I've Been Granted Permission

For the first time in forever, I've felt like blogging!

No big issues, just busy.  I actually have a draft from January that is still unpublished, and still totally relevant...burning the candle at both ends means something's gotta give. 

But for today, I have permission to share a Halloween costume.  

To be honest, Amazon and Ebay were my friends, here for the vest and jacket.

The shirt, because every Marty McFly needs a short-sleeved window-pane check button down, is courtesy the new-ish Oliver + S Buttoned Up Button down.

Pattern: Oliver + S Buttoned-Up Button-Down

Fabric: cotton shirting from Joann's

Notions: buttons, from an embarrassingly large stash

Time to complete: not quite a weekend, minus hayride, errands, life, etc.

I cut shortened the sleeves and omitted the pocket flaps. 

And because it decided to snow a bit last night, we rocked the long underwear, too. 

The star, though, was the vintage 1980's walkman, complete with Huey Lewis and News on cassette. 

What can I say?  Every sewer knows it: hoarding pays off.

So rest assured; we're busy, but we're raising our kids right.

Toy Soldier

 Whew!  

 I'd like to say that I have been sewing; I just haven't been finishing anything. 

 Literally.

  I have a vintage dress that I started in July that needs a hem, a silk blouse that needs a hem, a pair of cordory pants that got to hemming before being declared a wadder, and another pair of pants that need...well, a hem, but also a finished waistband.  

And of course, Halloween trumps all of those.  And hemming, apparently.

Fabric: cotton/nylon ripstop, (purchased on etsy)

Patterns: Oliver + S Fieldtrip Cargos & Oliver + S Sketchbook Shirt

Notions: 3/4" elastic and 1 random button for pants;

 7 buttons for shirt, plus patches from my dad's old uniform

Time to Complete: the ALCS championship and the first 3 games of the World Series

Notes:

First of all, there is probably nothing to say about either of these patterns that hasn't already been said 80 million times.  All I will say is that I sewed a size 5 in both shirt and pants, and while the shirt fits perfectly, the pants are a skoosh big.  But that's okay.  It's called growing room.

A couple of reviews noted that they added to the length in the shirt on the larger sizes, and while I didn't, and it was fine, I would definitely add to the length for my older son.

But the fabric, oh man.

First, I tried ording similar fabric from Fabric.com, but that turned out to be a cluster.

So I turned to esty, where I found the actual military fabric at half the price. (Score!)

The fabric is perfect, but I totally have to give props the army for developing fabric you can't pin.

Seriously.  My fine pins weren't strong enough to go through at an angle, and the cheap-y quilting pins were almost too thick to shove through. 

This stuff is sturdy as heck, and thanks to Elmer's glue sticks, 

my kid was super safe for trick-or-treating. 

 You know, in case of candy explosions or something.

E, after originally deciding he wasn't going trick-or-treating, 

declared pretty early on that he was just going to wear his BMX gear.

So you'd think I could go finish all those other projects now, right? Right.

Except game 5 is on upstairs right now, and I think that trumps hemming, too.

Go, Royals!

Fernando Alonso

So, Fernando Alonso is kind of a big deal in our house.  

A) He's a racecar driver, B) he drives a Ferrari, and c) uh, we like Ferraris.  

Naturally.

So when E outgrew last year's Tony Kanaan costume, and he told me he wanted to be Fernando Alonso this year for Halloween, what's a mom to do other than make that happen?  Should I mention here that his first grade teacher and I had a whole discussion about his plans to be a Formula 1 race car driver when he grows up?  I blame his father.

Earlier this summer at a Rolex race with Dad.

I will pose for exactly one picture, and that's it, Mom. I mean it.

Every driver needs to acknowledge their sponsors.

 Fine, you can take a picture of the back.  But then I'm going in.

The Details:

Pattern: McCall's 6417

Fabric: Red Kona Cotton for suit; leftover white cotton scraps for sleeve stripes and sponsor patches

Notions: 18" zipper from stash, 3/4" wide elastic, iron-on transfer paper

Notes:

First of all, McCall's has this pattern listed as 'easy'.  How do they choose difficulty levels? The cape included in the pattern was probably easy, but this pattern envelope includes a hat, 4 different variations of a zippered jump-suit, a vest, and boot covers. While I didn't find this hard, I definitely wouldn't give it to a beginner, which I find odd, because wouldn't beginner sewers (sewists?) think a costume could be easy?  The way the directions instruct you to put this together, you're putting the zipper in LAST, after sewing everything else together...not easy.  For my second version, I put the front zipper in flat, which was much easier and looked much nicer.

Second, on the sponsor patches, I just googled Fernando's sponsors, and copied and pasted the logos into Microsoft Paint.  I know that's not particularly savvy, but I needed something easy that would invert the picture horizontally.  The writing needs to be mirrored so it will transfer correctly when its ironed on.  I then then ironed it onto scraps, which were then appliqued onto the flat pattern pieces.

  

Waiting for our hot chocolate after the parade.

Finally, heartbreak city: we wore our costumes already to E's school's Haunt the Halls, and again to our town parade on Saturday morning.  After enjoying hot chocolate, I threw everything in the washing machine.  FORESHADOWING ALERT:

The red on the sponsor patches bled.

.

.

.

(whispered expletives deleted)

  

photo source: mingle.kansascity.com

So, although I considered myself finished, I spent last night picking off the worst of the patches, re-printed them on my remaining transfer paper, and reattached new patches in the same spot.  Let me say, it was much easier done when all the pieces were flat.

But he's worth it.  

And with that, I'm done.