Alice in Wonderland

July 16, 2015

Hi everyone. Today I am taking part in a really fun sewing series hosted by Sara from Made by Sara. It is called Alice in Wonderland and marks the 150th anniversary since the publication of the famous book by Lewis Carroll. Sara has organised a bunch of sewing bloggers to sew something inspired by the magical story. You can read Sara's introduction here.

Wow - so many amazing characters and themes are contained in this story. I really struggled to narrow my idea down. I could include pink flamingoes, rabbits, cats, playing cards, a blue dress....I will admit I am not 100% familiar with the entire story but the themes and characters have been familiar since my childhood and we still have a family photo of me and my little sister dressed up as the mad hatter (me) and Alice. In the end, I was inspired by this gorgeous blue fabric with rabbits on it (A 'buzoku duck' fabric from Spotlight). I have always liked it and thought it would have a nice amount of stiffness to be made into a Sunday picnic dress with some charcoal suiting I had on hand.

I altered the pattern slightly to allow me to successfully use the heart ribbon along the pocket edges. So I squared the edges off and turned the ribbon at the corners. I stitched three vintage blue buttons on using downward arrows inspired by going down the rabbit hole!

One of the themes in Alice in Wonderland is that of Alice becoming smaller and larger throughout the story after drinking a special drink with a 'drink me' tag attached, and also by eating cupcakes (I think) that say, 'eat me'. I wanted to incorporate this somehow in this photoshoot. I found a small bottle and popped some coloured water in it and Emily was very excited!

After following the rabbit down the rabbit hole, Alice found herself in a room with a very small door. The rabbit jumped through, but Alice was too big to fit through the door. She looked longingly through the door to the beautiful garden outside and wanted to follow the rabbit.

She turned her head and saw a small bottle on the table. The bottle said, 'drink me'....Alice pondered the bottle.

She did what the bottle said and drank the coloured drink...

Alice was delighted to find herself outside in the beautiful garden. (She would not let go of her little bottle though!)

Sara has organised a great pattern giveaway too. Two winners will receive seven patterns each. Enter below if you like!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you so much for having me Sara! - this is a very inspiring theme and I really enjoyed creating my outfit and am enjoying seeing what other bloggers have made.