A Little Bit of Culture

Well I have fallen way behind on my blog for a variety of reasons.  One of them being that it is the middle of winter and just keeping on top of the boring things like washing etc while battling the seemingly never-ending rounds of colds seems nearly impossible, let alone blogging.  Also DPs job is going through a lot of changes which is meaning a few changes for the family, including time away for him, which is taking a bit of getting my head around and getting used to.  In amongst all this my crafting has pretty much ground to a halt but life in general never seems to slow down.

A couple of weeks ago Mr A's daycare had a week celebrating all the different cultures represented within the centre.  As a centrepiece of this week was an International Pot-Luck Dinner which Mr A was very excited about.  He came home telling me how he was going to take a "scottish dinner" and wear his kilt :-) This may all sound fine and dandy but said kilt was made for him 2 years ago and he may just have grown a tad since then.  Here is what he looked like when he last wore it.

Hmm he may be ever so slightly bigger than that now :-P  Anyway Gran made him this kilt in his family tartan before we went back to Scotland for his 2nd birthday and she made it as a true childs kilt on a bodice.  In order for him to be able to actually get into it, and for it not to be some kind of mini skirt I had to do some pretty impressive bodice lengthening which isn't too pretty but does the job.
Okay so where are we now.  Dinner, check, (taking haggis, neeps and tatties), Mr A's outfit, check.  "But Mum what will Miss M wear?".  Very good question!!!!!!
I have been wanting to make Miss M a traditional baby dress for some time now and even got out the fabric and pattern to cut it out only to find out that the pattern I had was missing a couple of vital pieces - ARGHHH!  So good old Mum came to the rescue by sending me her, rather vintage, copy of Enid Gilchris'ts "Little Coats and Dresses" book.  This was my first ever attempt at pattern drafting but I was actually surprised at how well it all went, once I had acquired a decent metal ruler with inches on it :-)
And fabric?  Well of course ever wee girl needs a wee tartan dress.  I didn't have any of the family tartan in a suitable fabric so her's is Black Watch.
Long story short I got from this...

...to this....

...in just a few short days with only a few minor headaches and a couple of bad words muttered.

The dinner was a huge success with many people pleasantly surprised to find they liked haggis upon their first tasting of it, Miss M certainly downed hers, and several people said they had wanted to try it for some time.

Here are my two wee kilted kiwis looking a little tired on it upon our return home (I forgot to take the camera to the actual dinner!).