My kids have awesome imaginations (as do all children) and they come up with the coolest games to play. It’s never just your average ‘play house’ or ‘play dollies’, no, it’s ‘let’s play: oh NO, there’s a giant chickmunk (yes, chick munk) stealing our baby and we have to fly a spaceship through a wormhole and into train world to save it’. They are too funny.

I’m always looking for ways to fuel that imagination of theirs. I help them build rockets out of the recycling (only to watch them destroy it later), make them oodles of play doh in every color under the sun (saving every precious creation) and add to the overflowing basket of dress up clothes!  You really just cant go wrong with more princess gear, like ever.. so I decided to start with a Rapunzel dress!

I really like the look of this one I found on Amazon, so I wanted to make it similar using my rather large stash of inexpensive quilting cotton and ribbon. I decided on an easy pull over design based off the Portobellopixie Clair pattern. I added length to the bodice, some extra pouf to the sleeves and some fun details.

Hanging on the hanger doesn’t do it much justice, it’s cuter on. I added a panel in the front bodice piece to add the ‘lacing’ which is just purple ribbon. I initially had the ribbon loose, but it sagged and looked frumpy when worn so I stitched it down. I also added an extra panel of pink covered with gold star netting in the front of the skirt. I also made it a tad wider and ran elastic through the waist to make it easier to get on and off.

Along the bottom I stitched pink ribbon around the whole skirt and embroidered a little vine leaf down the sides of the pink panel.

Since I didn’t have any pink and purple striped fabric I just stitched some ribbon down the sleeves. Which worked out well I think.