Little Miss made her own convict girl costume for recently – so simple to sew but it looked great.
Little Miss recently decided to dress up in costume for an assessment at school. They had to be a character from a story they had studied and retell the story from that character’s point of view. She chose to be the convict girl in the story and declared she wanted to sew her own costume.
She had a very clear idea of what that would look like and I was impressed that she had chosen something she could actually achieve quite easily. So I bought some cheap fabric and she created a pillow case dress complete with patches and a shawl. The dress is really just two rectangular panels join up the side seams leaving a few inches at the top to be arm holes. Then there is a casing and ribbon threaded to create the top. Before she joined the fabric, she added patches to the bottom of the skirt and decided that it didn’t need a hem so it would look more shabby.
The shawl was just another rectangle of fabric. Again she didn’t want to hem it because she thought it would look more in keeping with a poor convict girl. This costume would also be suitable for a prisoner or a maid, or even Cinderella before she becomes a princess. With Book Week coming up here in Australia and Halloween coming as well, I can think of plenty of possibilities for this simple dress and shawl combination. She added a long sleeve T-shirt underneath just to keep her warm – it is Winter here!
She wanted a mop cap too which is a little trickier so I made that. It is just a circle of fabric and some elastic but it can be tricky to stretch the elastic as you sew it in. All in all, she looked great and is now itching to use the sewing machine again.
More Costumes:
Very well done. She will have caught the sewing bug now.