will be a high quality dress made with these materials. Only the finest for my niece.

I spent a backbreaking night hunched over cutting out pattern pieces. Since I do not understand how to use a pattern yet, I was having difficulty determining which pieces I needed to use. I decided just to cut out every piece, and I’ll have my bases covered.

Then I spent a backbreaking night pinning the pattern pieces to the fabric and cutting it out. I ended up cutting out way more pieces than I needed. I don’t understand the labeling of pieces, in particular, something called a “Yoke”.

This didn’t fit into what I remembered her Majesty wearing, so I was a bit confused. Later, I figured out it was the transparent piece around her neck, which in retrospect makes perfect sense. I hate it when something seems so obvious I should have known, but I didn’t think of it in the moment. Stupid brain, always making me look bad.

After some medicine for my back, assembly begin. This is my favorite part, the part that actually involves sewing. In my experience so far, it seems like sewing is actually more about cutting out pieces of things than the actual part with a sewing machine. Only about 10% of the work involves it.

I assembled, and then I actually pulled out my iron to iron the seams. The instructions told me this was a good idea, so I decided to swallow my pride and not be lazy.

The seams may have been ironed, but I ended up with random wrinkles in other spots. I thought about fixing it, but decided I’ll either fix it at the end, or that my niece is 5 years old and won’t know the difference. I’m counting on her not noticing a lot of things.

Then I had this mess.

I swear it looks better in person. The shiny really hides the mess. But even with my untrained eye, I could tell the seams were a mess, and the sizing looks really weird. Unfortunately, I can’t do much about the sizing because the niece is in another state and I don’t know what size she is. Child sized, is the extent of my knowledge. But I did decide to fix all the seams, even though the instructions didn’t say to. I’m a little afraid this will mess up some further instruction, but the fabric seemed to be unraveling. And now thinking about it in retrospect, maybe I should have read ahead and looked to see if there was something about the seams…. dang it brain, I did it again.

I recreated the cattle yoke with some tulle, which is apparently what the all knowing directions wanted. But then the directions and I begin to have some disagreements, when I decided it was easier just to stitch the yoke on, as opposed to just pinning it like it wanted.

This is the extent of my progress so far. I still need to finish the yoke, add the cape, and hem the bottom. The cutting part wasn’t too fun, but once I begin sewing, I greatly enjoyed it. Maybe I will make some more, and create an army of ice queens. I understand the appeal of walking around all day in a full skirt, so perhaps I’ll make one for me. Queen of the castle, muwahaha.

But I’m thinking too far ahead. I really just need to finish this one, and get it to my niece before Christmas. Then my plans for queen-dom can begin.