I Made a Skirt from a Top

I was in a charity shop when I saw this top.

And I thought it would make a brilliant skirt.

Pretty simple craft - you just cut the top off under the arms and make a waistband where the neckline used to be.

For this one, I decided to make an elastic waistband so I folded a length of ribbon around the cut edge and stitched it together at the edge, creating a tunnel for the elastic.

I made it so the ribbon would overlap, and I left the last bit unfinished while I threaded the elastic through. The easiest way to do this (in my opinion) is to attach a safety pin to the elastic and push the pin through the tunnel.

Once it was through, I sewed the two ends of elastic together and stitched the last bit of ribbon in place.

Finished!

Zombie Pineapple Costume

Yesterday was Halloween. I went out in Lincoln.

I had to wear a costume, because that is what one does on Halloween. Typically people dress for this momentous occasion by wearing whatever costume they can think of... covered in blood. Last night we saw the Teletubbies, covered in blood; Snow White, covered in blood; some angels, covered in blood; and many a nurse, covered in blood (though I suppose it doesn't have to be Halloween for a medical professional to be covered in blood).

And I dressed up as a pineapple... covered in blood!!

The brilliant thing about dressing as a pineapple, is that you don't have to do it authentically. People think of pineapples as bright yellow with brown criss-crosses (which is really really easy to do), but they're actually a greenish-brown with a sort of scale pattern on them and spikes (and this is not very easy to make, or draw). Anywho, you only need to give the impression of pineapple for your costume to be convincing. And that's why this was fun to do, because I got to make it just how I felt like doing it at the time. 

I bought two yellow polo shirts; one medium and one extra large (because those are the sizes they had in the shop). I did try to buy a yellow dress but I couldn't find one, so I decided to wear a top and a skirt instead.

To make a skirt, I cut the XL shirt horizontally just under the sleeves, like so:

Then I turned it inside out and hand stitched across the open ends and cut off the original seams (so I turned the thing around 90 degrees and made the top and bottom into the sides and I made the sides into the top and bottom).

I ironed a hem and a waistband then stitched them in place. Then I ran the whole thing through the sewing machine and unpicked my hand stitches.

I pinned the skirt to a cardboard box to keep it stretched, and I found my fabric pastels. I drew lines like this: first lightly with the brown, then the same but with more pressure, then I drew on top with yellow.

I kept moving the skirt around on the box until I'd drawn all over it.

The I made the top. I cut it up like this:

And I drew on it like I did the skirt. Then I ironed both pieces under brown paper to heat seal the pastels.

I finished the skirt by feeding a piece of elastic through the waistband. We do this by putting a safety pin on the elastic and pushing the pin through.

I decided to make my hair be the green bit that sits on top. I bought some green hairspray (which I had to get off the internet because apparently they don't sell the green in real shops, even at Halloween), and I tied my hair up in a high ponytail then I sprayed it.

All that was left was to cover myself in fake blood. 

Mark is a Duck

It was my company's 5th birthday. We had a party. The bosses had this idea for every team to nominate at least one member to wear a costume and the best costume would win their team some vouchers. My friend Mark wanted to go dressed as a duck - a Mallard.

First I had to make a white collar for the band around the neck. Simples.

Then I made a simple dress. Just cut two slits for arm holes in a sheet of fabric so it would fasten at the back. They have a brown shape on their belly, so for this I cut out a shape from a dark brown fabric and glued it on to the front.

I darted it at the top to fit the collar and then folded the collar over the top.

Then I made a tail. A sort of tutu thing, but just at the back so his tail would stick out. And I glued another panel of fabric onto the dress at the back to make the tail.

I put an elastic hem on the main panel of the 'dress' - puff dress style, to give it more of a duck body shape.

Then I painted it, because Mallards have a lot of grey colouring as well as browns.

Then I had to make some wings. I cut out a load of feather shapes from spare scraps of fabric. I sacrificed these fairy wings:

And I cut them up and bent them and glues them onto the fabric like this:

Then I waited for the glue to dry a bit and I cut them out and glued the 'feathers' to them so it looked like this:

When I got to Marks, I pinned two pieces of elastic to each wing so they would fit around his arms - one just below the shoulder and the other just above the elbow.

Nina had given him some foam for his feet and he cut out the shapes. We cut a cross shape into it so he could get his feet through and the 'feet' sat on top of his shoes.

Jack painted Mark's face green and Louis made the beak for him. It's made from those foam sheets you get in kid's craft stuff, and he's drawn on it with felt pens.

So this is our duck: