The Princess in Black is an adorable series of books about a princess with a secret super hero identity. The Brood adores these books, and they’ve been wanting to dress up from them for years now. The second book in the series is about a birthday party in which twelve princesses attend. After a lot of waffling over which princess they wanted to be, the Larva picked Princess Bluebell and the Grub picked Princess Hyacinth.
Hyacinth’s dress is a simple dress which I covered in rhinestones. I made free-standing lace flowers for the edge of the sari-like wrap. I couldn’t find a dotted fabric like the artwork, so I did it myself using a gold paint pen to do all the dots on the chiffon. The headdress and veil are sewn to a headband for easy on/off.
One thing I hadn’t considered when I made the costume was that I wouldn’t be there to dress her on Halloween. It wasn’t a complicated costume, but I had put hooks in a couple unusual places to make sure the sari didn’t shift around too much. I ended making a printout with photos explaining how to put the costume on so the Grub’s teachers could dress her at school. They told me it was very helpful. =D
The girls had a lot of fun in these, and we had fun explaining to people who they were and recommending The Princess in Black series.
