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.

The Victorian ball gowns get worn at last

So it’s half term and just to ensure I stick to my usual holiday routine I have completely annihilated my back.  I first had an issue last week and spent Tuesday and Wednesday unable to go to work. It improved enough to return for the day, then off to the event on Friday.  With judicial use of a corset I got through the weekend with little problems until Sunday morning the back re-emerged to triumphantly reduce me to a snivelling wreck and I spent the next three days unable to move.

This morning I have movement again so I can at least get the laptop in motion to show the finished Victorian dresses.

This is eldest daughter in her dress that she proudly told everybody she had made herself.  It is the first thing of any substance she has made and is quite within her rights to be proud of it!  If you are thinking it looks a little tight you would be correct.  In the intervening period between measuring, cutting and sewing daughter has found out she is pregnant and that little extra growth has made things not as well fitted as planned.  The dress will now have to go away for quite a few months as it is unlikely it will fit for the foreseeable future!

The unexpected dress went well considering the lack of fitting!  I did have to put some tacks in the shoulder as it was too loose, but the rest fitted perfectly and there was no issues of popping out bits of body. 

I did manage to make two petticoats which helped poof out those skirts a little.  I would love to see them with proper crinolines so you may see me making them some time, just to have a look you understand!

Sadly, due to the weather, we raised little money for the charities, it would appear people don't want to dress up in the rain but I suppose it is the thought that counts and we did try!

Now we are just waiting to see who is playing what role in the pantomime and we can get started on the costumes.  This may prove interesting as eldest daughter still wants to be in it even though she will be extremely pregnant for most rehearsals and a new mum for the actual shows!  I suppose it helps to have a mother willing to make you a last minute costume once the bump has gone.

One Victorian ball gown nearly finished!

I had a day which involved a lot of huffing and puffing and became reminiscent of curtain making yesterday.  If you have ever made curtains you will know what I mean....metres and metres of fabric, sitting at a machine running it all through.

Then there was the metres of fabric being pleated to put into waistbands.  All in all it was just metres of fabric and somewhere underneath it all was a 'me' trying to get it all done by the end of the weekend.  

It's early Sunday morning now and I am waiting for eldest daughter to arrive to get her dress in the same state as the unexpected dress.  She phoned last night and was in the same state as me, metres of fabric being gathered into the waistband.  She did say however, that she was sure it would all be finished by Friday, but then she does have a couple of days free in the week and I dont.

I had left enough seam in the UD to put in the boning by hand so that was a plus.  This hadn't happened with DD and I was left with the job of trying to attach boning in a ribbon casing, without it showing on the outside.  It doesn't sit right to my eye and we will decide this morning whether to just take it out and leave that for another day, as eldest will be wearing a corset underneath next weekend.

I pleated the UD skirt into the waistband and then pleated another five metres of muslin/linen (I'm not really sure what it is as it wasn't labelled) into another waistband for the petticoat.  I then sewed five metres of cording into the petticoat and it does give it a bit extra 'poof'.  I did read somewhere (forgive me if it was on your blog/site, I did try to find it again but it is lost in the internet ether for now) to put a layer of net between skirt and petticoat to give extra poof but after all that pleating and gathering I had lost the will to live so there is no net at the moment, although it may happen later today if I get everything else done.

So here is a pic of UD at the moment.  It needs a final pressing, it needs fastenings on bodice and skirt (more hand sewing of hooks and eyes) but I do believe it is finished unless I measure the skirt for the third time and it really is too long in which case I have decided to make pin tucks in the skirt to take some of the length away.

I'm hoping to get an inbetween pic of DD today too, although the big pressing will take place after hooks and eyes so the best I can offer is pics of the finished dresses on the girls after the weekend.

Youngest daughter is away again this weekend and I still haven't done the hem on hers.  I was hoping to be able to pin the hem with her in the dress but it looks like it will now be a case of sew it and see as I am not going to attempt it after Tuesday when she returns!  I have just realised I don't have the petticoat for her so sometime today I will have to go through the boxes of costumes to find the hooped petticoat!  Arghhhh!!!!