dress for an indian princess

Posted on July 7th, 2012 by mountain girl  |  5 Comments »

For her birthday, Zia asked for an Indian princess dress. I have to confess, I dove for my computer and searched wildly on Amazon, but didn’t find anything that seemed just right.

So I resigned myself to make it.

It turned out to be easier than I thought. I found a piece of faux deerskin in my stash, which turned out to be perfect. I traced a nightgown I designed for her a while ago, and added some extra width, since the nightgown was stretchy but the “deerskin” wasn’t. A tie belt helped with the extra roominess.

In the beginning stages, she saw me working on it and begged to try it on. I blindfolded her and put it on (which actually helped with fitting it). She tried to whip off the blindfold and we both laughed ourselves silly as I tried to keep it on.

I ended up letting the blindfold slip off. She loved the dress and wanted to keep it on, but I snatched it away. That was before I added any trim or decoration, so at least part of will be a surprise.

I found some faux rawhide fringe and a strip of multicolor trim at Joann Fabrics and sewed them on. Then I hand-stitched some blue beads into the shape of the Zia Indian symbol.

You can’t really be an Indian princess without a feather headband, so I stitched one up. Fitting it was another hilarious episode since I had to slip it on her head, mark it, and run away with her on my heels trying to see it.

Now that it’s all finished, I’ll put it away until Tuesday and hope she forgets about it.

Until then, she’ll just have to stay a cowgirl.

5 Responses to “dress for an indian princess”

  1. Hannah says on :

    Very nice!! I need to bookmark this for a gift for my girlies when they get older!

  2. Poco Mountain Girl » Blog Archive » backpack for an indian girl says on :

    […] stylized into a penguin. It’s pretty cute, but I wanted something more along the lines of the Indian princess dress I had already made. I picked up a Southwest-looking remnant at the fabric store, found some yellow […]

  3. Poco Mountain Girl » Blog Archive » happy birthday, zia! says on :

    […] Indian princess outfit was donned the moment she opened it, and worn all […]

  4. Colleen says on :

    Mia,
    I LOVE this you really did a great job!!!
    You are such a good mommy!<3

  5. mountain girl says on :

    Thanks, Colleen! After seeing Hawkeye and Brave on your blog, I was tempted to ask the costume queen šŸ™‚ for advice, but managed to work it out on my own.