I am Issaqueena

The elementary school puts on a Living Wax Museum every year.  You may remember when Jack participated, can it really have been 2 years ago!  The purpose of this little evening is to get the kids involved with learning about South Carolina History.  They assign a famous South Carolinian to each of the 3oo kids in 3rd grade.  Each child is responsible for researching their person and coming up with a brief summery about their South Carolinian.  Once that is complete the children then write and memorize their summery, which is supposed to be 1-3 minutes long.  The children are supposed to come to the Wax museum in character, where they are all given a red sticker to place on their chest or arm.  When the parents come through the wax museum they "push" the button (red sticker) on the child and the child brings that character to life.  It turns out really cute and the kids get very excited, as you can imagine.

This year Emma's famous South Carolinian is Issaqueena.  You can read about her here.  As you can probably surmise from the name, Issaqueena is Native American.  Apparently Emma and I have very different ideas of Native American dress.  Why this surprises me, I have no idea.  Emma requested a dress for her costume.  A little off the shoulder number, tight fitting with lots and lots of beading and fringe. You know, something completely impractical that no Native American would be caught in,  dead or alive.  I tried to stress the "authenticity" of making a poncho and faux deer skin leggings.  She would have none of it. So I accommodated her the best I could.  

Here is our interpretation of Issaqueena.

All in all it turned out pretty nice.  The fabric has a tendency to shred, a factor that annoys Emma severely. It was quick to sew up taking just a little over and hour.  There are no buttons, zippers or hooks  which make Mom a very happy person.  And we did it all with nary a pattern in site.

She has been told that she must wear a cami or tank under the dress. Let me tell you she is not happy about that!  I did allow her to skip the tank for pictures.  This dress has a tendency to slide forward revealing just a little too much skin. She is also most definitely wearing it for Halloween.