Clare has been asking for new winter pyjamas for ages.  I finally sewed up a couple of pairs just before we left for Thailand – and she definitely didn’t need winter pyjamas there!

I used the same patterns that I usually use for pyjamas – the Oliver + S Hopscotch for the top, and Ottobre 06/2009, no.35 for the pants. When Oliver + S digital patterns were last on sale I bought a digital copy of the Hopscotch pattern, as I keep on using it and it’s easier to reprint it each time I need to go up a size. I used size 10 for the top, and traced the Ottobre pants in their second largest size. As it turns out the pants are a little big, and Clare has to fold over the waistband to keep the crotch from hanging halfway to her knees. However she still finds them comfortable.

The floral is a cotton/lycra knit from Spotlight – I bought quite a bit at the time and you’ve seen it on the blog before but finally there is none left – and the stripe is a lovely cotton/lycra knit that was given to me and is now also all used up! I made two pair of pants and two tops, each trimmed with the other fabric. Clare can mix and match them however she likes.  Floral top with striped pants, striped top with floral pants, floral top with floral pants, striped top with striped pants.  As the mood strikes!

I’ve raved about the Hopscotch pattern before. It comes together so easily and so nicely! The v-neckline trim and front gathers are very pretty. I used a zig-zag to secure hems and for topstitching.

Not much more to report about these really – Clare should be right for winter for a couple of years now, and the last pairs have been handed down to Stella. It’s two years since I made these spotty ones!

Wow, haven’t they grown!

Well, it seems that Stella passed her URTI on to me.  But there is an upside – although we cancelled most social engagements over the weekend, and while I did feel rotten and still do – I didn’t feel so rotten that I couldn’t sew.  So while the kids rested up and watched tv and played with the dog and enjoyed the knitting nancy, I put the pedal to the floor and got quite a bit of sewing done.

This is the Swoon Scarf Neck Cardi, a free pattern for girls (and there is a women’s version). You’ve seen it before, on Clare. And you’ll see it again! I printed off a second copy (one of the advantages of pdf patterns) and quickly taped and cut the size 5/6 for Stella. Stella is 7 years old, but quite small.

The fabric is a super spongy ponte from Clear It (most likely from the Alannah Hill range). I’d already made myself a cardigan from it (as yet unblogged) and already knew that it would handle best with the overlocker for construction and a simple zig-zag stitch to secure the hems. So that is what I did. The edges were only turned once to the inside as the fabric is quite substantial but doesn’t fray, then zig-zagged along the edge.

On my monitor the fabric looks incredibly bright, and a fuchsia shade. In real life it is still bright, but more towards a candy shade of pink than a fuchsia. It is quite substantial, and clearly contains a fairly high percentage of lycra. Just perfect for a child’s cardigan. Stella styled it with a dress that I originally made for Clare, and a coordinating orange hair clip. I think she’s done a great job of her outfit!

I like the pointed hemline and the curved princess seams at the side fronts. Although very fast to make, it’s a fashionable style and has just enough detail to look quite “now”. Maybe I’d better tape up the women’s version of the pattern too.

And last but definitely not least, thank you all SO much for your lovely comments on the girls’ Eowyn and Ellie costumes.  I really enjoyed making them, and am pleased that you all seemed to enjoy seeing them as well!  And now time for more painkillers and a little more sewing…..

Stella has been sick with a head cold since Thursday (we got the phone call to come and collect her from school after she fell asleep in the classroom….) and we really didn’t think that she would make it to the book week parade this year.  In the end she perked up just enough to go in to school for an hour and join her friends to show off her costume, talk about the book it was from, and share some alliterative poems that she had written.  The kids were all SO excited; it was lovely to share in the fun with them.

Stella has enjoyed The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley for a little while now. Our version is a 1986 hardback with beautiful illustrations by Anne Grahame Johnstone. (You might also remember the 1978 film of the book that mixed live action and animation – you can find it here on YouTube if you are interested).  The little girl in the white dress – Ellie – was the character that Stella wanted to be. Originally I hoped that we’d be able to cobble together a costume from existing clothing, and that in combination with the mob cap she would look the part. But then I got mother guilt over all the time that I’d spent on Clare’s costume, so on Thursday morning I decided to make a new dress for Stella too. She was VERY pleased that I did, so I got some mummy points there.

On to the pattern details! I used two vintage patterns that were in my stash, Simplicity 8576 and Style 4247. The dress is mostly the Style pattern (the version illustrated in green), but the sleeves are from the Simplicity pattern. I also made the matching pantaloons from the Style pattern, but Stella refused to wear them as they were “wide” and chose to wear leggings instead. Righto. I used size 6 for both the dress and the sleeves.  It’s roomy, but not ridiculously so, and Stella is rather skinny.

And the fabric? Would you believe that I didn’t have any crisp white cotton in stash? So I used an old sheet. And the more eagle eyed of you will have already noticed that it is not a consistent shade of white around the dress. Should have bleached it first. That is what you get for using an old sheet. The parts of the dress cut from the edges of the sheet (utilising the selvedges so I wouldn’t have to finish the edges) are a lovely crisp white. The parts cut from the centre? Not so much. Is that too much information for you?

I cut the skirt in one piece utilising the sheet hem as the hem, and added the tucks and the lace as per the pattern. Cotton is so easy to work with, and having the skirt already hemmed saved a bit of time. The laces were all in my stash, and were mostly vintage as well.

I did take some short cuts. This dress is meant to be fully lined; I left out the lining entirely. Seam allowances were either not finished at all (if cut from the edge of the sheet) or they were pinked or overlocked. And the bias neck band had one edge overlocked so that after it was attached I could just turn it to the inside them top-stitch it in place knowing that there would be plenty of fabric to be caught in the stitching. This is something that I would usually turn under and hand-stitch on the wrong side of the dress. By hey, this is a costume – and one with a deadline!

I used an invisible zipper in the centre back seam to close the dress – and hey, check out how well I matched the waist seam across the zipper! I shall blow my own trumpet on that one! But don’t notice that it needs a hook and eye at the top of the neckline. I didn’t add one. Lazy.

The sleeves frankenpatterned in very easily. The notches matched perfectly, and then I just gathered the sleeve cap in to fit. I took another short cut with the sleeves though. The puffed upper sleeve is meant to be sewn to a stay, to maximise the amount of puff. I left the stay out, and simply gathered the upper sleeve to the lower sleeve and to the armhole. The upper puffed part of the sleeve is cut on the bias, so using the stay would be a great idea for extra puff and I’ll remember it if I use this pattern again. There is also an elbow dart in the lower sleeve to make it conform more nicely to the body. I have to say that I love vintage patterns for those sorts of details. They’re not hard to do and make things fit so much better. The main dress also includes darts at the back shoulder, with the same pleasing result for better fit.

The mob cap was made from a small remnant of embroidered cotton that I had in stash, with pre-gathered broderie anglaise sewn to the edges and pink ribbon for trim. It is double layered with elastic threaded through a casing. I used this tutorial which removed the need for me to think.  Sometimes I like not to have to think (maybe because I am coming down with a cold as well).

Cost wise, this dress was essentially “free” as everything came from stash (or the linen cupboard). Time wise, it possibly took around six hours to make, including the cap and pantaloons. I do wish that I’d realised that the sheet wasn’t a consistent colour before I started sewing, but will give the dress a good soak in some bleach and see what difference that makes. Some of the other school mums thought it would be ideal as a first communion/confirmation dress – but as we aren’t Catholic, that isn’t likely to happen!

I’m glad that Stella got to join her classmates for the fun of the book week parade, but as you can see it wasn’t long after we got home that I found her on the couch like this. Poor little mite.

“I am no man”.

You know, I used to be a major Scrooge about things like dress ups and costumes. But things have changed, and in recent years I have actually enjoyed making my daughters their book week character costumes. And I have to say, I think that this year is my absolute FAVOURITE.

Clare chose Eowyn as her character months and months ago. Let us confess right up front here that Clare hasn’t actually READ the Lord of the Rings trilogy – but she has read The Hobbit, and there weren’t any female characters in it that she was interested in going as (I did suggest that she didn’t have to go as a female character, but she would have none of that). So Eowyn it was. Clare googled images from the movies, and had a clear picture in her mind about what her costume should be like. She wanted it based on the green dress that Eowyn wore in The Two Towers. Enter Burda 2463 for the dress and vintage Style 1034 for the collared undershirt.

All the fabrics and trims came from Darn Cheap Fabrics, with the fabrics from the $2 per metre table or the remnants bin. The dark green woven appears to be a cotton blend and was very easy to sew, gather and press. The lace overlay is a stretch lace. Originally I was looking for a jacquard, but after cost comparisons decided that the lace worked well over the green anyway. The undershirt is a black chiffon base with gold printed all over it.

We mixed up the pattern views a bit, using the double layered skirt from one view with the longer sleeves and plain upper sleeve puff from the other. The lower sleeve was lined with the stretch lace, and the underskirt has a stretch lace overlay. This gave a similar look to the film photos, remembering that we were inspired by the film for the costume but weren’t trying to reproduce it completely faithfully. Lace trim was zig-zagged to the neckline after the bodice was constructed – it is fully lined – but before I inserted the lapped zipper up the back. There was only just enough of the trim to get around both the neckline and the waistline. It was meant to be!

Halfway through constructing the dress I realised that I had only cut out one lower sleeve, and was out of the green fabric. So while I was at work, I sent my husband back to Darn Cheap on a mission to buy one more metre. Luckily they still had it in stock! He also went on a sword hunting mission, locating this rather appropriate piece of plastic at a $2 shop.

The overskirt at the front was lifted at two points and secured under the lace trim with a zig-zag. Fortunately this also provided a handy place to store her sword. Who’d have thought!

The undershirt is a modified version of the vintage Style pattern. I cut it off at hip length, left off the sleeves, sewed up the centre front to the bottom of the collar rather than using a zip, and kept the collar edges with one point instead of being notched. Clare could just slip it on over her head, then use a safety pin to adjust where the collar meets in the centre front once the dress was over the top.

Clare centre parted her hair damp last night, and slept with clips keeping each side in place. We spent half an hour or so with the curling iron in the morning, and before long she was looking a lot like the Eowyn we know from the films (if anyone knows Miranda Otto and wants to send her a link to this blog post, please do!). She still had some henna painting on her hand from an Indian themed night at Guides a couple of days earlier, and thought that it added nicely to the overall look.

Overall, this costume probably cost us less than $30 in materials, including the pattern, zips and other notions. The dress used loads of fabric, but that’s not a problem when it comes from the $2 per metre table! But in terms of the hours spent making it? Possibly about 8 hours in total, I suspect. It could have been a little less. I didn’t really keep track.  In terms of sizing, the undershirt was size 8 and rather roomy, and the dress was in size 9 which matched up with Clare’s measurements.  It is a great fit.

I love that Clare chose such a gutsy character to dress as for book week, and that the entire family enjoyed the dressing up process so much. She’s really finishing off primary school with a bang!