4 A League of Their Own Costume

 Ever since we went to last year's 1940s Weekend in Haworth I've been looking forward to going back.  When I was debating what to wear I turned to Google and Pinterest, which led me to the idea of dressing up as a Rockford Peach from A League of Their Own- but the only one I could find for sale seemed to be rather poor quality, so I didn't want to order it.

Obviously this is from the movie, not the crappy knock-off costume.

{via}

Well, y'all... my mom can sew, and so I called her and asked her to make me a costume (and I emailed her some pictures from the movie). She hit the fabric store, I sent her my measurements, and next thing I knew she'd put a box in the mail.  It arrived a mere 5 days later- unheard of!

I tried it on and sent her a quick shot:

I beg you to ignore my wet hair, pasty pale English-sun legs, and messy house... we like blankets. It's cold here.
Also, I clearly need to work on my Photobooth expression... 

She sent it to me unhemmed and needing to be dyed- as well as needing buttons and accessories. This was all so I could decide the color I wanted and hem it after trying it on- for that part you do need an in-person fitting! 

Well. Mom sent me RIT dye in orange and pink. After I looked up the color recipes on RIT's website, I realized I needed beige as well as pink- so I headed into Harrogate and found a sewing shop.

Here in England the common dye brand is Dylon, which is very similar to RIT.

I purchased two beige and one pink.

I went home and tested the dyes-

repeatedly.

These didn't photograph well, but my goal was the bottom left- a nice mix of beige and pink, making as close to peach as I could get (hey, dye companies, how about a nice peach?!).

I proceeded to mix the big bucket of dye.  I poured in the rest of the beige and pink (Dylon) in the bucket. 

I then started to pour in the RIT pink, but I stopped as soon as I saw that it was not light pink- it was BRIGHT!  I poured the entire other beige packet in, but the damage was done.  Even after dumping out half the dye water and adding more plain water to dilute it, the dye was very, very pink. 

Oh, well.

Next step (after buttons and belt loops) was to make the patch for the front.

My mom sent me this circle serged around the edges, but it was a little small for the chest patch.  I'd found this red Puma hat at a sports shop for £5.99, and got Paul to seam-rip out the Puma emblem.  I colored the serged thread red with a Sharpie and drew/wrote the center. I just noticed that the movie costumes have R on their hat patches. Only R.  Oops.

For this patch I cut two circles out of the fabric and sewed embroidery thread around the edges. Tedious, you say? Why yes!  Good thing I was a couple of weeks behind on Revenge...

Then I Sharpied the middle part on.  This patch didn't bleed as badly as the top one, but I'm not sure why.

After buying some football (soccer) socks at a sports shop, putting it all on, safety pinning the belt together (procrastinators unite!), and adding my baseball glove and anachronistic Converse (whatever.), I was set!

If you want some fun, look at my socks.  Yes, they came out of the package that way- one with a black/red band, one with an all red band... weird.  

I'd say the costume, as my punny friend said, "knocked it out of the park!"

I'm planning to re-dye it (PEACH!) and redo the patches (and make the hat one an R...) in all embroidery floss, rather than Sharpie.  Oh, and add a buckle to the belt. 

That said, there's another 1940s day at Valley Gardens in June... I think I've got my outfit!

Come back tomorrow for pictures of our day in Haworth- it was a blast, just like last year!