World Book Day

March 6 is World Book Day, and my daughter gets to go to school dressed as a character from a book. She chose Hetty Feather, the heroine and title character of the book Hetty Feather by Jacqueline Wilson (very popular with 8 year olds).

Here is a picture of Hetty:

In a previous life, I would have bought fabric and patterns to sew a costume, and also purchased a wig. That is, if I had the money and the time, and if I didn't have those, then my daughter would have to choose something from the costume box and make do.

 

But now I am a ReFashioneer!

 

For Hetty's collar I used a white tee shirt and cut it into a triangle shape front and back. Done.

 

I found a brown sweatshirt and cut off the hood so the collar could lay flat. The sweatshirt had a ton of logo bits embroidered on it, so I set to work picking them off with my seam ripper. It was SLOW. After an hour (seriously!) my husband said, "why don't you just cover it up?"

 

"With what?"

 

"The hood you cut off?"

 

Oh yeah. Great idea! So I cut out a piece of the hood and sewed it over what was left of the logo on the chest. Took less than 5 minutes and it is not noticeable at all. Work smarter, not harder.

 

The cap I sewed from scraps, but no pattern needed because I used this beret tutorial by Beth Huntington (thanks Beth!) as a starting point. I made a few changes and added a ruffle on the front, but basically it's the same hat.

 

The last (and most fun) part of the costume is the hair. You can't really see it in the above picture, but Hetty has red hair. I had an old orange tee that was fit for the rag bag, so I cut it into 6 strips. I folded the strips in on themselves (think bias tape) and stitched them closed. My daughter did the braiding and I sewed the braids to the cap. Ta dah! We are ready for World Book Day.