Running With Scissors

art & craft

Gifts: Boys Car Seat Blanket and Nic Cage Tees

1:21 PM

Pattern Testers Animal Costumes

6:39 PM

Costume

Mean Pumpkin Costume

12:18 AM

This was my last year to have total control over what my son is for Halloween.

He's 3 1/2 and I thought it was reasonable to maintain my Halloween costume supremacy.

But for weeks, he's been telling people he's going to be a pumpkin for Halloween.

Talk about my heart sinking once it became the consistent answer. A lame pumpkin?

I had already started planning his costume when my husband pointed out he's old enough to know what he wants to be for Halloween, and he's really planning on being a pumpkin.

So what did I do?

Rather than crush his little lame pumpkin dream, I compromised by making him 2 costumes.

My original costume idea will be the true costume in my mind, and he can continue telling everyone he's being a pumpkin. In his defense, he did always add that he's going to be a MEAN pumpkin, so not completely lame.

Here's what it means to be a mean pumpkin:

So last week JoAnns had all their crushed panne velvet solids for only $2.50/yd and he picked out some "fuzzy orange" for his costume. The panne velvet has a cool texture and stretches quite a bit.

We drew some mean faces for it and he decided his favorite was "moon eyes" with the "scary smile". To make it a little more interesting than an orange tank top, I added the vertical casings and stuffed them with polyfil batting to make it look more like an actual pumpkin.

Basics on making it:

{I actually started a tutorial, but stopped taking photos half way sure that it wouldn't turn out. But it kind of turned out in the end so maybe I should have kept going}

But basically I used one of his shirts to get the basic pattern for the tank top and made it 5" longer than a regular shirt.

1. Cut front and back from orange fabric and lining.

2. Sew pumpkin black face pieces on orange front piece. {I used black swimwear scraps so they could stretch and wont's fray, fleece would be good too.}

3. Sew right sides together at shoulder seams for orange and lining.

4. Place lining to orange right sides together and sew around neck hole {make sure it's big enough for head, I had an additional cut down for a button loop}

5. Push the lining through the neck hole so the costume is right side out with finished neck seam. Fold raw edges under and sew lining to orange for arm holes.

6. Sew vertical seams from top to bottom on front of costume. Repeat with back.

7. Right sides together, sew the side seams.

8. Stuff the vertical casings with batting.

9. Fold the bottom under and hem.

Obviously this was just a quick project to give him what he wanted so I feel less guilty about forcing my Halloween plans on my kids. And I do hope he likes what I have in mind. It's not an exciting costume from the perspective of a 3 year old, but when he's 30 I think he'll look back and love it. Maybe not. I don't know. But it's going to rock my little Halloween world.

He has reminded me a few times he still needs a "green handle hat"...stem hat is on the back burner for now but we still have a few weeks before Halloween.

I think the mean pumpkin will go trick or treating, and the neighborhood usually does a parking lot trick or treat event that I'll have him wear "my" costume for....because my plan is a whole family costume event this year. Even my husband has his role and I already paid 10 bucks for his waist length black wig so he better participate even though he hates dressing up.

baby

Baby Boarding School Dress

9:55 PM

I made my little baby girl a new dress for fall.

The look reminded me of The Little Princess film and the little girl's boarding school uniform dresses, but obviously more modern.

I chose to keep the dress monochromatic to try to further spotlight the contrasting buttons and let the details of the design be the focus rather than a fabric print.

Actually, this is made out of a gray microfiber sheet I bought on clearance during back to school sales.

I wanted to design a dress unique from the usual baby dresses, mainly the skirt sitting on the true waist rather than the typical empire (skirt starts between armpits and waist). Rather than gathering the skirt, I put inverted pleats across the front and back.

The neckline was inspired by Sugar City's Village Frock.

The gathered neckline is only on the front, and I used a facing/ lining to take care of the raw edges without having to top-stitch anywhere. My elastic around the buttons is too thick, but I had dyed white elastic months ago, and it was the thinnest gray elastic I had.

I had designed the dress to have the buttons function to get the dress on and off, but it ended up fitting Ellaria well according to the measurements I took, but I forgot how babies heads are large in proportion to the rest of their body. The first fitting I did manage to get it on her head, but in the end it was too close for comfort. So I ended up hand sewing the whole button placket shut, so they're all faux buttons.

I just put a zipper in the back so it can open down to the waist to get her in and out more easily.

She's just got a big noggin!

So here's the whole dress thanks to Dad holding her hand.

It's a challenge to find mustard baby tights.

So I just bought a white pair of cotton tights (they were more expensive, $3.00 for one pair but they are thicker than nylon).

I used Rit dye, in a new color called Golden Yellow which is more of a mustard compared to the other more Lemon yellow. Because the tights were the natural fiber cotton, they took the dye really well. These were in the dye bath 10 minutes. I am loving the versatility of using dye to get what I want lately!

I don't think she cares one way or the other.