At least the hairdo should be easy

Julia is invited to a costume party this weekend. She wants to be Jasmine, from Aladdin.


Fortunately, she's a reasonable little kid, so I was able to persuade her that Jasmine wears different clothes on different days and, therefore, that what she really needed was to look like an Arabian princess - not necessarily to have the exact clothes that Jasmine has in whichever picture or toy Julia has adopted as her main point of reference.

I went to the thrift store yesterday and found a horrend...sorry, a Very Fancy purple swirly shirt with a fancy cut to the sleeves and hem and, best of all, a very princessy detail in gold right across the front.

I also got the makings for some harem pants, which I'm told are super easy to make.

I had the perfect thing all picked out for the pants - a wraparound skirt that was, essentially, a large rectangular piece of fabric in a nicely exotic pattern - it even had a contrasting detail around the bottom edge. But it totally clashed with the princess blouse--even by six year old standards, and that's a lotta clash.

Since I'm far more willing to make harem pants than a princess blouse, the top made the cut and I picked out a solid purple sheath dress that matched the blouse to provide fabric for the pants.

I am still kicking myself for not trying the dress on - maybe even taking a picture - before cutting it up. What was I thinking? It was my size and everything. I have no idea how I could have been so incurious as to not try on something I wouldn't normally wear, but which was my absolute favorite color and probably would have looked good on me.

But it's too late now.

The pants were, indeed, very easy to make, and will be very cute on Julia when they're done. I think I need to add a little extra fabric (from the parts I cut off to get the two squares I needed) to make them a little more modest, but both Julia and I are pleased with the results.

However, they're not done yet and Julia's not home to model them, so...no picture yet. I guess that means tomorrow's post is, ahem, all sewn up.