ABBA costume

by Maggie Ball
(NSW, Australia)

Super Easy ABBA costume for a child

This is a project I created with my 8 year old ABBA fan daughter. She did the designing, and I helped her with the sewing - much of it was done by her with my supervision. It's easy to do with a machine, as there's no lining or fitting.

You just take a piece of fabric that's large enough to drape around your child. It shouldn't be too stretchy, and should have some sparkle in it. The one I used was white, with glittery gold patterns on it, and we got it as a remnant from the local thrift shop for $3.

Stitch the fabric together so you have a tube of fabric with a seam down the back. As this is a straight long seam, it's a good practice for your child - I let my daughter do this stitching on a machine, with my supervision.

Then place the tube over your child's head so the tube is sitting just at the collar bone. Carefully mark out armholes in the tube and then remove the tube, cut the armholes, pin, and stitch seam them all around. I did this part of the sewing as doing armholes involves a lot of turning.

Then put the dress back on your child, and cut out an appropriate neckline - something that sits at the right spot on them.

Pin and seam the neckline. Again, I did this sewing.

Then put the dress back on and determine the right length, cut if necessary, pin and seam the bottom of the dress, and it's done.

You can make this either a full dress length, as I did, or as a tunic, which is very ABBA. Because this fabric was a little transparent, my daughter wore it over a white tank top and white stretchy knee length pants, also very ABBA.

As the dress is unshaped, you'll need a belt of course. You can use any existing contrasting colored sash, but if you've got another piece of material, then just hem it all around, ideally in a contrasting colour.

As our theme was black and white, we used glittery black fabric stitched with white thread. Tie round the waist of the dress and you're ready to add an ABBA styled hairdo and a microphone.