Play Clothes

I haven't been doing much personal sewing this week, but I have been sewing.  I've been finishing the quilting on some of my guild mate's quilt, which I can't show yet but I can finally show off the play clothes I made for the Lake City Community Theater's production of The Sound Of Music.
The play ended last Sunday and was a wonderful success.  

This was taken during dress rehearsal right after Captain Von Trapp told all the children to get in a straight line.  The material looks really light under the stage lights, but it was really a flowery light blue upholstery fabric. My Thomas is right in the middle.  He played Kurt - I wasn't quite finished with his shorts in this photo.  I still had to hem them up with a cuff. They were done just in time for the first production.  Phew!  The heads in this photo near the children's feet are the live orchestra. Lake City sure knows how to put on a great production!

   Here are four of the girls back stage waiting to go on.  They look fabulous with their smiles.

Check out the nuns in the background too.  Thanks so much to Liesl for this photo!

Can't wait for the next play!

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Halloween Costumes

Wow! What a busy month I have had.  I didn't realize I hadn't sat down at my sewing machine since my last post on October 5th.  I have been busy getting the house ready for guests, doing my schoolwork (I started back to college), playing at the State Fair, and trying to come up with ideas for Halloween costumes. I ended up making two out of the four this year, but very little was done with the sewing machine.

First I made this viking costume for my youngest.  It was made mostly with my crochet hook.  Something I haven't picked up in quite a long time.  I made the beard first - It is a free download from Ravelry. Then I made the hat to go with it.

My son specifically requested I helmet with a broken horn. Luckily I found a perfect one on Ravelry as well.
The pattern had a few errors in it, but if you are good at deciphering those out it is a nice helmet to make.
Finally I draped him in fake fur and he was ready to go.

Every Halloween my husband's work puts on a Halloween party for the kids. It is usually a week before Halloween. This year they did it a little early and I had to have all the costumes done by the 19th.  My second youngest was still undecided as to what he wanted to be the Monday before the event.  Finally I convinced him to be something that I could make really quick:  A Catcus

I found him some green sweat pants and shirt. I really wanted a hoodie, but wasn't able to find one, so I bought an extra shirt, cut it up, and made him a hat to match

Then I sewed on over 200 white pipe cleaners.
I folded them in half and zig zagged them onto the sweat shirt.
Then I added two yellow cactus flowers to finish it up.

I bought my daughter her flapper outfit, and her friend came over to join us for the party.

We always have the kids pose in front of the door before we head into the party.

It was a great night. The kids had a good time playing games and eating party food.

And to top the night off, the viking was one of the costume contest winners!

He got himself a $10 giftcard to Wal-Mart.

Yee Haw!!

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Mr. Mayor

This week I was working on a costume for my oldest son.
He is playing Mr. Mayor in the play Suessical Jr.
   The play is being put on by the Lake City Community Theater.

Dress rehearsals were this after noon and I finished up the last stitch on his bow tie this morning.

My youngest is also in the play.
He plays JoJo.  I didn't have to do much for his costume.
I found some white pants and white shoes and we died them yellow.
The LCCT provided his bow tie.

My daughter is also in it.  She is a Bird Girl.  Her dress was provided too. All I had to do was alter it to fit.  It was a little too big and kept falling off the shoulder.  We also added some extra boas to the back for some "feathers".  I snapped this shot as we headed out the door to play practice.

I stayed to watch the whole show at practice today.  That was my first time seeing the play from beginning to end. All the actors looked great in their costumes.  They have dress rehearsals all week, and tomorrow characters get fitted for microphones.  The play starts Friday June 8th and has a show on Saturday and Sunday.   Both Mr. Mayor and JoJo have a couple solos.  I am very excited. 

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Halloween Costumes

There hasn't been much quilting going on this week. Mainly because it is costume making season! Each year my hubby's work sponsors a Halloween party for all the kids and each year we love going and dressing up. This year my boys went as Edward Scissorhands, Cousin Itt, and a Statue on a Pedestal.  My daughter had a hard time deciding what to be this year but finally decided to dress up as a Cowgirl.

All four together.  Usually I end up making all the costumes, but this year I put the kids to work.  Cousin Itt did most of his costume himself.  I barely had to help at all and I put the other two boys to work cutting and spray painting.  They all had a good time and enjoyed being able to say they helped make their own costumes.

Edward at the Party,  He won one of the prizes for his category.  They gave out prizes for the best three costumes in each age group. His was in the the 6 to 8 group.

All four at the party.

Halloween Costumes

I have been very busy crafting this week, just not with needle and thread.  I spent most my days making these two Lego men. Two of my sons and I saw something similar on the internet and they decided they really wanted to be Lego men for Halloween.  So I told them to bring me a couple of their Lego men and I would give it a try.  My daughter wanted to be a cave woman, and we threw her costume together in the hour before my husband's work Halloween party tonight.  I didn't even use thread for her costume, just tied it around her.  I really wanted to spend more time on hers, but those Lego men took way longer than I anticipated.  4 days of non stop work.  I didn't even clean house or make dinners.  My husband took care of the dinner part, but now I have a really messy house to take care over the weekend.  My youngest son's costume was store bought.  It is the first one I even remember buying as a mater of fact.  I was feeling really bad about that and the fact that I didn't get to make his, but when he said, "This is the best costume I ever had!" and really meant it, then I didn't feel so bad.  The kids all had a good time at the Halloween party and the Lego men sure did get a lot of attention and each Lego man won a $25 gift card for second place in the costume contest.  :)

Happy Halloween

Wahoo!! It's Finally Halloween. I am excited. Probably more so than the kids. I don't usually sew clothes, but once I year I break out the costume patterns and whip up some fun costumes for the kids. It's the only clothing I do like to sew, mainly because it is fun and doesn't have to look perfect. Ever since I discovered quilting over 10 years ago, I have been in love with it and would rather sew a quilt any day over a skirt or shirt or pair of pants. So here is my once a year "clothes" that I have created. I did 8 costumes this year. Four for my children and four for some friends.

These first four are my children. We have a Gnome on a mushroom, A Mummy, a Patchwork turtle, and a Tree. I sure had a good time making all of these. The mummy was probably the easiest. I just cut a ton of 3 inch muslin strips and wrapped them around my son, using safety pins to hold them on. Every year, my husband's work has a Halloween party a couple days before Halloween. At that party they have a costume contest which is split up into different age groups and prizes are awarded for best girl and boy costume in each age group. Each of my kids won for their category! I was very surprised at that and my kids were all super excited to be winners. It was the Mummy's first time ever winning. I was especially happy for him. :)

These four were made for friends. Since they live out of town, I had my daughter, son and neighbor try them on to make sure they would fit and so I could have a photo of them before I mailed them out. The first one is the witch costume I mentioned in a previous post, second is Cousin Itt from the Adam's Family. Then there is Cleopatra. The photo for Cleopatra was more of a first fitting. Later I added some gems and a fancy brooch to the costume, but forgot to take another picture of it before I mailed it out. Last is suppose to be a wolf. The pattern I had was a generic body suit where you add different items to turn it into the animal you want. My neighbor is modeling it and she said it looked more like a cat than a wolf, her mom said it looked more like a mouse... Ah well, It is suppose to be a wolf. There is a nice long gray tail but you can't see it too well in the photo. Also in the photo, I still had to hem the legs. They were quite long, but I wanted to make sure they weren't too short so I started them out long. Better to be too long at first, than too short. :)

Tonight we go out trick-or-treating to show them all off. For some reason I always last longer than the kids. Maybe as they get older, and I get older that might change, We shall see... :) HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!