My Halloween Horror Story

Hello all!  Happy Halloween to you, especially if you have your costume ready to go (bonus points if you're already wearing it).

I have a tale to tell you.  My favorite 6 and 4 year olds are coming to stay with me this weekend (and their mom).  They're my nieces and I'm especially excited that they'll be here instead of me driving there.  These particular nieces are particularly spoiled, especially by me.  I make their costumes for halloween each year.  And I let them choose what they want, so they tell me all year long what they want to be.  

I enjoy it, but we all know I have this laziness thing that I also enjoy.  So putting these two things together- costumes with a deadline and laziness- never turns out well (only for me tho!).  I thought I would share with you my awesome phone pics of their costumes from the last couple years as I proceed to procrastinate longer on finishing those costumes.  Oh, didn't I tell you?  It's Halloween and my nieces will be here in under 7 hours and their costumes are not finished.  In fact (might be TMI here) I just started them last night.  Yeah, I've had 3 hours of sleep.  Here's to hoping my current Halloween Horror doesn't end up full of blood and gore and stained/ruined costumes!  But on with the cuteness...

This cutie is my older niece who was sooooo into "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" two years ago that she wanted to be a pirate.  I painted the fabric for those pants myself cause I couldn't find anything I liked for pirate pants.  She was truly adorable (and still is).

This cherub is my younger niece who was soooo into princesses...  Wait, she never outgrew that, she's still soooo into princesses.  Anyway, with her older sis being a pirate, she had to keep up but also beat the game.  She wanted to be a princess pirate.  You guys, I had (have) no idea what the heck a princess pirate is!  I totally just made a costume full of pink but hopefully a little edgy-ish (for a toddler) and piratey.  

This is last year.  They were both super heros, but little niece had to up the ante again because she was not only a super hero, she was also a princess (again).  Ladies (and gentlemen?) I present to you The Flash and She-Ra!  

They're definitely off to save the world here, pretty sure that's why we're all still alive.  I mean, who could live without this kind of cuteness in their life?

THIS year, they've actually chosen completely unrelated costumes, which kind of makes me sad.  At first they wanted to be Elsa and Olaf from "Frozen" but let's be real- who wants to sew an Olaf costume?  I tried to be as non-encouraging as possible while encouraging the older niece to choose whoever she wanted to be (I rock this auntie stuff, right?).  Then they wanted to be Princess Peach and Mario from the Nintendo game Mario Bros.  I was all for that- how awesome are my nieces?  But alas, their final unrelated choices are Elsa for the younger and Captain America for the older.  Not complaining or anything but Elsa...

Yeah, every other little girl out there is going to be Elsa too.  Haha!  At least my niece's Elsa will be different than every other Elsa.  I mean, who doesn't take creative liberties when sewing children's costumes?  Or is that just my laziness speaking...?

What do you guys have planned for Halloween?  Any fun costumes?  And are they handmade or store-bought?

Playing Dress Up

At the end of July an event happened around here that a lot of people went to.  My roommate was one of those people, her brother flew out here to be one of those people too.  Me?  I continued on with my life, blissfully ignoring this event and not seeing my roomie while it happened.  Anyone ever hear of Comic-Con?

While my roommate was trying to figure out her costume, she kept trying to find things that she could do with stuff she already had.  She was going to go as a female grey Gandolf, wearing a grey sweater dress, grey tights, grey boots and  buy a grey robe and hat.  I told her that was boring.  So she next thought to go as a character in a TV show she watches who only dresses in regular clothes- no one would even guess she had dressed up.  I finally stretched my imagination really far in an attempt to understand this nerdy event (I'm a geek, not a nerd, so sometimes it's hard to relate- hehe) and suggested she go as a character in this really nerdy TV show that all my nerdy friends watch (and the watching of this show is what makes me lovingly call them nerds)- Dr. Who.  

She went as River Song from Dr. Who.  River Song is apparently Dr. Who's wife but from what I understand, it doesn't seem like they always both know they're married and she tries to kill him multiple times and spends her days in jail but not her nights and was kidnapped as a baby and whatever...  That's the best explanation you'll get from me.  Apparently there's this outfit/dress that River Song wears in a series of episodes and so I thought it'd be easy to recreate it...  Until I started looking at details.  

It wasn't so hard to sew up, it was adjusting and readjusting the pattern over and over that was irritating.  It's a sleeveless shift dress with an exposed zipper and an uneven hem.  Right below the zipper the skirt is attached in a curved shape and made of multiple pieces then somehow gathered at the bottom with what looks like bungi-cord...?

I did my best-ish (as shown by my laziness in not taking out the zipper basting stitches).  We found a pattern that had a similar silhouette for the shift dress part and I went to town modifying it and hacking it up and taping paper onto it to make new shapes.

I only made one muslin and found that it was too tight in the hips when she tried it on.  I spent a few more hours modifying the pattern again and added just a smidge more than needed in the hips cuz I wasn't making another muslin.  I figured I'd just take it in a little if needed.  

Instead of doing a curved seam to attach the skirt, I did two angled lines meeting in the middle.  I was quite proud of my matching skills, even if my roomie didn't really notice or care.  It's the little details, right?

I had made a skirt similar to a handkerchief skirt to get the uneven hem, but the roomie wanted "pick-ups" (I call them bunchy things- hehe). Having already spent three days pattern adjusting, muslin-ing and making her dress, I wasn't going to do hand sewing too. I told her she was welcome to make them herself and I'd even provide the thread and needle.  

So she did.  She made her own "pick-ups" and didn't even complain about it.  She really is quite lovely to live with (she even does my dishes!)

I laughed when I saw how she made them tho.  No needle and thread required I suppose.  She was quite appreciative of her costume.  She also spilled super glue on it before she got out the door wearing it.  That has yet to come out- any tips for getting super glue out of fabric?

These are the nails she did for her costume.  She  is amazing at painting nails and I thought this was pretty cool.  There's an exploding Tardis in there (I guess that's a Dr. Who time travel thingy).  The nails are based off a Van Gogh episode of Dr. Who where Van Gogh actually paints an exploding Tardis- or so I've been told (haven't actually seen it).  Unlike last time I made a dress for someone else (the maternity bridesmaid dress) this was not nearly as painful to make or as time consuming.  It's interesting sewing for other adults and not just other adults' children.  Who knows if there will be more (adult) selfless sewing in my future?