March Madness means...Lorax?

 I am sure by now we are all familiar with Lorax.  

The adorable Dr. Suess character and some of us may actually be familiar with the story.  

But I have my own Lorax story to relate...

It begin's with a sweet friend of mine, Cherie. 

Cherie's school is having some "March Madness" days at her school

One of these days involves dressing up as her favorite character....enter the Lorax.

This is where I come into the tale as well....who better to help with a Lorax costume than a friend who sews..and has been known to sew costumes, at that!

Has Cherie sewn before I ask.....

No!

When is this dress up day......I ask with a slight tremor in my voice ( I will admit to this)

Next Week is the reply.....

Oh......is my reply......let's go talk with Mom to talk schedule......

The gist of that discussion is Cherie and I have one afternoon to explore our creativity and teach Cherie how to sew....seriously no problem ( with a little more tremor this time)

The challenge...it must be inexpensive to downright cheap.  It must be a beginning sewing project and it must be accomplished in one afternoon.....

A run to the dreaded Wal-mart  yields an exciting piece of orange flannel at a cut rate price and the drive home solidifies the plan.

I do some of my best problem solving while driving....anyone else?

First thing was first, I had to teach Cherie how to use a sewing machine, my Singer 401 to be exact.

While she practiced sewing on paper and than graduated to seams, I cut out the body of the costume. 

I thought I had a hood pattern, but alas it was not the case,  so while Cherie started sewing the long front and back seams of her costume I drafted a hood pattern.

While I sewed the hood on Cherie cut the yarn for her mustache.

This was the part of the costume Cherie was looking forward to the most....apparently she has a bit of a thing for mustaches....who knew?

Our original plan was to put the eyebrows on the hood...well my original plan was to maybe skip the eyebrows altogether...but "we" decided it must have them, and on the hood simply would not do.

I created a buckrum form using Cherie's glasses for a template, which we then hot glued the yarn to and trimmed in a funky manner.  They are held onto her glasses by 2 clear elastic loops at the outside edges and a tab in the center which wraps around to the back and closes with a small bit of Velcro.

We had so much fun.  Cherie is a quick study and didn't she do a great job?  

This entire costume took us a little over 4 hrs to make and cost $15.00 in materials

It's quick and dirty...no seam finishes...oh my, 

but I think/hope it will be a big hit for her at school.

Cherie tells me her mom is still laughing and so are we:)

Projects like this are a challenge for me because I like to take the long thoughtful approach to my sewing.  I contemplate ways to add a new technique, expand a skill...in general try to create a Haute Couture garment from even the "simplist" project.  It was so much fun though to step out of my routine.

How about you all, do you like these types of fast and furious projects?