Even though we're homeschoolers, we still participate in our own way in Read Across America, which is a public school thing where they read Dr. Seuss books and do Dr. Seuss activities for a day. It's to encourage kids to read. We take an entire week of reading loads of books ... which, to be totally honest, is nothing new or different for us. But it's an excuse to set aside "boring" things like math and writing, and just read the whole week for school. This year, we added going to 3 different libraries in surrounding communities rather than our own. Aaaaaand ... we have Dr. Seuss clothes now!
This started as an accident. I was trying to order flannel for a baby blanket, and when the green character print arrived, it was not flannel. Just regular cotton. So I figured I'd make some fun skirts with it, and ordered the stripes and the spots. The stripes are actually from the Dr. Seuss line as well - I don't know if you can tell from the top picture, but the stripes are not clean, straight lines. They're a little bit squiggly. The red criss-cross on the top 2 skirts was something I had bought for another project that also worked with this. I got the Seuss fabric from fabric.com - it's the Celebrate Seuss collection from Robert Kaufman.
The 4 older girls all have tiered skirts - I used the directions in this old post from Craftiness Is Not Optional. SM and JE (#1 and #3) have their middle level wider than the top and bottom, and pockets. RG (#2) has no top yoke, just a ruffle around the bottom. She also wanted pockets. SM's pockets were from the dress pattern I made for the baby, but the other 2 just had squares cut and added. TA (#4) has the closest to the original tutorial with her tiers all even, or at least as even as I could get them. The seam allowances still throw me off a little bit, but I am going to declare the tiered skirt mastered and move on to something else. There are a billion and one skirt ideas out there. I need to not get so stuck on doing the same thing over and over ... even though if you want to use multiple fabrics, tiers are useful for that.
And the baby, down at the bottom, got the Oliver + S ice cream dress. It's my second pattern to use from them. The top cuff on the pockets threw me off a little bit while reading the directions, but once I got over the bump, they came together perfectly and the dress looks great. (The dress also fits TA perfectly as a tunic shirt, so I don't have to trace off another size to make her a top. Yay!)
Happy reading! Our favorite Dr. Seuss books are Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? and The Cat in the Hat. Our favorite Dr. Seuss movie is The Lorax.
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