Pirates Ahoy

We went to a party last weekend, all of us, Kate's Godmother's husband's 40th ... you following this? pay attention or I'll make you walk the plank...
Anyway, it was Pirates & Princesses. Mr Fibre-Fairy was going to go as a Princess, but our little Princesses vetoed that as "too embarrassing daddy" so we went with Pirates. in actual fact Kate went as Elizabeth Swann.. she had her eye on a costume in Woolies so we went shopping. My sewing pride was hurt, but honestly.. it was £15, came with a fan & a hat, was not at all badly made and most importantly looked good - I did go & roughly cost up gold satiny stuff in what has to be the cheapest fabric shop south of Birmingham, and it would have cost me probably £20 just for the stuff... and time was short! Then I discovered a £5 woolies card thingy and the deal was sealed! I have to say though that the Jack Sparrow costume was pants.
Back at the sewing machines I made not one, but 4 Darcy-esque piratey shirts, for Ruthy, Charlie and Ben and one for me... oh the flash back caused by wearing a voluminous white cotton 18C style shirt -Where are you now Adam Ant?! For these shirts I drew on my 1980s sewing experince of making such shirts to original 18C instructions thanks to a friend who worked at the V&A... these were a bit simplified (no underarm or collar gussets for speed,)
A few piratical accessories and we were done - ( MrFF slightly bottled out at this point and wore a striped T shirt - but someone had to go into the offy on the way there looking vaguely normal I suppose.
Here are the boys ( no pictures exist of the rest of us... odd that..)