Princess Red Riding Hood

No I haven't got my fairytales mixed up - "Princess" Red Riding Hood is the compromise reached with a very strong willed 3.5 year old!  I don't know if this is a worldwide thing, but here in Australia there is an annual Book Week, celebrating reading and books, and practically every school (and daycare centres it turns out) has a Book Week parade where the kids dress up as their favourite book character.  I have fond memories of the costumes I wore when I was kid as my parents were very creative, and as an overly crafty mummy with skills and resources I've been itching to get into the costume thing!

However Anna's favourite book is called "Mutt Dog", about a stray dog that gets kicked out of various places before finding its forever home with a family in the country.  Anna delights in yelling out "go away you mutt dog" at the top of her lungs at the appropriate points in the story, but I couldn't see any costume possibilities in that book! Luckily we've also been reading a beautiful pop up version of Little Red Riding Hood, so she agreed to go as Little Red Riding Hood for her book week parade at her daycare.

I found an easy pattern and tutorial over at Fleeefun.com and using a mystery tube knit that had been in my stash for ages that was both the right shade of a deep red and a soft fluffy feel almost like minky, this is what I came up with:

I lined the hood bit only with a cherry print cotton voile, and used a big red ribbon tie at the neckline.  This was so simple to make, seriously just a few seams and probably an hour's worth of sewing at most.    I had been thinking of making a little gingham apron to wear over a dress to complete the look, and was looking around for a basket for her to carry when Little Miss Three arrived home from daycare the night before the parade and said she now wanted to go as a princess like all the other girls, and she wanted to wear a frilly pink dress I bought from an op shop a while ago.  A discussion about standing out from the crowd, and being a leader not a follower held no sway with a 3 year old who has princess fever, so I pretty annoyed.  Threats of never sewing her anything ever again didn't work (she knew I wouldn't follow through on that one!).

Luckily in the morning before daycare her dad mediated a compromise, and thus Princess Red Riding Hood was created:

Ahhh kids, it's a good thing you love them because they can be ungracious little mites sometimes!