Rosalina's Dress: a Free Sewing Tutorial, Sponsored by ADHD.

So... once upon a time it was a Tuesday. The local movie theater was doing half off tickets and, needless to say, my family jumped at the chance to see new The Super Mario Galaxy movie. After a long time of sitting through the commercials it started and *cue angelic chorus* Rosalina came on screen. And THAT DRESS!!!!! My little heart fell in love with that dress. The rest of the evening was super fun, the movie was great, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to be really weird in the empty theater. (We were the only ones in the theater. Shocking, I know for a kid's movie on a school night.) We left the theater and only two things were on my mind. One was how much my ankles hurt from using the seat as a sort of catapult. The more important thing was Rosalina.

Rosalina was defiantly my favorite new character. Allow me to explain why. 1. Her dress is beautiful. 2. She is so pretty! I wish I looked like that. *sigh* 3. What a good mom! 4. She reminds me of an Elf. Galadriel in particular. ("A star shines on our meeting?" I'm sorry but Nintendo stole that from Tolkien.) 5. She wasn't as annoyingly girl bossy. 6. She reminds me of The Virgin Mary. 8. She also really like books. 9. Our personalities have minor similarities. Actually, mostly the protectiveness, loving books, and being serious. Really folks, just because I'm not smiling doesn't mean I'm depressed. I will be completely happy, and people will come up and ask "Are you okay? You seem so upset." 10. Did I mention the dress?

So naturally I had to make this dress. Unfortunately, as this movie came out recently, no one else on the internet has really made this dress and posted a tutorial. And the ones who had made me want to smash my computer into the wall as soon as they said they were using a pattern. As Aladin famously stated "These guys don't appreciate I'm broke." And even if I wasn't I still don't believe in paying for patterns. Why would a pay a full $3 when I could just suffer trying to replicate a youtuber's for free? Did not having a pattern, tutorial, or even enough fabric stop my ADHD fueled self? Nope. It was torture, took me two and a half months, and didn't really turn out that well since I didn't know what I was doing. It looks like I am wearing a trash bag. But now *drumroll* you don't have to suffer like I did! I am cheating the system and posting this for free because you deserve to be able to make this gorgeous dress without giving into the pattern company or screaming about what a Wiloughby this project is when you realize you cut the back wrong. (Apologies for the rant.)

P.S

1. I am not proud of these pictures. My good camera wasn't working so I had to use my old little one. Nor was the green screen app. Hence the reason my background is, um green fabric. The quality is horrible and you are 100% allowed to ridicule it. This is my first instructable.
2. Also, as mentioned before, I look nothing like her. Hopefully I can convince my parents to buy me accessories and a wig for Halloween. If that works, I will post better pictures.
3. A friendly note: DO NOT USE COSTUME SATIN!!!!! I naively bought a bunch of it when it was on sale, and I can quite safely say it is the worst fabric I have ever worked with in my life. It frays excessively, is so loosely woven you can pull it apart by hand, tears so easily, and will just randomly start coming apart in spots. That fabric is as suicidal as the creepy blue star.

For this dress you will need:

1. A star. It could be metal, crocheted, 3d printed, whatever. Just make sure it is big enough to look good on the bodice.
2. 5 yards of blue fabric. I used about 3 and a half to 4 yards of blue satin but, please, get the extra yard. It will make your skirt longer and give you so much more freedom.
3. Around 4 yards white satin. If you are short on fabric or money you could get away with around two yards. Just make a little ruffly cheater strip to sew onto the blue dress to fake an underskirt. I won't judge.
4. A closure. (optional) Again, I'm cheap. I prefer to just do this spine maneuver to get into the dress, but I realize that's not for everyone.
5. Lace
6. The usual: sewing machine, thread, scissors, pins, seam ripper, etc.
7. Extra fabric you don't care about.
8. Zip ties or boning. (optional)
9. All the fun accessories. Crown, wand, earrings, luma...

I know. This is defiantly the scary part, but I believe in you! The skirt is just a simple circle skirt. There are more in-depth tutorials out there, but the basic steps are to measure your waist, divide that measurement by Pi. You will use that measurement to make a semi-circle at an edge of the fabric. It will make more sense when you see the lovely paper towel picture above. Once you have that, you will need to measure how long you want the skirt. The top of your measuring tape should be a little under the bust area and should go to your feet. Now use that measurement, start at the semicircle and swivel out. Make a little dash at each swivel. Connect all those little dashes. If you don't want a train on the dress, stop here and cut that out. If you do want a train, you will want to make a little rounded arch thing. I don't know exactly how to explain it. You will also want to cut out the triangular front part. Hopefully the pictures will make it make more sense. If you're wondering about the paper towels, I did this step wrong and used those to show how it should look. My train was on the sides, and it took days to fix it.

Now it's time for the bodice! I don't have any specific measurements for this, just hold the pieces up to yourself. I would highly recommend making a mockup for this part as it is a little tricky to get the sizing right. The basic shapes are up with the pictures. Once you have these pieces cut out, label the edges. Again, see the pictures.

So, this step isn't really necessary. It will just make your bodice stiffer and more structured instead of floppy. I forgot to take pictures of this step. (Sorry!) If you decide to go this route, use the pattern you just made to cut out all the bodice pieces again. VERY IMPORTANT: you don't need to cut the front in two pieces. Just trace the shape of both pieces together. You should end up with two of the back and two of the front. You will also want them to be just slightly smaller than your real bodice pieces. Hem each piece and sew the two front pieces together. Sew in channels for the zip ties. Insert the zip ties and fold and sew the top and bottom down. Repeat for the back.

Hem both pieces of the bodice. You will use a French seam to sew it together. Make sure you are doing this on the wrong side of the fabric. Pin most of the way down. When you are close to the bottom pin the two bottom bits. Look at the second and third picture. Now just sew the seam you pinned! You will also need to hem the back rectangle. If you are adding a zipper you will need to cut it in half before hemming.

If you decided not to reinforce the bodice just skip this step. I reinforced the front only but then ended up tearing it out. I'm genuinly not sure why. This step is pretty straight forward: line up the bodice and the reinforced bodice. Fold the edges of the pretty bodice over the reinforced bodice. Pin and sew.

Congrats! It's finally time to sew the font and the back into a semi- wearable garment! If mine looks a little different that's because I didn't make the bodice big enough and had to sew little rectangles in to enlarge it. Real quick though, measure loosely around your shoulder/ arm/ arm pit. (I know it has a name, but I forgot it.) We will still be sewing in the wrong side and using French seams. Line up the sides BUT you will need to leave space to sew in the sleeves. This is where that measurement you took will come into play. Leave that much space and sew up the rest of it. Do this for both sides and just like that you can have something to twirl around in!

Now this thing needs sleeves. Once again, I forgot to photograph this step. I drew the basic shape for you. The top bit will be that same arm measurement you took in the last step plus 1 to 2 inches for seam allowance. You will also need to measure how long you want the sleeves. They should stop around 3 to 5 inches above your wrist. Fold your fabric in half and draw this shape. Please make sure it seems like it will be a great deal too loose on your arm. I did not do this and had to sew a panel in. (Are we seeing a trend here?) Cut it out, hem, and sew it together. Again, on the wrong side of the fabric. Make sure you leave the arm measurement area at the top un-sewn and that the sleeve still has the triangular, drapey bit at the end.

As I mentioned in the list of supplies, I mentioned that you could make a cheater underskirt. However, if you decide you want to make a full underskirt, which will make your dress a little more accurate, it is made almost exactly the same as the blue skirt, minus the train. Just make it about 2 inches longer than your blue skirt. I actually remembered the pictures for this step.

First, you will need to hem the whole skirt, if you haven't already. Once it's hemmed, cut out 3 to 4 even strips of white fabric. Clip or pin the raw edges down, as shown. Put the skirt hem in the middle of the white strips and sew it down. This step can be a little tricky.

If you look closely on her dress, the bit around her bust is more raised up then the rest of the fabric. To achieve this look, cut out a strip of the blue fabric, hem it and sew it on just like you did with the white strips in the last step.

You are so close to finished! Cut out these general shapes. Two cut ones for the front. One continues piece for the back. Hem and sew onto your bodice, one end folded over.

LAST STEP!! I am so proud of you! I hope the one you made turned out way better than mine. Pin the skirt onto the bodice, as shown. You may want to make two little gathers in the front. Sew along the pinned part and you're done!!!!!