World book day 2015

There seems to be a lot more more media coverage of World book day this year than there has been previously.  I got ready for work while the tv was showing photo's of children dressed in their costumes as I shrugged on the Beast jacket that had been made, but not worn, for the (not happened) panto.

It seemed an obvious and no work involved choice, but ended up with me feeling uncomfortable (not made for me) and fed up with the dangly lacy sleeves on the shirt getting in the way with every piece of writing I had to do.  It didn't last long I can assure you!

The next day involved grumpiness from some of the staff as social media had continued with this startling 'new' topic.

The main issue is the fact that it is world BOOK day!  Children are supposed to dress as a children's BOOK character but end up in an assortment of costumes that have nothing to do with books.

One of the best costumes at our school was a little boy turning up in his normal clothes with a gold ticket hung round his neck...simple, yet effective.  But his efforts seemed to be pushed into the insignificent corner by his classmate in his 'Hulk' costume, complete with mask that had an incredible assortment of flashing lights and gizmo's that must have cost a fortune (and unfortunately got broken during the day which will not have impressed his parents).

For those of you that will argue that comic book characters are from books, graphic novels are designed for adults.  Frozen, although the little girls look adorable in their dresses, is a film not a book. You can get away with the majority of Disney princesses as they come from Grimms fairytales or similar children's books, but Frozen is not one of them.

So I have made a decision to make up three or four costumes that are completely related to a childs book and rotate them over a three or four year cycle.

My first two choices are Smaug, from The Hobbit;

Who is an obvious red and gold dragon.

Choice two is The White Witch from The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe;

I am now coming to a complete blank on what else to do.  The criteria is...

• Must be comfortable to wear all day (don't worry, I have sorted out how to do that with the dragon!)
• Must be obvious what it is!
• Must be from a famous children's book
• Must be something I want to wear (I really don't want to dress up in normal clothes)
• Must have close fitting arms so that I can write without getting extremely irritated by flapping sleeves.
• Must not get too hot (I was way too hot in the Beast costume)

But I have now come to a halt on what other characters to do.  There is no rush, if the first two are made then it means I have three years for the third!

Mary Poppins or Nanny McPhee (aka Nurse Matilda) are possibilities, do you have any other ideas to help me out?

As an aside, eldest daughter has decided to have a second dress for her wedding.  Similar in style to the bridesmaids but in a pretty, white broderie anglais.  Why do I mention this?  Because she also wants a petticoat in the same colours as her bridesmaids, which means I now have to get all that net out again and cut another load of it for petticoat #4.  Then I have to also cut out white net for the petticoat for her actual wedding dress and a smaller version for smaller bridesmaid in the coloured net.  

I dream of dress net!

Goldfish have more fun

Well it may have taken a few weeks but I did manage my first quilt.  I don’t think I will be doing it again in a hurry even if it was just a cot quilt! 

I started off with the pinwheel patch being cut and rearranged that I had used on the cushion for my daughter.

It was during the process of repeating it 8 times that I began to lose the will to live.  I have the attention span of a goldfish and doing the same thing over and over did not keep the goldfish in me happy.  Having promised myself at least one finished quilt I persevered until they were all complete but they certainly were not as beautifully aligned in reality as they had been in my preplanning head.

I did have a bit of fun making the Scotty dog patch for the middle, but it was short lived.

I didn’t even take photos of the process as I desperately tried to finish it.  Layers of topping, batting and a plain blue backing were pinned together one night while my brain tried to answer the questions on ‘University Challenge’.  Then, of course, I planned to do some awesome quilting, but it turned into plain stitch in the ditch because it was quicker and more likely to be finished sometime this year.

The binding was applied in short bursts while I was upstairs for various reasons.  Then it was all finished and I looked at it completed and was suddenly filled with a sense of achievement!

It isn’t the best quilt in the world, I am well aware of that, but I finished it and it was delivered to pregnant mother before the birth so I did do as planned!

Just as the quilt was finished I moved on rapidly.  Did I move onto something less repetitive?

 

This is what I did….

Forty two x eight yard length x 9” wide strips of dress net for 3 poofy, 1950’s bridesmaids petticoats!  It took all day as I discovered that, even straight off the roll, all that dress net needs ironing before cutting!  Then I discovered that all the layers were too thick to use a rotary cutter and had to spend a few hours cutting it out with scissors that insisted on sticking to it at every opportunity.  Now it sits there staring at me, daring me to pull myself together enough to laboriously stitch it all together.

On the plus side, once the petticoats are made I get to play with the bridesmaids and wedding dress so it’s not all bad.