Quick costume

Miss Six had an optional dress-up day at school on Monday (with only a weekend's notice), and being ill I wasn't inclined to opt in until I had a quick look around the house.

The theme was the late 1800's, and fortunately I remembered that last time she visited, my Mum had given me a calico mop hat that she had made for a similar dress up when I was little. It's essentially an 18" diameter circle of calico, with hat elastic sewn on the inside (using a zig-zag stitch) about 2" from the edge and finished with some lace around the brim.





Further investigation revealed a red velvet dress I grabbed at an op-shop about a year ago for $4 - it took my eye because I thought it would be suitable for any princess/ medieval/ Christmas type of costume. As you can see, it's a little large for her, but she pushed the sleeves up :-)

Lastly, it needed a pinafore and although I would have liked to make a 'proper' calico pinny, I didn't have a pattern, nor much unbleached calico, just a smallish remnant. So I sewed up a very simple apron - an 8" square sewn to the middle top of a 19" x 12" rectangle of calico. It should really have been longer but that's all the calico I had, and I wanted to utilise the lower selvedge (less hemming!). I used some bias binding I had on hand for the straps, and voila!

It's more of a maid outfit than a school girl, but hey, it did the job - and all for about $5!