I DID IT!

I can't believe I pulled this off in time for him to go trick-o-treating.  This isn't even, by far, the completed costume.  I still have about 10 separate pieces of armor to finish and add, not to mention painting the Celtic knots on the pieces. HOWEVER,  It is good enough for the plebes that give out candy.  Most of this was heavily modified from basic patterns and I'm particularly proud of getting the hood to work.  I give you crappy cell phone photos for now and I PROMISE we'll be doing a fun photo-shoot AND I'll give details on how I made it.  But for now I'm just gonna go collapse in bed.

There may have been hot glue and velcro involved.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Red's Revenge

I've already posted this in several places but I'm in the BurdaStyle Halloween Competition that's being hosted by Bernina.  Here's the link to vote for me!   More pictures here. Tell all your friends but please only one vote per person and make sure to look at all the other entries too. There is a lot of talent!

In the interest of full disclosure, the wolf-head is from the werewolf costume a friend of mine made for my son two years ago.  You can find him here.  I call it "recycling".

Halloween - Red Riding Hood

I have to admit that the dress turned out way better than I expected. I also made my daughter get up early on a Saturday to go take photos.  I'm entering it into the BurdaStyle contest, though I don't know how well it will do.  I must say I"m particularly happy with how the back came out.  The apron is vintage and the coat was a gift last year from friends.  The dress though, it was all me. I also made a peter pan style collar out of rabbit fur that just happened to be laying around the house.  I'm just going to let the pictures do the talking.

Exposed lace zipper and inset flower trim.

Oh yeah?

bias binding on the sleeves 

Protecting Grandma's everywhere from the Big Bad Wolf.

Halloween is a "Thing" in My House.

Every year I ask the kids what they want to be. Every year I do my best to cater to their requests and I always bite off more than I can chew.  I stress, growl, and otherwise complain, but the end results and the amazing happy smiles are always worth it.

I  mean seriously,  how many kids do you know get their werewolf costume made by a professional movie props maker. *  And honestly, costuming is what got me into sewing in the first place.

So this year, Felicity wants to be Little Red Riding hood, with a twist.  You see, she's going to use the head of Simon's old werewolf costume as her 'trophy' and carry around a battle ax with blood stains.  Luckily,  hers is the easy one. The only component I have to make is the dress itself.  I intend to give it a bit of a modern edge so maybe she'll wear it to school too.  (heh, pipe dream)

I'll be adding an exposed zipper and the little red heart trim.  We already have a vintage white pinafore and a jacket that looks the part. I'm doing view D, please look past the styling on the patter. UG.

Guess what Simon wants to be? I'll give you a hint.

Oh right, let me just pull that one out of my ass!  That's not going to be difficult at  _all_.  *bugeye* Wouldn't you know, I said yes.  I do have a plan of attack. I'm going to use the pirate pants/poet shirt combo for the base.

I already have a ton of plain white cotton batiste and muslin on hand.  And I have some heavier canvas for the hood and weird tabard thingie.  And red cloth for the sash.  That leaves the leather chaps and bracers.  This is were trusty goodwill and old leather coats will come in handy.  I am NOT doing a ton of ornate details for Halloween.  But I will confess one of the reasons I said yes was so that I could add to it and make it more detailed for D*CON.

As an aside, there have been multiple conversations in my house about how that wrist dagger contraption is actually a very STUPID weapon no matter how cool it looks. So are shuriken.  And no he can't carry around my eight inch Sheffield dagger as part of his weapon.  MAYBE we can borrow a short sword from a friend but he absolutely must be peace bound. And no, Felicity cannot use our roommate's Ax of Oger Slaying.  You know what, let me just end the conversation here and say all weapons carried by those under the age of 14 must be props. Unless of course there's a zombie invasion. Then, by all means, arm yourself and DON'T GET BITTEN!!

Anyway. Maybe doing something completely frivolous and fun like this will get my sewing mojo back in order.  In the meantime, I think some awesome photo shoots will be happening in the near future.

*Lionel is the mad scientist that works in our friends' basement.  I'm not kidding. Have I mentioned I have awesome friends?

Absenteeism and Base Jumping

I know I've been a bit absent of late.  My sewing mojo seems to be in a slump. Though this hasn't stopped me from buying fabric. >.<   In the meantime, please enjoy this video of some crazy guy flying like a squirrel.

Hair Update

I figured I should follow up on the hair post from the other day.  This is what my hair does after its been up in the headband for over a day.  This is after I brushed it into softer curls and then got wet on the way from the house to the car.

I sprayed my hair really well with dry shampoo before taking it down as my hair gets fairly oily fast.
So seriously, for a total of 30 minutes of effort I get two fairly awesome hair days.  I LOVE this method.

I don't think I'll be getting much sewing done over my weekend.  I'm gonna help Dad get materials and build my new cutting table.  And trace out some more patterns and other prep work for streamlined sewing.  And cleaning and rearranging .  Here's hoping the new room is painted and carpeted this weekend.  YAY!

Hair Tips and Other Randomness

Have you heard of Pinterest?  If you haven't you should go check it out. All the cool kids are doing it!  And if you aren't the kind of person to lemming your way over the cliff,  I also found this awesome hair tutorial just poking around.  I've tried it, its AWESOME.  I put my hair up after washing it and wear it out that way.  I always  get "That's so pretty! How did you do that?".  And then I sleep on it and the next day my straight hair has this wonderful old-Hollywood curl. It lasted two days.  I might try doing rag roll curls for up-dos too.

 I think it will be awesome with some of the looks I'm going for in my planned wardrobe sewing. Which so far is mostly just pattern tracing, modifications, and a bit of fabric shopping.  After tracing patterns I've been putting them and the fabric into a gallon size ziplock bag.  I've also made some modifications to my sewing plan from what I posted, but I always seem to do that.  The awesome news being I finally decided what to do with my Liberty of London fabric.

I also decided to try doing rag curls on my daughter.  Her normally somewhat wavy hair turned into a massive head of curls. It was phenomenally easier than trying to use those stupid little foam things. Do you know what I'm talking about? Anywho, pictures!

Before Hair

After Rag Roll Curls.

I mentioned we're in the midst of renovations.  The garage is becoming a bedroom* instead of a storage unit for junk.  We have a shed outback that will hold most everything after we rearrange and get a dumpster to to haul all the other crap off.   And a few modifications to the under-house storage I can have all my garden tools easily accessible.   In the mean time my yard looks like this:

Blerg, but the carpets been hauled off at least.

The garage door is now a wall.  The ceiling is up, most of the insulation put in and its now wired to the breaker box. WOO!  My brother-in-law has done the bulk of the work and mostly I've been keeping him hydrated and fed. The kids are excited they get their own rooms again.  So that's what I've been doing in a nutshell. That and hiding from the world a bit.   Tomorrow night its back to work.  

*As a side note, if you ever wondered how I have time for as much sewing as I do with kids and a job the answer is my roommate.  Since he was never able to find a decent job and we needed a babysitter we worked out a deal.  Free room and board for being the Nanny.  I often get funny looks when I mention that my nanny is a 6'3" hairy Scottish looking man.  But hey, no one messes with my kids.