Some people just don't know when to stop...

Yep, that would be me actually!!  You see its that time of the year again when rehearsals start, mangers get dusted off and the good old donkey has to start carting about a heavily pregnant woman (and I pity the poor donkey, and pregnant woman, doing that in Perth at the moment!!!).  Yes its nativity time and as the kids go (or are going to) a private school the lower primary years put on a nativity each year.  Pre-primary children are always the angels, probably because they've only been at school a year and are therefore still sweet and innocent.  The year 1's traditionally get the "main" roles... last year Samuel was Joseph!!!  And in year 2 they are given narration parts and are required to dress up as either shepherds or kings, depending on which class gets which part.  I was stoked this year, if it was shepherds I would be recycling last years Joseph costume and if it was kings, well I'm a bellydancer... I've got access to all the riches of the mystical east!!!  And the winner was.....



KINGS!!!!



So what has that got to do with anything.  Well, upon finding out that kings it is, I immediately started rummaging through the bellydancing costumes to find appropriate kingly attire.  One circle skirt, a coin belt, scarf and chain and I was set.  The theory was the circle skirt would be popped over the head, slits in the seams would serve as arm holes, a belt around the waist to hold it in, coin belt draped over the shoulder and tied at the waist and a red scarf to act as a cape.  This is totally working, except maybe it could just use a little bit more... now where's that...

Can you see where this is going???  You see I knew that I had a length of sari border somewhere that I was saving "just in case".  As it turns out this was the "just in case".  The border was going to be perfect around the hem of the skirt, except there wasn't quite enough.  No problems there, the skirt gets laid out flat on the floor and ends up going on an impromptu diet which involves taking off about a quarter of material from each side.  As it turns out this is actually a good thing because there is less material all round on Samuel's small frame and heaps of sari border.  So skirt now has a rather flash gold sari border and is looking rather royal indeed, except maybe it just needs a little bit more...

I know, the sleeves, instead of just having two slits in the seam for the sleeves I could se the left over sari border and create some proper sleeves instead, now that would look very royal indeed.  So little sleeves are added and everything is looking very good, except...

Mmmmmm, yes given that Samuel is shall we say somewhat of a slightly skinny disposition the whole neck/sleeve thing isn't really working quite the way I envisaged.  Ooooo but I know, if I take the waist band off , hem the lot and add a few pleats/tucks it'll all fall into place perfectly.  And so off we go.  The neckline is now made up of a series of box pleats which pulls the sleeves back up onto Samuel's shoulders and they fall beautifully with the satin. 

So what started out as a quick slash-the-seams type exercise turned out to be a couple of hours work, but despite that I loved every minute of it. The really scary thing is I keep looking at the costume now and keep thinking, maybe I should add something around the neck just to hide the top of the pleats, or maybe some embroidery would look good on the front panels.  Then the more practical side of my brain points out that its probably best to stop before things really get out of hand, it is just for the school nativity...

But still, I know where I've got some rather smashing jewels which would just look awesome, excuse me while I just go fish them out.  Afterall the play isn't until Wednesday morning........

Making his Fabric Addict debut, I give you....

The Very Hungry Caterpillar


Hang on, not that one, this one...

(He's been on his tummy crawling around all morning LOL).


He thinks its wonderful!!!

Two words...

which appear to be rather innocent on their own, but put together they strike fear into the hearts of many a mum, me being one of them - BOOK WEEK!!!

Now there are probably thousands of mums out there that think, no probs we'll just go to the dress up closest and pull out something appropriate but for some reason dress ups arent a big thing around here. Samuel and Alex arent fussed and heaven forbid I put some sort of fairy costume on madam, it would end up black in 5 minutes flat I swear.

Last year wasnt a problem. Good old Aunty Helen gave Samuel a Harry Potter costume and after a quick lightning blot addition with a makeup pencil we had a pretty good Harry Potter. However according to the rule (which were made up on the spot by a certain 6 year old), you cant go as the same thing twice *sigh*

OK so this has been at the back of my mind for about 3 weeks now and it would seem that just like back in my days of English Lit essays, procrastination is my friend. For some unknown reason it hit my last night - The Very Hungry Caterpillar!!! Its a classic tale and a green tracksuit with a red hood should fit the bill, no problems.

If is a very sad fact of life that green tracksuits dont come with red hoods. Its also a sad fact of life that behaviour of two children will decrease in direct proportion to the increased urgency of the errand you are undertaking. Such is life. Fortunately the green tracksuit situation was easily fixed, although tracking one down proved a little harder.

I managed to find a tracksuit top at Big W. Given that its the tale end of winter, it was being thrown out for $5. So as you can imagine I wasnt going to argue when it rang up at the cash register for $3 BONUS!!!

Kmart yielded nothing in the bottoms department but Target had some albeit in sizes 14 and 16. Still that was all we had to work with and at another bargain price (this time $6.88 down from $15.99) I figured we'd just chop them up.

So green tracksuit safely bought (plus 2 pairs of shoes and a bonus free handbag - yes it was my lucky day, then again something had to make up for the two little devils I had with me), a trip to Spotlight got me some cheap red fleece for the hood, blue and black felt for the antennae and feet and some milliners elastic to create that chubby caterpillar look.

Ottobre 1/2004 pattern 14 had the perfect hood pattern which was quickly traced off, cut out and attached. The antennae have been cut out, stuffed and are waiting to be attached and I'm currently running the elastic through at intervals in order to create the caterpillar bands. Then its onto the feet and then the pants. Slap on a bit of red face paint Wednesday morning and I reckon we'll have a fairly passable Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Its coming together so quickly and easily that I'm very much afraid something is going to go wrong, probably something along the lines of "I dont want to be a caterpillar" on Wednesday morning (I did make sure he was ok with the caterpillar idea but 6 year old minds are subject to change without warning).

Look forward to providing the first dress rehearsal once Mr 6 is home from school.