Everyone loves the Gruffalo story. My youngest is no exception. Very helpfully, the Gruffalo, we have a ready written list of requirements.
But before we can add features from the list, we need a base to attach them to. We searched high and low for brown tracksuit, or even t-shirt and trousers. It seemed impossible. The only ones i found were way too dark. No one wants a brown tracksuit, right. So I bought a light grey colour top and bottoms, as close a match in colour to each other as I could get, and a pot of washing machine clothes dye. Why spend ages using hand dye when the washing machine will do it for you? Not knowing how it would turn out, it was a bit of a risk, but I had no other option. With book day fast approaching and a very strong minded little girl that had told everyone she was going as the Gruffalo. No pressure then!
AI needn’t have worried. The machine dye worked amazingly. I couldn’t believe how well the dye had taken to the tracksuit, and how perfect the colour was. If you’re thinking of using dye, make sure your cotton content is about about 70 or 80%. Dye wont take to manmade fibres, so anything less will give you patchy results at best.
Ok. So base tracksuit sorted. Now for the features:
“He has terrible tusks and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws.”
“He has knobbly knees and turned out toes and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose.”
“His eyes are orange, his tongue is black; He has purple prickles all over his back.”
I managed to achieve all of these with a bit of felt. I stitched them onto the tracksuit in the right places, but you could use fabric glue instead if you wanted to. Fabric glue should last for world book day, but might not survive that many washes. Stitching will last much longer. My daughter is considering whether to reuse the Gruffalo outfit (which i made for her last year) for this years book day.
The mouse I crocheted. Obviously not essential, but a finishing touch which my daughter adored!
Beading Brilliant 