When “dressing up” means a Pirate outfit

In my day a Pirate outfit involved an eye patch, a wooden leg, cutlass. And a parrot. One of the highlights of my childhood was watching Peter Pan, where Captain Hook got his comeuppance.

Since the block-busting Pirates of the Caribbean film, and Captain Phillips – which features modern Somali pirates – we have different images in mind. Which was a relief as I had very little time to put an outfit together for Ted to wear to a “Pirate Party”.

Using Jack Sparrow as my inspiration I searched local (well Clitheroe) charity shops for items I could recycle. My haul included:

• 3-year-old girl’s black H&M T-shirt with leg of mutton type sleeves, in black (99p)
• billowing brown ladies skirt from Next (2.99)
• a white Italian unbranded cheesecloth blouse, that was actually quite nice (2.99)
• a necklace with lots of bits of shell attached to it (99p)

I sliced the collar and sleeves away from the white blouse. I reduced the cap on the sleeve,  and elasticated the wrists. I removed the T-shirt sleeves and inserted the new white sleeves and collar. I cut a piece from the brown skirt (lots left for other projects), and sewed on some of the shells I had prised from the necklace. I made a belt from a torn off strip of some stripy blue cotton.

I understand the moustache was applied when Ted was asleep. Our young pirate was not that keen on being photographed this morning.