Halloween 2014

So like I said before my little man wanted to be a modern day robin hood. I know I already have shown you how to make his rocking boot covers. For the main part of his costume I have made another Zander's hoodie.

I love the Zander pattern from Everything Your Mama Made. I have made him one before that I loved in the vest version and I knew it could be awesome as a modern day robin hood.

I used a pre-quilted suede for the lining of the jacket and the sleeves and a green houndstooth suiting material for the outer fabric. They both came from JoAnn Fabrics and were pretty reasonably priced.

I decided that if I was making him a costume again it would have to be wearable after Halloween and the Zander definitely fit the bill and all the pattern pieces were already cut out from the last one so it was a breeze to sew up this version.

For the required Robin Hood accessories--I bought a toy bow and arrow set from the Toys R Us and spray painted it brown. Also used some leftover scraps from the boot covers to wrap around the handle of the bow. To make the quiver more realistic I sewed up a straight pocket to slip over the plastic one (see the original red peeking out?) attaching the strap to the top and bottom of the side seam.

Also not shown a small pouch made with the quilted suede and a leather lace draw string for keeping Robin Hood's money in. However, son like mother he spends it(meaning-lost it) faster than a blink of an eye. HaHaHaa!

New and Improved Boot Cover Tutorial

As promised I am back today

 to show you the new boot covers!

Supplies needed: 

Faux leather, eyelet grommets,

 eyelet tool and small hammer, leather lacing.

To make these boot covers for yourself you will need to take a few measurements.

You will need your measurements WEARING  the shoes you intend to cover.

You will need the height, from ankle to just below the knee.

The circumference of the leg just below the knee as well as at the ankle over the shoe.

Add 1 inch to all measurements and then cut in half the

 knee and ankle measurements so that you can cut the cover out on the fold.

Then you must decide how long you want the cuff to come down.

Add your inch to that measurement as well. 

The top of the cuff pattern piece should be identical to the top/knee

measurement. For the bottom of the cuff add an inch or two depending 

on how dramatic you want it to be.

Your two pattern pieces should look similar to the image at the right.

Cut your faux leather cutting the fabric on the fold. I have used some clearanced black upholstery fabric with a soft white backing.

Make small notches a couple of inches up from the bottom.

Fold over the raw edge above the notch and stitch.

Then hem the shortest and the longest side of the cuff.

 Then you must stitch the cuff onto the top of the boot cover. 

Next with right sides together, stitch un-hemmed ankle tabs.

For the next steps you will need 

Follow the instructions on the eyelet tool and put the eyelets on the back 

of the covers taking care to evenly space them. 

Use the leather cord and lace up the back of the boot. 

Voila! You are done!

Is this not exactly what you had in mind?

Check out my 15 minute boot covers here.

Who's ready for Halloween??

I know I am not done yet!

This year my son has decided that he would like to be Robin Hood. I think really he just wanted to carry bow and arrows of course.

 I decided to go with Russel Crow's more modern and rugged Robin Hood

 rather than the cartoon fox version of Robin Hood. 

It would have been easier to make the cartoon version with some green felt. 

However, my little guy would not have something functional to wear later.

I have the Robin Hood jacket done and the boot covers. 

I'll be sharing the new an improved faux leather boot cover tutorial tomorrow. 

until then you can check out my previous felt vesion version HERE. 

My Blogiversary and a Giveaway

Can't believe it's that time again!
I have been blogging for a ((little)) while now and it doesn't really feel like it has been that long.

Looking back through some of my posts I can see how much I've grown as a blogger.
Not really my typing/wording but how much my photographs and sewing has come along.
Let's be real here; I'm not winning a Pulitzer anytime soon.

I thought I would share a few of my favorite and most viewed pages before getting to the giveaway.

Most Viewed

Making a musketeer hat

Followed a close second by my tutorial on
how to make this bag

The Retro Metro Bag

(see those awful photo's I was talking about??)

My favorite things on the blog that I sewed

The whole musketeer ensemble

for Halloween that year.

Something I sewed (and loved) but he only
wore one other time

Greenpoint Cardigan

Now that we've completed our walk down memory lane...

THE GIVEAWAY!!

I am giving away 2 Wishes by Moda charm packs

and 3 spools of my favorite Gutermann threads

in color 20,22 and 102

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Halloween...and Thanksgiving...

Well let's start at the begining I suppose.

The little guy was a viking for Halloween. For him I sewed up some faux fur boot covers and fur vest. It was raining and yucky out so we did not stay out long although he was pretty warm. He even had on a fake red beard and hair under his horned helmet.

Sorry this is the only decent picture I got that night; you can't really see the boot covers or the vest over his coat.  

 

Then I got started on sewing for Christmas...

5 Imke's for the neices/nephew and son.

This is after cutting but before sewing them up, of course, I have already wrapped all of these up. It is the same Imke pattern that I have used in the past but this time with long sleeves and made of fleece.

 

Then I had to pack up the entire sewing dining room for Thanksgiving. We had just over 25 people at our house and everything was fabulous. I tried out a few new recipes and they were really good.

I did my own homemade cranberry sauce which is SO much better than canned. It is also so easy so I don't know why I never tried it before. I also made corn casserole--also YUMM-O!

 

 

 

Okay so then black friday happened which was a little like this:

 

 

No not really...BUT I did go to two different Kohl's and JoAnn Fabrics as well as a few other stores. Yeah, I am that crazy.

 

 

Then back to the sewing.

I made a stinkin' adorable kimono pj set for my nephew, Baby Eric as my son calls him.

 

 

It is from the Amy Butler book.

Little Stitches for Little Ones.

It is actually the outfit on the cover. I made it with some of my JoAnn's $1.99 flannel from Black Friday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I made my neice a coloring book dress for her birthday. It is a reversible dress with a very light purple on the inside because it is her favorite color.

 

 

 

 

Last and not least I made some hanging dish towels.

 I used kleiosbelly pattern. That link takes you right to the PDF.

 I used another Black Friday score to whip these up. The towels themselves are The Big One hand towels from Kohls that I cut it half.

Total cost for each set $1.99 because of stashed fabric usage!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think that I only need to sew up some new PJ's for the little man

 and this mama is done Christmas sewing.

 

What are y'all making up for Christmas??

KCW Days 4-7

Sewing for an hour a day really is not TOO much of a stretch. As long as you don't mind letting the laundry and dishes pile up. Not to mention the threads and scraps on the floor and everywhere else, including the shower?

 

The hard part is trying to blog about it at the same time! So I'm just going to share everything that I got done in the second half of the week in one post.

 

 

Project #4

 

 

Sleepy time robe

From Melly Sews (Free pattern by the way!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marvel character flannel from JoAnn's. It has Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Wolverine.

 

 Yummy donuts:)

 

Project #5

 

Sleeping Bag

Pattern from Crazy Little Projects (Free Tutorial)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both the inner and outer fabrics are also JoAnn's. I was lucky enough to find two coordinating fabrics in the red tag section when they were an additional 50% off! This pattern takes 3 yards of each fabric plus batting.

 



 

 

 

 

Project # 6

 

Fox Mask

Also a free printable pattern from IlliStyle.com

 

 

 

 

I'm sure your all familiar with the "What Did The Fox Say" video by now:

 



 

 

 

Well he is obsessed with it and I knew I had to hunt down a mask template for him!

 

 

 



Project # 7

 

Well he is modeling this with his fox mask but it is a basic vest made with faux fur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made the vest using the same sleepy time robe pattern sans sleeves and removing some of the length. The vest is actually part of his Halloween costume; he is going to be a viking with a great horned helmet.

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Playdough

So today is Little Man's Halloween party and we were in charge of the treat bags for 20 2-3 yr olds!

We put in some random little toys from JoAnn's and I made ghost bags with white lunch bags and black card stock eyes and mouth. I decided that I needed one more homemade thing and decided on pumpkin playdough. I have seen this ALL OVER the place and decided I could adapt  own recipe from my basic 'dough recipe. 

I thought as a last minute Halloween post-I should share it with you!

To make 20 palm-ish sized pumpkins of dough (lol) you need:

2 c. Flour

1 c. Salt

1 tsp. Cinnamon

4 tsp. Cream of Tartar

1 tsp. Allspice

2 c. H20 

2 Tbs. Veggie oil

Yellow and Red food coloring

Directions

 

Mix dry ingredients in a large sauce pan or pot, mix with a whisk  until well blended.

Add wet ingredients and mix until blended. I used 28 drops yellow and 12 drops red food coloring.

Put pan on burner over medium heat and with a rubber spatula stir constantly-even if it feels like your arm is about to fall off! It took me about 6 minutes or so for the dough to form a dough. Try not to over cook it (it gets to dry)

Turn out when it cools a little on a clean counter top and kneed until smooth. 

Roll the pumpkin into a log and cut in half, cut that in half, then into fifth's to make 20. Roll into little balls.

I put mine in sandwich baggies tied off with green ribbon "stem" and drew on little pumpkin faces. 

These will keep about a week; if it gets a little to dried out you can dampen your hands and roll again.

My Halloween Costume; A Review of Simplicity 1773

Simplicity 1773

Pattern Description:

Misses' medieval dress in two lengths has square neckline and flared skirt. Under dress A, C has back zipper, long sleeve and ruched or trimmed neckline. Overdress B, D has front lacing and short puffed sleeves. The short version of the over dress has a slit on each side of the skirt portion.

Pattern Sizing:

Sized from 6-22

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it?

I think so!

Were the instructions easy to follow?

Very easy.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?

I did have to tack the overdress to the under dress to my bra. It just wouldn't stay up. I should have muslin-ed it first and decreased the measurement in the square neckline and it would have been fine. However, one of the options is to wear it off the shoulder and it did look cute that way!

Fabric Used:

The under dress is a crepe-backed satin (the same pretty blue that was from Little Man's costume. ) The overdress is a faux suede and lined with kona cotton.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:

None. I did opt to do a regular hem on this dress, I may have done the jagged look if I used taffeta but satin frays like a motha.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?

I probably will not need another one of these. However I have already thought of other ways to wear this costume in the future to recycle it. Like I'll make a drawstring neckline shift type dress to wear under it and a white sleep cap to wear with the over dress. OR wear a LONG wig and be Rapunzel. OR throw on some wings, mask and glitter and be some kind of woodland fairy.

Conclusion:

Very cute costume. It was a little daunting when cutting out all the pattern peices. The overdress has some peices that get cut out 12 times between the lining, interfacing and fabric but it came together relatively quickly even though I hate to iron and only can sew a little bit at a time. 



In other news Oh My Goodness the rain is REALLY coming down here in Pennsylvania. Thank you Sandy lol

Is anyone else in my situation? What did you buy/get to prepare? 
I got pop-tarts, PB crackers, water and canned ravioli. . .Sad, I know. Luckily I already have some stuff at home. Until you actually TRY to find things that do not need refrigerated/cooked you do not know how hard it is to find. I'm sure ravioli will be gross room temp but it's better than being hungry haha

(In my defense the stores were already sold out of camp cook stove's and the liquor store was closed) 

The Final Reveal

 

Little guy is being a musketeer for Halloween but he normally will tell you he is being Puss is Boots. (Except of course today, when he decides he is being a fire fighter.)

I have posted all my parts of his costume but here are the pictures again.

The pattern I used is McCall's 5214 and I cut a size 3 for him.

Okay, Okay, Okay! Enough stalling HERE it is ALL together!



15 Minute Boot Covers

Today I am going to share with you my son's boot covers for his halloween costume.

No Lie, they took 15 minutes!

I was literally laughing out loud when taking theses pictures. This is the first time I had let him touch his sword and he was TOTALLY in to it.

Any how on to the tutorial!

I measured my little guys leg from his ankle to his knee and it was 9". I took that measurement and then did the ankle part 9" across and the top (knee) 12" across. I used the left over felt from his musketeer hat.

                                                                                             



                                                                         Your felt peices should look *something* like this. I have a tall 2 yr old that is pretty thin and these measurements fit him. His upper calf is 9" if that helps you upsize/downsize your pattern.

Next you just stitch up the back right sides together (or the sides you drew on to the outside). I used 1/4" hem allowance because I wanted to be sure that his clothed leg would fit inside.

Next to make the floppy top to the boot...err boot cuff I mean.

I made a trapezoid that is 12" on one side and just 14" on the top. It is 3" tall. It should look like this:

Lucky for me I had *just* enough of the trim left from his tabard to use on these.

To attach the trim I use the zigzag setting (Stitch #4 on Brother CE-4000) on my sewing machine set like this :

                                                         

I think that the trim just adds a little something. It's all in the small details:)

Now, to attach the cuff to the boot shaft. You need to turn the boot shaft right side out and put the cuff inside the boot with the right (trimmed) side of the cuff facing the wrong side of the boot. That way when you flip it out you have no seams showing.

Flip that cuff out, finger press the seam (beacause with felt you can do that and it stays).

That is it!

Unless of course you feel the need to put some elastic from the bottom edge of the boot cover to run under the shoe. I didn't, he was running around in them and they were not riding up. Plus I feel like, what if he's walking and it gets caught on something in the *dark* Halloween night?

Maybe I should discuss proper handling of swords-even if it is fake!