Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.... so you can make your running outfit, ho!

I know I haven't written about sewing for a while, but these outfits were so much fun to make and I used actual patterns (with some improvisation) so anyone could make something similar if they wanted. And by anyone, I mean everyone running next year. With these tutorials, you too will learn that you should just buy something else right off the bat and just add crap to it. But, if you are bound and determined to make your own outfit, well, it's your funeral my friend. Here's how you do it.

Of course I will wear my bikini to your funeral. Just because you're dead doesn't mean you're not a slut anymore and deserve to be treated as such.

So just imagine...... it's two weeks until the race and I finally decided to get started on the princess shirts. I had all of the Under Armor material, had hit Joanne's up for every shade of sparkly and/or glittery material in stock, and ran out of excuses to put it off any longer. This was the first time in a while that I've been excited about sewing and as I took out the pink, purple, and blue tulle, I realized just how long it's been since my office has been covered in tiny pieces of sparkly material and enough glitter to stock a kindergarten classroom. The technical term for this look post-project is 'Tinkerbell Explosion'.

And judging by the amount of crap on the floor when I was finished, apparently all of her little friends exploded as well.

I decided to start with my outfit, Rapunzel, since these are new patterns and lets face it, I'd rather screw something up on my outfit instead of someone else's. The Under Armor is a deep purple, so I bought a lighter purple tulle with glittery purple swirls for the overlay part to try to brighten it up a little. The original plan was to make a running version of my princess shirts, with an empire waist and tie-on overlay. 

The sports bra with the organza pinned to it. It's not looking so hot here.

I had made the sports bra part of my shirt about a week prior using a pattern by The Green Pepper (#407) for the Mt. St. Helens Hot Top, but I needed to add on a bottom part to cover the stomach so I didn't look like the whore of Disneylon in this race. And since I didn't really know how I was going to do that yet, I put it off a little longer and went right to the running skirt. 

I got tired of people sticking dollar bills down my skirt during the last run. Okay, not really. It just got annoying when they wanted me to make change.

The pattern I used was by Jalie, #2796 for the Multi-Sport Skort, found on Rockywoodsfabric.com by Helen, my running outfit guru.  I'll do a more step-by-step demo on how to make the skirt in my next post about Sleeping Beauty but I just didn't take that many pictures of Rapunzel in the making.

It was hard to choose from all of the styles since I'm so sporty

Just not in real life!

The pattern is for a running skirt with 2 pockets and built in shorts or hot pants. I initially made the shorts for under the skirt but after wearing them for five minutes, they had to go. They were like reverse Spanx, emphasizing the drumstick shape of my legs and squeezing all the fat out of the bottom of the shorts in a reverse muffin top. But I figured, hey, who cares how they look? They were just going to be under the skirt anyway, right? But after wearing them for about another five minutes, I realized that if I didn't want a serious crotch wedgie for 13 miles, I'd better try something else.

While a serious case of camel toe is always attractive, I decided to choose comfort over style. Just this one time.

So I made the hot pants, which are basically boyshort underwear but without the center seam (Seriously, who wears those? Is there a large group of women who enjoy
camel toe?). Anyway, these hot pants are perfect. They fit like boyshorts but with only one seam and it does not go up the middle.  I am definitely using that pattern to make a bunch of underwear at some undetermined point in the future when I suddenly have lots of free time. Any day now...

I made the skirt all out of the purple Under Armor, which was much easier than I had thought, and took it out for a test run the next morning.

Check out these pockets sucka

We did an 8 mile run and I had my iPhone in one pocket and money and a gel in the other pocket and it worked great. I LOVE this skirt. My running shorts only have a pocket big enough to fit a key, not my 18th century iPhone that's as big as a brick, so it was so nice being able to carry everything without my SPI belt. 

I  went back to my shirt  and decided on adding material to the sports bra to make it an empire waist and not tight but long enough to cover my stomach. I made two fabric strips out of a lilac colored sparkly material and added gold grommets to mimic the lace-up corset look of Rapunzel's dress. I sewed the strips to the shirt edged them with a decorative leaf stitch using gold thread and laced it up with some sparkly pink ribbon. I used elastic lace for the armholes and sewed it right sides together to the outside of the armhole so when it flipped over, it looked like the picture below. I used this for all the shirts and it worked out really well.

Now I just need to get the pits waxed!

So at this point I wanted to try the outfit on and see what it would look like with the overlay.

Purple skirt, purple empire waist top, and nothing to break up all that purple. I looked like the Great Grape Ape. I could have been a double for the grapes in the Fruit of the Loom underwear commercials.  But I figured hey, I just need the overlay to really tie this together. Wrong! Now I just looked like a pregnant Mrs. Great Grape Ape. There was just nothing flattering about this outfit and I didn't know what to do. Unless of course I wanted everyone to ask when my baby was due and then have to explain I wasn't pregnant, just chose to look this way on purpose. Yeah, no.

No, not pregnant, I just purposefully made myself look frumpy!

Onto Plan B

I tried around with a few different looks and what seemed to look best was a more fitted top and move the overlay to the skirt, almost like a tutu. But if we don't want to look just like the other twenty thousand women wearing a tank top and tutu, I had to step up my game. At this point, it's about two in the morning and I am so frustrated and cursing myself for just not buying the damn tutus from the Disney store that I was about ready to give up.

I was coming up blank and decided that I would get out the skirt that I made for the first Disney run to see what worked there and what I was just not getting this time around. I took it down from the closet and admired the stripper-like handiwork from a month ago. I put it on and it hit me- it worked because it was all in one. There was no separate overlay that you had to tie on and deal with. It was simple. And that's what I needed to do with my skirt. Make it all one piece, including the glittery crap.

I liked the bow in the back but I didn't like how open the apron was and it was all just too many pieces. Something had to go.

Oh, so at this point I decided that I needed to make Liz and Jen's outfits to make sure I got them done so I'd come back to mine last. So fast forward to two fricking days before the race and the story picks up again:

Those boob pads were a great idea!

I cut off the bottom part of the shirt because I was too lazy to rip the seam out, took it in down the sides to make it more snug but not super tight, and sewed it back on. I had made the top portion, the sports bra part, two layers so that I didn't have to wear a separate sports bra under my shirt. Unfortunately, it did not make it look like I had boobs. Shrimp suggested that I add boob pads but when the purple material gets wet, it looks wet. Which means the sweat would be trapped in the boob pads on the day of the race, soaking through the top, and making it look like I'm lactating. Attractive, but maybe I'll pass.

The overlay with 2 layers of tulle underneath

The overlay for the skirt was pretty easy for my outfit. I didn't have it open in the front like Rapunzel's dress since I didn't want it flapping in the wind, so I just used gold rick-rack on the front to mimic the look and also sewed it along the bottom of the overlay. I made two layers of tulle to go underneath and loosely sewed all 3 layers together. Then I sewed these layers to the skirt and lastly sewed all of this to the waistband, stretching as I sewed and using the stretch stitch on my machine.

Everthing finally sewed together- hotpants, skirt, tulle, overlay, and waistband. Then I added the white lace to the top.

Boom, done. Oh, wait, look at that! I am a moron and somehow made it two inches too short, despite the fact that I have indeed used a tape measure before! That figures. I wait till the last minute to make my own outfit and manage to screw it up.

Okay, brainstorm: I'll go to Jo-Ann's and buy some lace to add to the bottom and it'll look like the pettiskirt. This actually ended up looking great- I bought a two-tiered sparkly white lace that was about 2 inches long- except I was about 3 inches short on the lace by the time I went all the way around the skirt. Are you f'ing KIDDING me? Seriously?? I ended up just gathering the skirt a little more to make the lace work and it looked fine, but please, take it from me, MEASURE first! Even if you think you're a sewing genius like me, you're not! Measure, dammit, measure!

With the white lace at the bottom, a small amount added to the neckline, and ribbon sleeves added to the top. Ready to run!

In case you somehow avoided the five thousand times I've posted this picture, here it is again! The four of us during the race!

And at Magic Kingdom- five miles in and and nothing has fallen off- yet!

The hardest part with making the skirt- and all the skirts- was sewing together the hot pants, skirt, 2 layers of tulle, and organza overlay. And then sewing all of that to the waistband is fun too but it's so worth it in the end. After I had all of my layers sewed together, I had some extra white lace that I had used to edge the neckline of the shirt so I sewed it to the top of the skirt where the waistband met the organza. I absolutely LOVE my outfit. But I loved all of the outfits. Every time I finished a piece of any of the outfits, I wanted to keep it for myself, I just fell in love with them all. And I am really excited to make my evil Alice costume for the Tower of Terror run. Now the question is, who's going to be my Queen of Hearts???

I am totally doing this- with a cut throat though and more blood! Do you think I can get extra long compression socks?

Queen of Hearts- how cool is this outfit? And I'm pretty sure we can make a running version for way less than the $160 they're asking for the polyester version, although it is super adorable. Loving the hat! I can't wait for the run!

The Final Frontier: the Disney Princess Half Marathon!

I'm back! I know I've been MIA for a few weeks but I had a little bit of a pity party because I felt like nobody was reading the blog anymore. I know you guys comment about the posts on Facebook, and if we happen to talk for some other reason you tell me about how you read it every week (supposedly), but can you do me a favor and leave a comment after a post so that I know you're reading? You can also tell me what you liked or didn't like or what you want to read about in upcoming posts. Sure, I won't listen, but at least I'll know you're there. Okay, back to the post. And this one is long enough to make up for missing three weeks so get a drink and settle in.

Make mine Irish, please

I'll start you right off with our pictures. This song- Kelly Clarkson's 'Stronger'- was the official song of this race. They played it as you were leaving Magic Kingdom so I used it in this montage.



So the weekend we'd been preparing for for so long had finally arrived! All the posts, from the original announce post when I decided to do this run, my attempts at jogging, and all of the sewing (which I will write about later), was finally going to come together. And now I'm going to tell you all about it! Seriously, you need to do this next year. Just ask Shrimp- you can't NOT want to do it once you see it for yourself.

You know you want to........

The run was on Sunday, February 24th, so we wanted to get over there early on Saturday to pick up our packets, settle in, and get some dinner. Helen and her mom had flown in from Virginia Beach the night before (despite a tornado watch, lightning strike to the plane, and the worst customer service from Disney ever) and Shrimp was getting dropped off by Eric on her way home from Amelia Island so we would all meet up in Orlando.

Liz meets me at my house Saturday morning and our first stop is, naturally, Goodwill. Earlier in the week, I had sent an email to the girls reminding them to get a throw-away sweater for the race morning and exactly all of them forgot to do it. So there's Liz, trying to pick out a sweater without actually touching it, and carrying it up to the counter with two fingers like it's radioactive. It was very amusing for me to watch. I picked up another one for Helen but you'll hear about Jen's sweater in a little bit, heh heh heh....

Good news Liz- underwear are half off today!

We get to the Disney Sports Center to pick up our packets and the first thing we see is a glass carriage and two liveried footmen set up for pictures. It took a little convincing, (someone is apparently too good to change in the back of the car), but Liz finally agreed to change into her costume with me so we could get some pictures. I was so fricking excited! Our first pictures in the slideshow with just me & Liz are from that day. It was our big costume debut! By the way, we looked amazing, if I do say so myself. And this is also where Liz found the compression sleeves that we are now obsessed with.

We know you're just jealous Shrimp. So we're all getting you these for your birthday!

At this point, Shrimp had made it over and we were trying to coordinate a hook-up with the rest of the girls. We go out to an early dinner and wander around Downtown Disney because now Shrimp has decided that she ain't going to no damn race in just a plain old outfit so her quest to find a Shrimped-up Disney outfit was ON. I was getting anxious that we weren't all going to meet since it was getting later and later so we finally left to head to the hotel.


On our way, we picked up Lauren, who was there to cheer us on with Shrimp, and headed to the Caribbean Beach resort. Jen and Rho, her friend who came to town just to cheer her on- we have really amazing friends, right?- met us at the hotel and we all headed inside to do the final outfit check. We were initially underwhelmed at the luxury of the room and the smell did nothing to help the situation, but we didn't care at that point. We were all finally together with the exception of Helen, who ended up in a different hotel after her horrible experience. Jen tries on her doll-sized outfit and thank GOD it fit. Now we just had to get Shrimp and Lauren ready. 

Mmm, warm bologna.... my favorite scent. And don't those comforters look comfy and clean? Shrimp sure thought so!

We went to some plaza that had a food court and a little shop where Shrimp found her awesome outfit and Lauren picked up a pair of pirate girl Mickey ears that were adorable and we called it a night. We set the alarms for 3 am and tried to block the musty mold smell long enough to fall asleep. Which was difficult with Shrimp because she refused to actually use the bedspread and instead wrapped up in her 'Cheer Squad' waterproof blanket, which was as quiet as eating pork rinds in a library. And then- and I'm not kidding- she gets up in the middle of the night, crackling along the way, and TURNS OFF THE AIR! I'm pretty sure Liz would have scalped her the next morning if she hadn't been so worn out from sweating all night.

What, you guys are hot? I'm super comfy!

Sunday morning, 3 am: alarms go off and Shrimp immediately springs into action, 'cheering' us awake with her new Mickey clapper (thank you Disney cheer squad). You can imagine what a hit that was after our restless and sweaty night's sleep. If you want an enthusiastic cheerleader who takes her job seriously, she's your gal. But the countdown  to the race is on! We have to all get ready and get to the bus stop by 3:45 am to catch the shuttle to the race if we don't want to have to drive ourselves. Nobody is really super-awake yet but once we get to the race start and meet up with Helen and her mom, we are finally getting excited and raring to go. We take a few final pictures, get our good luck hugs, and head off to our corral to the sound of Shrimp's clapper. It was a sound we would end up hearing a lot of that day. I think next year she's going to accompany it with a kazoo.

America's Official Most Annoying Sound Ever!

It felt like cattle being herded to get to our corral. And it was cold as shit to boot. Thankfully we had our cozy Goodwill sweaters and compression leg sleeves! Jen was already at our corral when we got there but the poor thing did not have a coat so after a few minutes, we decided to hunt down a clothing barrel to see if anyone has dropped a sweater that she could snag. Unfortunately, all there was was a pair of yoga pants which she tried to fashion into a scarf of some sort when luckily a woman came up to us at that moment to hand over her sweater. We were super grateful to her until she informed us that it was her 'travel sweater', which we translated to mean "There's more pit sweat and drool on this thing than the towel used to wipe down Mike Tyson between rounds" but hey, beggars can't be choosers!

Excuse me Mike, do you need a wipe down? I have this nice sweater....

And go!

The wait was the worst part but once the corrals started going, it went pretty quickly. They set off fireworks each time a new corral was released and finally, FINALLY, it was our turn! They announced our start and we were off! We saw Jen's hubby Matt and her friend Rho at the start (Shrimp, Lauren, and Helen's mom had ditched us immediately to go eat breakfast) and we began our 13 mile trek.



It became immediately clear that Helen and Liz were way faster than me and Jen. Let me just reiterate here that I am a SLOW jogger- like barely faster than walking slow- and we could tell they wanted to run faster. We surmised this mostly from how they'd glance over their shoulders every once in a while and look both baffled and pissed that we were still running that damn slow! But they were good sports about it and about 2 miles in, we had our first character picture opp with the pirate ship and Captain Jack. The line seemed to take forever, which was the case with all the characters, but I'm glad we did it now looking back. And a few times while we were in line, people asked to take our pictures because our outfits were so cute. One lady said we were the epitome of the Disney Princess race. Nice! And I'm so proud of Helen for making her amazing outfit! By the way, I'm going to have a weekly sewing class so that we can all make our own outfits for the next run :).

That's code for 'I'm not sewing anymore, bitches!' Except for Teresa. I already promised.

We are all doing great and before we know it, we are approaching the castle. I have to tell you that after the January race at Disney, the crowds were only about a tenth of what they were then so not having the huge cheering crowd was a little disappointing but we had other things on our mind: the castle, baby! We called Shrimp to tell her we were coming in and as we round the corner to head up Main Street, we see everyone there waiting for us and for me, that was by far my favorite part of the race. Having the five of them there just to cheer us on was just amazing and we were so grateful that they got up in the middle of the night and trekked all the way out there just to cheer us on. I'm actually getting all weepy just remembering it! But that could just be my erratic mood swings. But it was a seriously cool thing that they were all there.

We were so excited we wet ourselves! Collectively.

We head around Disney and come back out through the castle and wave goodbye to our paparazzi because the next time we would see them would be at the finish line! We had one more character picture to take and while we were in line, the dreaded 16 minute mile pacers pass us. I had been warned about this but it was a little nerve wracking to see it in person. As you all know, my only goal was not to get picked up by the slow bus. We get our picture taken- I thought Helen was going to crawl out of her skin, she was so anxious to get in front of those balloons!- and take off again. 

That look on Helen's (Snow White's) face? Panic. I don't think she's used to being slow. Me, I'm good with it! I've accepted it a long time ago.

Within the next few miles, we agree that Jen and I will continue our run-walk pace and Helen and Liz will run at their pace and we'd meet up if there were any good pictures to be had ahead. The course narrows to one lane right after Disney and unless you're willing to run on the dirt, you're pretty much stuck walking anyways. I have a great time walking and jogging with Jen and we do pick up the pace a little around mile 8 when the 16 minute pacers yell at everyone to "really push it people, the first sag wagon is up ahead!". We do not want to be on that bus so we put some distance in front of the balloons and resume our walking/talking routine. See, you can totally walk the whole thing and be fine. You may have to skip a few of the longer picture lines but there are a lot of walkers out there.

'Oh, don't you love walking with me?'. 'I'd rather eat ground glass than do another mile with you! What a beautiful day!'

You don't know what you got till it's gone.

From about mile 12 to 13, I have to pee so badly that I can't run more than 50 feet without worrying that I'm going to wet myself. Damn, why didn't I wear those Depends?! We finally hit a bathroom in Epcot right before mile 13 so we stop, use a flushing toilet- woohoo!- and freshen up before our big debut at the finish line!


Right after the 13 mile marker we hear our cheering squad again and run over for our final waves and cheers before going across the finish line. Shrimp and Lauren are so inspired by the age/size of some of these women who had crossed the finish line ahead of us that they decide they are definitely doing it next time, damaged feet and all. I can't imagine being on the sidelines and not being a part of it so I totally get it! And I'm so excited that we're going to have a bigger group next year! It really is inspiring to finish a race, even if you are as slow as me. Just being able to say you finished a half marathon is something you'll be able to say for the rest of your life and it's really inspiring to do it with a group of family and friends like we did. 

The amazing ladies! And me.

Liz- who I'm pretty sure must have smoked some crack in one of the porta-potties- is still so full of energy that she wants to go to Epcot right now. We get our shuttle back to the hotel, get showered, and I promptly fall asleep for 2 hours while they go to Epcot to celebrate. I wake up feeling so much better and head over to meet all my girls for our celebratory drink-fest. Everyone at the park is wearing their finisher medals (except for us) and we all totally relate to the groans of pain anytime there is a staircase to go up or down but we felt great and all in all, it was an amazing day. You really need to experience it at least once and I promise, if I'm not running it with you, I'll be on the sidelines, cheering you on with the most annoying clappers you've ever heard. And a kazoo. Just do it!

This could be you! Okay, maybe not in first place, but across the finish line nonetheless!