Book Week Costumes - The Rainbow Fish

Each year, as part of a week long celebration of books and reading, my children's school has a dress up day where the students are encouraged to come to school dressed up as a character from their favourite book.  My children have had 3 years of costumes so far and I have had fun making their costumes for them each year.

This year was the first year that my son was participating in the book week celebration as a student.  He selected "The Rainbow Fish" as his favourite book/character so it was time to try to work out a way to make a costume for that theme.  I decided to use a similar style of costume to the one I made for "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and go for a sandwich board idea. 



I made up a basic fish shaped pattern and some fins as well as a shape that looked scale like (thankyou old CDs once again).  Using several different coloured materials I made up scales that were as close to the images from the story as I could get.  Each scale was made using 2 pieces sewn together with the open hem at the top of the scale.  Then I sewed the scales onto one of my fish pattern pieces in rows.  The sequin material played havoc with the needle on my sewing machine because of the thickness and pure bad luck.  I ended up breaking 3 different needles by the time the costume was finished ... oops!

 (A work in progress shot with the scales)

Once the scales were all sewn to the front I created the fins using the pieces I'd cut out and some gold, zig-zagged ribbon.  I used the same ribbon to add detail to the tail of the front piece to the costume too.  A small loop of blue ribbon was placed at the top point of the fins so that the fins could be held out from the body a little bit by slipping one of his fingers into the loop.  The fins were layered over the scales along with the ribbon to form the ties over his shoulders and then I placed down the 2nd side to the piece and sewed it together, leaving the bottom of the tail free so that the piece could be pulled through to the right side.  Special care was necessary here to make sure that I didn't accidentally sew the scales in a way that meant they'd catch as I tried to turn things right side out.  For the back part of the sandwich board I used the basic fish shape (no fins) and made it double sided with the ribbons for ties but didn't worry about scales or other decoration for this part.  A quick hem across the bottom on both parts and the majority of the costume was finished.

(The costume laid out to show both sides)

The hat was constructed using the same method as the hats from "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" costume.  I laid 2 pieces of a light blue felt over each other and sewed an arch around them before trimming the material down to close to the seam and turning the hat right side out.  I then sewed on the lips and eyes that I'd cut out of scraps of felt I had to finish the hat off.  In hind-sight, I probably should have sewn the eyes on before creating the hat shape because sewing them on after the hat was constructed wasn't the easiest thing to do but the lips in particular needed to be sewn on at the end so that they'd go over both sides of the hat.  

(Fish head, both sides were decorated so it didn't matter if it got turned around)

He wore a blue tracksuit underneath the costume with a pair of blue shorts and a blue shirt as an option for as the weather heated up through the day.  He was thrilled with the costume and, as he got out of the car at school, I heard another student recognise his costume as "The Rainbow Fish" which was fantastic to hear.

(My "Rainbow Fish")