I am so excited to share my
first week for Project Run and Play with all of you! The theme was Willy Wonka, and while I'm personally not a fan of Willy Wonka, I recognized that it was a 'classic' and there was a lot of inspiration available to sew from. And boy was I inspired! I ended up sewing a total of 14 pieces in five days to complete this whole theme of Willy Wonka Academy. I really loved the six main characters and wanted to design around them, but I didn't want them to be costume-y, even though I was more than comfortable designing that way; I wanted them to be something my little models would wear for more than a photoshoot and I wanted them to be cohesive so I came up with the fun idea for school uniforms with a twist!
I really went crazy here and used SO many different materials to create these looks: cotton wovens, tulle, ponte knit, stretch velvet, french terry, chambray, scuba, mvc, satin ribbon, and what felt like a million buttons! Since I co-own CKC Patterns and we have 1500 patterns to choose from it was a challenge to pick out patterns because every time I found one that I felt embodied that characters style, I would find something else that I loved just as much. I'm pretty sure the hardest part of this whole competition will be settling on a style and finalizing details because I'm way too indecisive!
Let's break down the looks. For Willy Wonka, I went classic school girl look. I used
CKC Stormy's and
ponte knit in solid khaki from So Sew English Fabrics (SSE) for the skirt. For the button up shirt I used
CKC Theodora's and a
beautiful floral I found on Etsy. The giant bow tie was a modified
CKC Emmett's from a fabric from my stash. Finally for the blazer I used
CKC Roxie's in a
purple stretch velvet from SSE. Once I gave her a yard stick for his cane and a giant brown bow for his top hat, since no one wears a top hat to school anymore, her look was complete!
In the original, which is what I based all of my characters from because you don't mess with a classic, Augustus Gloop is much more formal looking than the other children and actually already looks like he's wearing a school uniform. What child wants to look like they are wearing a school uniform though? Instead I used some gray denim looking chambray from my personal stash and used
CKC Rizzo's to made some cute retro-looking shorts. I paired them with
CKC Talia's because it has a tie collar that I really loved the look of. Instead of making another blazer, I chose
CKC Bebe's and made a sassy little vest to complete the look.
For Violet Beauregarde in the movie she wears a pant suit looking outfit but I really wanted to make a dress instead. I finally settled on
CKC Peggy's; I used
navy mvc for the main body and skirt, a beautiful
navy embossed velvet for the collar and peplum, and added a
ruby crepe scuba belt and gold buttons as finishing touches!
Mike Teavee was the most difficult because how can you make a cowboy outfit look like a
school uniform? I somehow found the perfect
plaid fabric from Spoonflower though and the dress just fell into place from there. I chose to use
CKC Mallory's for the dress and I think the model's pink cowboy boots really solidified the overall look I was going for!
Finally, I have Veruca Salt which is another two-piece set. I decided I wanted to make a knit jumper and pair it with a collared top. I wanted to use
CKC Journey's for the jumper, but I wanted to make it out of the cute
ruby crepe scuba that I had in my stash so I printed out the Journey's bodice and printed out the
CKC Kimber's bodice and traced the front and back bodice lines from the Journey's bodice onto the Kimber's bodice, then I sewed Kimber's following the pattern's directions. I used
CKC Sparrow's for the collared shirt and I embellished it with buttons and a satin ribbon bow. I think her little golden egg backpack really finished off this look!
Thank you SO much for stopping by to read all about my first week of Project Run & Play! Make sure you head on over to the blog here and check out all the awesome designs for week 1 and vote for your favorite <3
Happy Sewing!
Shannon
