World Book Day Cometh - BFG Ears if you want them

This Thursday is World Book Day. A day that is greeted by groans throughout the country. If you don't know it, then let me tell you about it.  Parents panic buy, or use what they can, or make a costume for their poor child. This costume is based on a character from a book (but somehow characters from films , albeit books, crop up often). It is not a competition. But it is! And it really is, as many classrooms and schools have prizes for the best costume.  God bless the poor child who's parents forgot and goes in school uniform.

So, this last year of my daughter's primary school, the school gave a list of books to choose from (but of course you can choose any book, they said). So my tall daughter is going as the BFG, as that is her nickname at school.

Panic buy rubber ears and a bald cap. Cut up a black t shirt into a vaguely waist coat shape and bleach it so it is brown. Beg, borrow, not steal, my sister's green trousers. Use an old white school shirt. Find a tiny doll and make her some glasses so she is Sophie.

Have you ever bought those plasticky rubbery false ears? They have a hole that you are supposed to be able to manipulate your ear into and hope they stay on.  Nope and nope.  And anyway they are too small.

I have sewn a couple of bits of string onto each ear in the hope that she can tie the ears on. But they are still too small.

So I have copied and changed some BFG ears and am glueing them onto the rubber ears.

But I thought you might want to have the ears for your own use so here is the image. There are two ears and two ear backs. It is up to you how you stick them to the head but please no staples.

I have put mine in Word. You can fit the right and left front onto A4 landscape and they come out a nice size.  If you cannot copy the images from here then contact me with your email address and I will send you them.

Have fun and let me know if you use them.

Being Brave

Mary wasn't being brave in that sense as she wasn't scared. Who would be on that lovely little pony?  I think she wishes it was Angus, the great big horse from 'Brave' the new Disney film.

Mary saw it just before our holiday to Disneyland Paris. She loved it and so did I. I might have cried a bit at the end.

She came back with a few Brave toys.  But the dress was too much money at about £40. So silly mummy said 'I can make you one'!  Why do we open our mouths?!

Anyway I am going to make her one.  And hopefully it will be more like the 'Brave' one than Disney shops own shoddy production.  But maybe I shouldn't speak too soon!


On a humorous note: so the new Disney film 'Brave' has a gorgeous horse called Angus in it.  Well to celebrate their 20th year, Disneyland Paris's celebratory meal, advertised everywhere, was 'Angus Burger, Chips and cola'.  Hmm, not good thinking there.

My Buttons in Use - Regency Dress

I told you a few posts ago, about how I rarely have photos of my buttons on garments, and that my sister was making a dress for a fancy dress party and had commissioned some buttons from me.

Well, as promised here are the photos.

The back of the dress showing the buttons.

3 Green Dorset buttons on the back of the Regency Dress

My sister in her bonnet which is so lovely I wanted to show you all.

I am very proud of my sister as she made a lovely outfit.  I will have to get a photo of the whole thing to show you.

Snowy Dog!

It is World Book day again.  This is a day when children are encouraged to dress up in a character from a book. Ignoring the Disney Princess dresses, my girl decided to be Snowy.  If you do not know Snowy is - he is Tintin's dog. 

Last year she was as Tintin himself.  Next year she is thinking of going as Captain Haddock!

Anyway over the last couple of days (as I always leave things to the last minute) I have been busy sewing. Mary has been getting more and more excited..and at last the day has arrived.

Here she is in the hood.

This photo shows the big paws.

 Over the years, I have lots of Mary dancing down the garden.

Int his photo you might be able to see the paws in more detail. I made, out of the white fur, a pair of fingerless mittens.  Then I made the paws separately and stuffed them. Then sewed them on top of the mittens. Hopefully she will be able to write without taking them off.

Looking forward to next year. Maybe I should start sewing now? Nah.

My Medieval Girl

Transforming 

Victorian Day

My daughter's school held a Victorian Day last week.

Ha ha! I thought - a great opportunity to make something lovely for her to wear. But what with the Handm@de Winchester fair, I did not actually start making it until a few days before.

I sort of knew what I wanted to make but trawled the web and asked my lovely friends from the etsy UK thread for advice. I found some great sites which I will share with you another time.

In the end I looked up the Tenniel illustrations of Alice in Wonderland. I made some sketches and based my design on this. I did not actually have enough money to buy fabric for a dress but we found that Mary had a dress that was perfect. I just had to cut off a couple of horrible embellishments.

So I used an old nightie which gave me enough white cotton for the pinafore, but I could have used a white sheet (if I could have found one) or a length of cotton from the shop. I luckily had a nice length of broderie anglaise.

This is the result.




and the back


And I am showing you this one as it shows Mary dancing and skipping off to school. She loved wearing the long skirts and was so excited to go to school.


Her teacher a teaching assistant were dressed too, and the classroom had all the pretty displays and the interactive whiteboard blacked up. The children played Victorian games at play time and had to write on slates with chalk.

What a great way to learn.

And I learnt lots too and will be posting my tutorial on how to make a simple pinafore for Victorian girls.