Native American Costume

This week at school our class had a Native American Day as part of our Road Trip USA theme. We had a fantastic day which included making headdresses, building teepees, learning to sing Native American camp songs and having a Native American banquet. 

Of course it also meant I needed a Native American costume.

We decided to keep our costumes fairly simple - tan coloured top and black trousers would do (we would be outside building teepees for some time - in February!).

I acquired my basic t-shirt from my husband - obviously offering to buy him a new one! I started by cutting the sleeves into strips and pulled each strip to make them more cord like. 

For embellishment I used some recycled fringing (possibly from furniture) that I had picked up at a local recycling centre called SAMS, where school have an account. I hand-stitched the fringing around the bottom and around the neckline - would have been far quicker to do it on the machine though. To finish I found some plastic beads that I hand-sewed onto the fringing. Teemed the top with a leather belt I already had and voilà! 

Take a look at our terrific Totem poles too. We've been making them over the last few weeks in art and they took pride of place in our Native American camp. The banquet was also the pick of foods the children had cooked and tasted over the past few weeks. It included Native American bread, soup, tortillas and cake! Hopefully recipes to follow.