My niece recently started competing in the figure skating “showcase” category. Until that point, I had never heard of showcase. According to U.S. Figure Skating, showcase fuses figure skating with artistic creativity, with the use of props, elaborate costumes and theatrical performance.
Creating her figure skating dresses is already fun, but adding the costume element made it so much better! Skating to Kristin Chenoweth’s “Popular”, she asked me to make her a figure skating version of Glinda’s pink dress.
My first thought was “I’m going to need more tulle.” Matching that tulle to the pink lycra was hard! There are so many different shades of pink and what I ordered ended up not matching the way I had hoped, luckily I was able to find what I needed locally.
I completed my sketch and sent it over to my niece for approval, she requested that the skirt be “more floofy”. Easy fix.
Very rarely do I have a pattern that works exactly for the design of the dress I am making and I have to alter them for size anyway, so this time I created a pattern using components from Jalie 2674 and Kwik Sew K3502. The Kwik Sew patterns are now discontinued, but they are my favorite patterns to use as a skating dress pattern base, the briefs are spot on and don’t ride up on the skater’s behind.
A note on patterns: I don’t cut my purchased patterns. Ever. I purchase 36″ wide tracing paper by the roll and trace the base pattern before I make any alterations. This will save you a lot of money in the long run and also save you the heartache of trying to find discontinued patterns.
For this dress, I used the bodice from the Jalie pattern view A and the briefs from the Kwik Sew pattern. The skirt I drafted on my own, it is a full circle skirt that is 12″ long.
Since the bust area has gathered tulle across the front, I used gathered stretch mesh over the lycra to create that effect. I used regular, non-stretch tulle on the skirt because it is more stiff and would give the skirt more body. I started by gathering 50 yards of 4 inch tulle strips, if C wanted floofy, she was going to get floofy! It was too much. Way too much. I think I ended up using about 30 yards of gathered tulle on the skirt. I had already determined how many rows of tulle were needed for the skirt and I probably could have gotten a more exact measurement for how much length I really needed, but I would rather have too much than too little and now I have tulle left over for another project.
It’s my opinion that building a corset into a skating dress is not a great idea, the skater has to be able to move fluidly and a boned bodice would definitely prohibit that, so I decided to create the corset look with rhinestones.
She also need a flower clip to go into the blond wig she was going to be wearing.
I created a quick video of the process, which I had previously posted to my Instagram account. I hope you enjoy!