rainbow pride

for the bean's "last day of school" (this is in quotes, because she's going to continue through the summer so as not to confuse the hell out of her), the preschool had a fun hawaiian rainbow party to celebrate.  when they do this kind of stuff, they have the kids dress up in whatever the color of the month is.  like february was red, march was green - you get it. 

but she didn't really have anything "rainbow."  so when i saw this on the calendar, i knew i had to make something for her to wear.  when i was in about the 4th or 5th grade, rainbows were super popular and you weren't cool if you didn't have one of these:

let's just say i wasn't cool.  my kids will be cool, dammit.  so the bean and i took a trip to the fabric store and bought this:

i had a picture in my head of what i wanted to make, and it didn't take a lot of each color.  luckily, joann's will sell you a piece as small as 1/8 of a yard.  i'm sure the lady at the cutting table was bitter to serve me that day.

we went home, i dug out one of the bean's tank tops in her current size, traced it and made a pattern.

i was excited, because this was the first time i'd tried the whole "making a pattern from an existing piece of clothing" thing.  never mind that it was a simple tank top.  baby steps, people.

look at how fun the fabric looked all together!

i cut the top out, made ruffles from each color, and got to work.

it didn't take too long for the top to come together.  and because i wanted the neck and armholes to look nice, i did some non-bias tape to sew around them.  it was kind of a pain in the ass because the knit fabric was a little thick once it was folded over twice, but it worked. 

i was so stinking proud of myself when it was done and the bean was stoked to try it on.  it ended up a teeny-weensy bit too big, but that's okay.

is it totally conceited to say that she had the cutest outfit in the whole damn school?  'cuz she did.