Book Week: Mary Poppins

Unbelievably excited to share this with the world! Hooray for Book Week! My costume was Mary Poppins. Since I'm currently a music teacher, I wanted someone musical as well as literary. My second choice would have been Matilda, since the musical has some great songs too, but Mary Poppins was hard to go past: practically perfect in every way! 

I started by putting on the shirt I made for Steve and thinking about how I could adjust it to be a Victorian long sleeve fitted women's shirt, rather than a short sleeve loose fitting men's. Then I traced out the pattern pieces added adjustments and cut up a random white sheet that I found in my material box. Looks like it had been used for a ghost costume before (random eye holes in the middle of it), but as I have absolutely no recollection of doing that it's a bit of a mystery. 

In any case, the white sheet fabric was perfect for a trial run of a Mary Poppins shirt. There were adjustment issues, and some fiddling with the sleeves to get the look I wanted, but all in all, I was on the right track. It really does pay to make a rough draft. 

When it came to fabric, I looked in my stash first to see if I had anything, and then went over to mum's to check hers out. Lucky I did, because she had the leftover fabric from Sophie's flower girl dress which was pretty great for Mary Poppins. 

I worked hard on the placement of the pattern so that I could get some matching of the pin tucks and lace. On the collar and sleeves, I wanted a bit of ruffle, so I went through my stash and found some eyelet trim that worked quite well. Mum had enough buttons in her stash too, so I'm feeling good about the sustainability of this shirt. 

Sally made some strange noises while I was making it, so I let her rest for a few days and did some other things before I attempted the button holes. As per usual, Sally was not keen on button holes, but I'm used to that now, so it's all good. 

Shirt done, I turned my thoughts to the skirt. For this I really did need to go and buy fabric. I got two meters of a light linen in a dark blue, and another two metres of a similar blue in a poplin to line it with. I used the skirt pattern I had drafted from a skirt I already own, just lengthened it really. Oh, and split the front into panels to mimic the Victorian style skirt Mary Poppins wears. I would have done the back as well, but I didn't have that much fabric, so I just put in darts. 

It turns out making three of those skirts last year was very good practice for this, though, since I managed to get the zip inserted correctly the first time round. Hooray! 

In the Julie Andrews movie, Mary Poppins wears a thin red bow with her shirt, but I wanted something a little fuller. So I traced Steve's bow tie onto some gorgeous red fabric I had leftover from what Steve gave me for my 21st birthday. On a side note, I can't believe I never blogged about that gift, the fabric or what happened to it, since it's possibly my proudest make from all those years ago. Trawling back through the archives to try to find any post about it (not something I recommend) was interesting indeed though, because it seems I didn't post much about sewing at all. So strange!

Anyway, back to making a bow tie. After tracing the shape, I sewed it, turned it and ironed it, and was pretty happy with how it looked. Mary Poppins was really coming together at this point, and all I really needed to add was her rather iconic hat. 

For this, I traced some circle shapes onto cardboard, cut them out and covered them with scraps of black fabric from my cape. I had to buy the grapes and flowers to glue on, but all in all, it's not a bad bit of DIY. Rachel found it hilarious that I was making at hat out of cardboard. I gave myself a nice burn with the hot glue gun doing it too. 

The last thing I did was very quickly sew up a strip of yellow fabric to be a measuring tape. I wrote the sayings that Mary Poppins has on it in the movie for herself (Practically Perfect in Everyway), and Jane and Michael. I also wrote two new ones for the girls. The kids at school thought it was hilarious when I measured them. 

Then it was a matter of getting dressed and going to school. I had a great time as Mary Poppins (there was even a student dressed as Mary Poppins too!), though I do think an umbrella would have been a good addition. 

Hooray for Book Week and being able to celebrate characters and books that have changed our lives.