It was World book day on 1st March. The kids in the UK celebrate by dressing up as their favourite book characters. And every year, the night before, I get asked to make wonderful and fantastic costumes. I never pull it off in an evening, I never have the material, nor the right patterns. So this year, I started early after a suggestion by a friend.

The Alice in Wonderland costume became reality!



The Spinny Mini dress, with it's cute puff sleeves, pointed collar and full skirt seemed the perfect base. I'd also already adjusted the pattern back to fit my daughter, so there was no messing around creating adjustments.



Then came the apron. In the pictures of the old Disney Alice in Wonderland film, Alice wears a white apron over her blue dress. It has a small rectangular apron, with almost a full bodice section with cap sleeves jutting out over the puff sleeves of her dress. It ties at the back waist with a big impressive bow. But in true cartoon style, there are no fastenings for the top of the dress, nor for the top of the apron.



The top front half of the apron looks almost exactly like the top half of the Pretty Pinnie pattern, with the cap sleeves and rounded neck. But I didn't want a full skirt. So the bottom half of the apron comes from the apron part of the Petit Four pattern. Unlike cartoon films, my pinafore needed to have some sort of strap on the back to keep it staying up! I used the cross straps from the A La Heart pattern, and sewed them in to the waist ties of the apron. You can find a full tutorial for the making of this apron on my guest blog for Duchess and Hare.



In the cartoon, Alice also appears to have a big petticoat and bloomers on. Her skirts are below knee length, and the bloomers have a cute ruffle at the bottom, also below the knee.



I hashed up a petticoat using a lengthened Give Peace a Chance skirt, with extra ruffles of fabric along the rectangular band, and an extra ruffle of dress net sewn on just under the waistband.



The bloomers were made using the Spinny Mini bloomers pattern, again, lengthened to below knee length. I sewed a strip of bias about 2" above the hemline and threaded elastic through this to create the ruffle at the end.



Of course, if you make an Alice outfit, you have to have a little tea-party!



Sadly, due to some very unusual, very cold snow we had, our World Book Day event was cancelled. She didn't get to wear her outfit. Here's hoping that she will sometime soon!



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*Disclaimer: Some of the links in the post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission (the price stays the same for you) which will help me in the future to buy more patterns to share them with you!*