We Like to Read - World Book Day!

This Friday 5 March is World Book Day, where children all over the world dress up as a character from a book. I love this day! Personally, I love seeing kids in fancy dress going about everyday business as if it's totally normal to be dressed as a fireman, or a frog. So seeing loads of children heading off to school in the morning in fancy dress is guaranteed to bring a smile to my face. Look out for them where you are!

Wiss has discovered the joy of Roald Dahl over the last year or so; we've read him some of the books and he has lots of them on cd which he listens to over and over. A particular favourite is Fantastic Mr Fox (and the Wes Anderson animated film is fantastic too!) It seems I'm not organised enough to make the costume AND blog about it so here is last years' costume in detail: last year Wiss wanted to be Fantastic Mr Fox, and who was I was I to argue?!

The great thing about costumes is they can be as fancy, or not, as you wish. They only really have to last that day (although it's always nice if they can be worn again.) If like me, you leave things to the last minute then make friends with fabrics like fleece and felt. These can simply be cut and don't need hemming as they do not fray. Jersey doesn't fray either and the raw edge can be...well, edgy!

Our Fantastic Mr Fox costume was made using some soft striped orange jersey, white and black fleece, two old t-shirts (one white, one orange) and a tie from the charity shop. To make the hat I used this great tutorial from Camelot Fabrics - it is clear and easy to follow but you can alter it where you like. I thought buttons may be good as the eyes?

The raglan t-shirt was made using my favourite pattern from Sewing for Boys. I've made so many of these for Wiss that they come together super quickly, but even for a beginner it is an easy pattern to follow. I cut up my two old t-shirts to make usable pieces of fabric. The white t-shirt was the body and the orange t-shirt fabric was used for the arms and the neck binding. I added black claws to the top cuff edge of each sleeve before sewing them together. The tie was a lucky find and all I did was shorten it to fit Wiss and hand sew an old hair clip to the back so that it could clip on to the t-shirt. No fiddly ties for my little man!

The trousers are models own - orange cords from H&M - as are the brown boots - Clarks.

And the finishing touch was the tail. I used the same tutorial from Camelot Fabrics but made it removable with a loop to go around the belt which fastened with a strip of velcro. Poor Mr Fox has his beautiful tail shot off by the nasty farmers, so true to the story Wiss could take his tail off when he wanted. (It also made it easier to sit down at pre-school!)

So there you have it - one Fantastic Mr Fox costume!

This year's costume is also from a Roald Dahl book so look out for it on my Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds on Friday (I had better get it finished soon!) I would LOVE to see your kids costumes for World Book Day - leave a comment below if you've blogged about it, or tweet me @thisiswiss. And if you're still making them like me, good luck!


You may also like to read these posts from the archive:

World Book Day Week - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
World Book Day 2013 - Room on the Broom