Sir Topham Hatt, The Fat Controller - Sewing a costume for Book Day

Preschool had book day a few weeks ago where kids dress up as a book character, theoretically their favorite book character. My boys missed it as they had chicken pox. Sprog was very disappointed and he was not the only one. A repeat day for the 15 kids who missed is happening this Friday. Sprog will be Paddington Bear, with an heirloom coat and a Mummy-made Hat. Widget's favourite books are the Thomas the Tank Engine series, so he's going to be Sir Topham Hatt, the Fat Controller.

I started the costume from scratch, making the Hat, a vest, the trousers, and tail coat. Since it's a one-off, or maybe two time costume I didn't want to spend too much on the fabric and bought everything from the clearance table for only a few dollars. For the patterns I used the Little Gentleman Pants and Vest, and modified the Little Gentleman Suit Jacket, from Peekaboo Patterns.

For the hat I modified the Reversible Bucket Hat from Oliver+S and made it from Black Felt. In hindsight I would probably try going from scratch as it may be less work than the modification. I cut the brim at the Small size, and the crown from the Large size. I used the side pieces of each to draw the top and bottom of the side pieces and added an inch or two between the lines and joined them up. I did the two layers to increase the stiffness, then stitched the two together around the brim.

The clothes started with the vest. The Fat Controller has a yellow vest with black buttons. I found a yellow and black striped satin. I cut both the lining of the jacket and most of the vest from the yellow satin. I ran out, so the inside fronts were made from some calico that I had leftover from something else. I finished with black snaps which blend into the stripes.

The trousers were meant to be grey, but I went with a pale blue pinstripe as it was the most suitable on the clearance table. The pants have an elastic back waistband, and a flat front. They are super quick.

The biggest challenge was the jacket for two reasons. It is a more complicated pattern, but it is also the biggest adaptation I have made to a pattern.

I started by tracing the correct sizes onto baking paper, but making sure to leave a length extending past the bottom of the back piece. I trimmed the top and sides of the back piece, and all of the front piece, then overlapped them by the seam allowance. Once overlapped I consulted my fat controller picture and shaped the front of the jacket and drew in the tails, stood back and checked, then cut them out. The last step was to extend the lining pieces as well, by superimposing the lining piece on the back piece and extending the tail.

 

Then it was sew, sew, sew. Even with the tails I pretty much just followed the instructions through.

The final product looked pretty cute.

Today was dress up day. The vest and pants stayed on all day. The hat was so tall it fell off pretty quick, and the jacket got too warm so it came off. He was the cutest little fat controller around. This costume will come out again in a few weeks for his Thomas Themed birthday. 

A Quick Sew - A Witches Hat

We hosted a small Halloween party last night. Sprog and Widget chose whatever they wanted from the dress up box, but both chose the PJ Masks costumes I finished last week. Husband went as Donald Trump which was easy, a suit, a pillow, and bronzer, completed with an offcut from Widget's Ewok costume for a wig.

My costume was a last minute through together. I pulled my Academic robe out of the cupboard, my favourite, but dying stripey socks from the drawer and slapped green face paint over bared skin. To cap it off I popped on a hat made fresh that afternoon.

This was a super quick sew. If I hadn't been sewing a Mummy-ing simultaneously it would have taken 15 minutes from go to woah.

For this hat I used the Oliver+S bucket Hat pattern as a base. I made it in the largest size, ostensibly size 6-8. It was a smidge on the small size, but having tried Sprog's Paddington Hat and having it fit OK, I figured a size that worked for the boys dress-up box would ensure the most use.

For this one I used black felt. I cut the brim as normal. the crown I did away with completely. For the pointy part of the hat I lined the pattern piece for the side of the hat up against the fold then drew a straight line from the other end of the pattern piece on the same angle all the way up to where it met the edge.

Then it was cut, sew down the straight line, attach the brim as per the instructions and wear.

One last minute witch costume.

Sewing a hat for Paddington Bear

This week was book week at preschool. The last day was dress up as a book character day. It's something of a family tradition to go to book day as Paddington Bear. When my sister was fairly small, about 6 or 7 she saw a coat and fell in love with it. It is a blue wool coat with tartan lining and a hood, very similar to Paddington Bear's duffel coat. I remember wearing it to be Paddington Bear when I had dress up day at primary school. It is such a good quality coat, and so good for Paddington dress ups, that my mother never got rid of it. My sisters kids have all outgrown it, so it has been passed onto me for my boys. Last year Sprog had a Paddington Bear party, but only wore it a few minutes as it was a warm day. Now it's time for the coat to come into it's own on book day, but to complete the look he needed a hat. A great big floppy red hat.

I have been meaning to try the Reversible bucket hat from Oliver+S for a while now and this was my chance,  albeit with a few modifications.

After a quick poll of facebook friends to confirm my instinct I went with felt in a bright red. The pattern calls for two layers of each section, giving the hat it's reversible quality, but since this was specifically for Paddington, and felt is a bit stiffer than the cotton it would usually be made of, I went with a single layer.

I cut the crown to the pattern. The sides I extended by tracing the bottom edge then moved the tracing paper over two inches before tracing the top edge, and ruling the sides anew. Doing it this way rather than just extending the sides two inches ensured that the crown would still match. The brim I also extended, this time I measured an extra two inches out in a number pf places then redrew the edge around those 2 inch points.

Then it was just a matter of following the instructions to put it all together. I trimmed the seam allowance in the crown, and sewed the brim/side seam flat to help the shape. The extra two inches make the brim super floppy, but Sprog is happy with his new hat.

A simple pirate hat

Sprog gets invited to a lot of pirate parties, previously I have made him a cardboard tube sword and scabbard, and a pirate vest. I have been talking about using the pleather scraps from the vest to make a hat for a while, so the time had arrived.

It was a very simple sew. I took a large square of pleather and folded it wrong sides together. Then I tucked the fold in on itself. You could also get this effect by folding right sides together, then folding back over the fold leaving an inch or so of the original fold in place.  I sewed perpendicular to the fold at each end.

Next I cut an approximate pirate shape to the fabric and stitched around the edge. Pleather is hard to sew on my machine when the right sides are out, as it sticks against the foot. To combat this I used masking tape down the line where I wanted to sew, sewed the line, then peeled the tape away.

Next up I cut a slit in the original fold, and tested it on Sprog's head. I repeated this till it was nearly right, then rounded off the ends of the slit. The rounding off was to make it less likely to tear, and to make it prettier.

This morning shortly before the party Sprog cried "Mummy, you gotfor the bones" (His own take on forgot). Indeed I had, or rather I wasn't going to bother until he said something. Ideally I should have put the "bones" on before sewing it up, but since I was making it up as I went along that was risky business. 

For the bones I cut a skull, lower jaw and femur bones out of the pleather which conveniently has a white backing. I also had white knit scraps I could have used, but the pleather is stiffer and will hold shape better, and the two "leather" sides stick together well making them easy to keep in place while sewing. I tacked them in place using a needle and thread, big stitches as I was in a hurry and the hat was done.

Here's my happy little pirate.

Next pirate party it will likely be the turn of the flowy pirate shirt, or the pirate trousers.