Little red riding hood costume

I have such a backlog of stuff to blog, I wish I could just think the post and it would be done :-), none of this taking pics, editing, writing etc etc, it just appears. Maybe one day it will be possible, who knows!

Anyway... a little project I worked on several weeks ago were costumes for the girls' book parade at school. Big girl went as Pippi Longstocking, which was pretty easy, mainly just doing hair and pulling together a few clothes, but little girl was adamant right from the start that she wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood... this would need a bit more planning. And because it's her first year at school I wanted to make it all fun and nice for her.



I thought it wouldn't be too much to do...



First I made a little red cape from the 'Reversible play cape' pattern in my much-used copy of the book Growing Up Sew Liberated. I used a mid weight cotton for the outer layer and lined it with red polyester satin. Instead of adding a button to fasten the cape I made 2 strips of bias binding and sewed them between the 2 layers.



Great for twirling in apparently :-)



And a little skirt and apron from some stash fabric: the gingham skirt is just a rectangle joined with a seam and an elasticised waist. Then I made the apron by sewing a lace trim to a piece of white cotton and adding a waistband with Velcro at the back. I added her white skivvy and she was excited to wear her favourite red shoes to school :-)



She then said she'd have to have a basket with red apples inside and a little cloth on top... well, I admire her attention to detail, though it did give me more running around to do (that seems to be a kid's job these days!!).



I'd definitely recommend the cape pattern to anyone looking for a play cape, it's a quick, easy sew with great results - lots of bang for your buck!

My little ghost

When I was growing up Halloween was not (I think) widely celebrated in Australia. So I admit that it's taken me a while to get into the spirit of it, but this year I really enjoyed it. The girls dressed up and I took them first to a party, which was raising money for a fabulous charity to build a children's hospital in Sierra Leone, and then on to a little trick or treating. We also made spooky cupcakes to take to the party (no pics sorry) and put a few decorations at the front of our house to signal to children and their parents that we were in on the fun and games. And of course we prepared a basket of lollies to offer to trick or treaters!



My small girl wore this ghost costume that I made last year for the big girl to wear to a party. The big girl had let me paint her face too so looked the part, but the little girl is not so keen on face paint, so I let that one go (reluctantly :-)



I knew exactly the design I wanted to do and it actually came together well so was a real joy to make. I cut 2 almost full half circles from a piece of white cotton...



then added a hood (taking the shape from a hoodie pattern I had)...



put a velcro closing on one shoulder for ease of dressing...



and sewed some elastic into the arm bands to help keep them down. This also meant that when her arms were raised it lifted the sides of the costume out creating a more ghost-like shape.



The I painted the 'boo' on freehand in black fabric ink, and attached a plastic bat and spider with a few stitches so they could be removed for washing.



I also had to include a pick of one of the big girl's classmate's lanterns. It was so pretty that I'm inspired to make one for next year.

So apart from having 3 small children restlessly sleeping with piles of sugar in their bodies by the end of the night (the baby got into the lolly bananas while we weren't looking), it was a really fun evening and I'm so looking forward to next year! Hope you had fun too.