Clara of Wrenly

Sophie chose rather unexpectedly for Book Week this year. After being Sophie from The Tiger Who Came to Tea last year, we had thrown around the idea of her being Sophie from The BFG this year for quite a while. Out of the blue one day, she said that she didn't want to wear a nightie all day at school, and so would not be that Sophie after all. 

When Book Week was going to be in August, Sophie told us that she wanted to go as Aslan, from the Narnia books. Pretty cool choice, and so easy, since we already had a lion costume. But with the move of Book Week to October, we reaslied that not only would the lion onesie be way too hot, but also, Sophie wouldn't fit it any more by then either. Back to the drawing board. 

When we read the first Kindom of Wrenly books, which has a fairy Queen named Sophie as one of the characters, I thought for sure we had a winner. That's when Sophie surprised us all, and said that she wanted to go as someone from Wrenly, but not as the beautiful fairy Queen, but rather as the pesant girl Clara. 

Clara is Prince Lucas's only friend in the story, and they go on an adventure together to find the Queen's lost emerald. She has a crown braid and is friends with the mermaids. I can see the appeal. 

Her costume was pretty basic however. Just a blue shirt and brown pants. Not exactly awe inspiring, or an exciting sewing challenge. What she does have, however, is a satchel bag that the two characters use to carry things around in on their adventure. Now there was something I could work with. 

The first thing I did was add embelishments. Clara's satchel is brown, but I figured I could add a sea shell feature for her. If you read the story, you'll know why, and I don't want to spoil it for you. 

The other thing I did, was make it completely reversible. Why have a brown satchel, when you can have a reversible stachel that flips out to some magnificent black with gold arrows when you aren't being Clara? Exactly. 

The gold arrow fabric was left over from making the Tea Bag last year. I picked up the brown at Spotlight and then used scraps to line the pockets and for the scallop shell embellishment. 

This is Sophie showing me one of her pockets eating her hand. 

The bag is made using the Nature Explorer Bag pattern that I used for Rachel's bag a few years ago (apparently the original link doesn't work any more though sorry!) There are pockets on the sides of the bag, and the front as well, so lots of places for Sophie to hide her treasures. 

I also added a lanyard clip thing, just becuase I know the girls love to have them. Rachel has a compass clipped onto hers and I honestly thought I had a second one, but couldn't find it. Oh well.

The rest of Sophie's costume is a $2 t-shirt from Kmart and a pair of brown pants that I literally whipped up in 15mins while the girls ate dinner one night. I just used the go to Sycamore Shorts pattern and lengthend it like I did for her Lana pants two years ago. Too easy.

Ready to adventure. Sophie has been taking her stachel bag a lot of places, which makes me pretty happy. All the pockets are great for stashing snacks and storing things she finds on the way. Perfect.