Today was book character day for the elementary among us. Isabela spent about a whole one zillionth of a second deciding who to be. The love of Laura started a ways back but hasn't gone anywhere yet (we even bought some seasons of the tv series on dvd for her at Christmas which she lurves). We knew we needed a prarie-ish style dress of a small scale print and an apron. Since we had about 30 minutes before bed to pull three kid characters together last night, we borrowed this flannel nightie that my mom made for Juliana (mom, pipe up in the comments if you remember the pattern). Its a little big but fit the bill perfectly.
Then I literally took about 10 seconds to cut a width of muslin into an apron shape, no sewing, hemming, nothin' and tied it around her. She looked in the mirror and had the kind of smile that makes her top cheek dimple join the other lower dimples and all was right with the world.
Last year she was the Giving Tree, and we took a lot of time to make a felt-leafed dress, shirt, headband, the works. Upswing: Eleni wanted to be Giving Tree this year. Perfect. Downswing: all we could find from last year's costume was the headband. But I am about to tell you reason #731,683,002 that I love Eleni... she was so excited to get to use my studio stapler that she was more than happy just stapling green poster board leaves to a green shirt for about 10 minutes, wearing brown pants (the trunk, of course) and calling it a tree. Whew. Okay who's next. Right. Joseph. Joseph always wants to be some piece of machinery but he settled on Huck Finn since he is a friend of mischief and its actually a book he's read. And everyone has a plain shirt, jeans to be rolled up, and the ability to make a hobo napsack. Done. I also noticed him grab the straw hat off of our melting snowman on his rush to the bus this morning. My kind of kid.
So. Flannel! I am in love with many gorgeous flannel creations and tutorials that I have been pointed to online and elsewhere and finally set up Folksy Flannel Flickr group for you! I almost called it the Finally Flannels Flickr group, but I am trying to think positively. So join the fun.
I am headed to the couch with my little "Laura" to watch some Little House while we wait for pizza and Pa to come home. (How did Ma survive without the pizza man!? I'd say being married to Pa made up for the lack of modern conveniences. Let's save that for another post.)
Have a great weekend! xo,Anna