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.

Mind the gap.....

Between posts!

It's been a bit of a stressful couple of months so please be patient with my lack of writing!

Due to circumstances beyond everyone's control the pantomime was cancelled.  I wont go into details here but it boiled down to many minor, and one major, problems with the cast and illness and it was decided that it was better to cancel than pour money into lighting and staging and have to cancel anyway.  The mantra for the group was that there are many more things important than pantomime performances and on this occasion they had to be put first.

It was a very sad day when me and Auntie Em trundled all the completed costumes out to the caravan.  But then we sat and had a good ol' giggle on how many hours we had sat pondering which way to do things when we may as well have just stuck bin bags together with cellotape!  

On the plus side, if they decide to put it on again next year there is no work for the costume department!

Just as this news had sunk in, my youngest daughter suddenly lost the sight in one of her eyes.  Panicky visits to hospital revealed nothing.  They have no idea what has caused it and, apart from regular visits to hospital for them to check on it, she has been told to just get on with it as it should go eventually.  The good news is that all the horrible reasons for this has been eliminated so we are no longer worrying about all the worse things and waiting for it to go away (apparently she has a swollen optic nerve which is probably caused by a virus of some description).  

Just as we get this news (and I have spent many days at the hospital with her), I get a phone call at half three in the morning.  Yes, eldest daughter went into labour three weeks early!  So back up the hospital I trot and am lucky enough to see my grandson born just four hours later.

Because he was early they kept them in for a week (yet more hospital visits) but they were both home just in time for Christmas, when I decided I wasnt getting any attention and got ill.

I finally went back to work last week although I still appear to be deaf in one ear due to my glands swelling up!

So, that's my excuses and I am more than happy to settle down to normal and be able to post again.

On a positive note, the cancellation of the panto meant I was able to start on my sewing room earlier than anticipated.  Until now I had no dedicated space, but with only one daughter still at home there is now a room available for me.

The move was going to take place after the panto so that all the costumes were put away, hence why it was put forward.  This is due to the wedding in August and a desire not to have bridesmaids and wedding dresses hanging on dummies in the living room for all and sundry to see.

So now things are returning to normality we are on the road to the worlds cheapest wedding.

First step is next week when we are having a wedding invitation bee.  Me and daughters and mother are all gathering at my house to make invitations with an assortment of ribbons and bows and lace etc.  The invitations are a basic bit of card which will be printed on and individually decorated with bits gathered from my stash and liberal use of a glue gun.  That's the general idea anyway, and if it all goes horribly wrong we will be rushing out to buy some made properly!

With everything that was going on I have done hardly any sewing, but things are back on track now so watch this space for a new project I have in hand as well as the beginnings of the wedding plans.

Getting on with things

The first rehearsal has been and gone and all the made or part made costumes were tried on with only one minor problem with the lilac Belle bodice being a bit small, but that is easily remedied by putting a strip of the fabric in at the side seam.

There was a lot of mumbling and grumbling, which is pretty usual and makes me feel totally unappreciated and taken for granted but I am used to it and tend to have shrugged it off by the next day.  So Saturday came round again and I finished off the maids dresses for the good fairy and her baby fairy assistant.

I was also able to check the sizing of the silver jacket from our Snow White production, which needs a little bit of adaptation in the chest area for it to fit the horse/prince character who is under the bad fairy’s spell.

We were going to make the horses head from upholstery foam but were unable to find any locally and postage costs made the whole thing unachievable so we settled on one of those horribly scary looking heads you can get in any fancy dress shop. 

We have tried to figure out how to de-horrify it, the only suggestion so far is to add false eyelashes to soften its ghastly stare! Have you managed to prettify one of these?  Any suggestions greatly received as we really don’t want scared children screaming their way out of the performance.

I am pleased to say my  list of things to do is dwindling fast and I really am hoping to have it all finished by the end of half term barring a bit of decoration and adding on of fastenings.

Daughter is  due to give birth the beginning of January and I absolutely refuse to still be finishing costumes (apart from hers of course) when I should be supporting her and getting to know my new grandson  so I won’t be accepting any extra requests to those already on the list.

But there was a delicious postal delivery that arrived today!  Samples of the fabrics we are thinking of for the bridesmaids dresses.  Daughter had fallen in love with the idea of teal shangtung silk so that is what we sent off for but to be on the safe side also went for a sample of satin back dupion.  We then searched for teal dress net for the petticoats but couldn’t find any and instead sent for two samples of French navy and forest green.

It was with great pleasure that the shuntung was as we hoped and also congratulated ourselves that the two dress net colours combined together for a perfect match to the dress fabric.  I will be ordering a roll of the teal fabric and a roll each of the two net colours next week so that can sit safely away in the bought and paid for corner until we decide it is time to start on the bridesmaids dresses.

At the moment we are waiting for my mum to return from a holiday abroad as she is going with my daughter to book the wedding date!  Once that is arranged we can really get going on deciding what will be done on the day.  Luckily we are a very crafty family with artists, bakers and sewers in the mix all ready to do their bit for the big day.

Interestingly this is going to turn out to be a very cheap wedding even though it is exactly what my daughter and her boyfriend wants, so I thought I would keep a tally of how much we actually spend on the whole affair.  I am starting off with the first item on the list;

One wedding dress… Vintage 1950’s wedding dress donated by a friend, made and worn by her mother….   £0

Here is the dress straight out of the bin bag that had been stashed in the loft for goodness knows how long!  It will of course be receiving tlc in the next few months and some adjustments but there are no signs of wear and tear so it’s all good

Not a bad start and probably saved around £1000 from the average wedding!  But it was the dress daughter fell in love with so that is what she is getting.

I will keep you updated as further decisions are made :D