back in the saddle again

it seemed like i hadn't touched any of my machines in forever - probably because i hadn't sewn anything up in a few weeks.  i have a giant stash of fabric and an endless supply of fun patterns to sew up, so i don't really have any excuses.  and a lot of that fabric is sweater knit and other cooler weather material, so now's a great time for me to dive back into my favorite hobby.

what actually brought me back to the sewing room was the need to make something for the bean to wear for her school's annual fund gala.  she chose show choir for one of her electives (glee 4 lyfe, people!), and they're always a big part of the entertainment during that evening of fundraising.  the choir director had requested that everyone wear jewel tones, which is a nice departure from the all-black attire that she'd worn for choir performances over the last few years.

i'd been holding onto a pattern for a dress i'd thought was really cute for quite a long time, and i thought that maybe if i chose a stretch velvet to work with, it would be perfect for the occasion.  it was a relatively easy project even though it involved sewing in a collar, which isn't something i'm very experienced in.  it came together quickly, but when i looked at the finished product i knew immediately that i didn't love it.

i still think it's a cute pattern in general, but the velvet is just too thick and heavy for it.  it doesn't look right, and didn't fit her right when i had her try it on.  kind of a bummer, but i'll put it in the "donate" pile and hopefully someone will like it enough to wear it.  gah!

and then it turned out that the bean didn't particularly like the design of the dress anyway.  i have to remember that she's not the little girl who i can just dress however i want to anymore.  and so i asked her to give me some ideas of what she was comfortable wearing.  at first she asked for a maxi dress, but after she showed me the choreography for the songs they're performing i talked her into going a little shorter so she wouldn't trip on the fabric at her feet.  she said she liked ruffly sleeves and a simple neckline, and then i realized that what she was describing was pretty much the same dress i'd made for her to wear to cheer "prom" this past spring.

so i headed to joann's, found some more stretch velvet that was lighter weight and closer to the color she wanted to wear, and busted this out in one afternoon:

because the choir director asked for pictures of what everyone was planning to wear, i sent that one to her for her approval.  she responded pretty quickly, adding "do you do costumes too?"  uh-oh.  heh.

today is "decade day" at her school, so the kids got a free dress day as long as they wore a themed outfit.  last year she went 90s grunge with a nirvana tee, flannel shirt, jeans and docs and this year she requested a poodle skirt.  i put my embroidery machine to work and sent her to school like this:

you can't see it, but i made her a matching hair tie, too.

speaking of dressing up, last night's cheer practice was "tourist" themed.  after going through a pile of t-shirts and pulling out a fanny pack and finding an old disposable camera, she went dressed as a disneyland tourist.

while i was at it, i decided to make myself a new top using some of the super soft waffle knit i bought for the season.  i made myself a cardigan out of some mustard waffle knit last week, but somehow i haven't managed to snap a picture of it yet.  the hub called it my "mr. rogers" sweater when he saw it, but i was super proud of myself when i told him i'd made it and he said he thought it'd come out of a stitch fix box.  anyway, this top is super comfy and got me over my fear of sewing buttons (which, as it turns out, is incredibly quick and easy on my sewing machine).

i'm on a roll again, people!  now i want to sew up ALL THE THINGS.

when it's just not enough for a whole post

it's random photo dump time again!

with our long-awaited jonas brothers concert coming up, the old lady and her OG BFF and i made a quick impromptu trip to the grammy museum one weekday morning.  the bros had a pop-up shop there offering a few pieces of exclusive merchandise, and we were hoping to pick up something to wear to the show.  we timed it just right and hit no traffic on the way there, and since it was a random day and time there was practically no one else there.

there really wasn't a ton of stuff available, but we had fun looking through it and the other music-themed merchandise for sale.  we all found something to take home, of course.

and outside, i found this plaque dedicated to one of my all-time favorite bands (who are getting ready to make a comeback too, a la the jobros).

the bean's cheer team has been doing themed practices lately, just to make things extra fun.  this is what she wore to hippie day:

and then there was "frat boy" day...a little strange, i thought, but we went with it.

she decided she wanted to DIY her halloween costume (which was a surprise to me anyway, since she'd been saying for weeks that she didn't really want to "do" halloween this year).  can you guess what she was going for?

speaking of halloween costumes, i ordered this for teddy...a teddy bear, of course.  and he hated it so much, he wouldn't stand up while he had it on and kept keeling over to one side.  the look on his face here totally says "i'm gonna kill you in your sleep, lady."

i met up with my co-leader for a fun lunch at red lobster one afternoon.  she's the only person who likes that place like i do, and we had a great time chatting and catching up while cracking open our snow crab legs.

for fun family dinner one night, we piled into the truck and headed out to downtown l.a.'s grand central market.  there i discovered that burrata bowls are a thing - creamy burrata served with thinly sliced prosciutto, cherry tomatoes, mixed greens and farro drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  SO good.

the bean decided to order hers in a sandwich.

and then we headed over to little damage for some black ice cream treats.

lastly, with the ILs still in town the hub and i had a rare date night.  after a little back-and-forth about where to go, we somehow ended up at the disneyland hotel.  i'd managed to score us a last-minute reservation at steakhouse 55, and we decided to hang out at trader sam's for some pre-dinner drinks.

he even treated me to a super cute new tiki mug, an exclusive haunted mansion 50th anniversary piece.  isn't it cute?

our actual dinner was pretty good.  our server was an older filipino lady who was sweet and friendly, and we enjoyed our meal from the boudin sourdough bread to the wedge salad to the ribeye and prime rib.

and that concludes this week's version of random photo dump.

sewing skills to the rescue

so an email yesterday afternoon tells me that it's red ribbon week, giving the kids at school a free dress day as long as they wear red.  yesterday. afternoon.  and then we proceed with the rest of our day, homework and dinner and bedtime routines and such, and i promptly forget all about it.

until my alarm goes off at 6:30 this morning and i realize, SHIT.  the bean doesn't have anything red to wear.  and i don't have anything in my closet that i can lend her (because yes, she and i are already at the we-can-share-clothes-and-shoes stage, holy crap).  but then i think, well, i have over an hour till we have to be out the door.  and so i hightail it over to my fabric stash to see what i can find.

of course, i don't have much.  there's a scrap of solid red that i can already tell isn't nearly enough to fashion a top out of, let alone a dress.  i have some red plaid that i picked up with christmas in mind.  and a huge piece of some other sort of material that has zero stretch to it, which i'm totally going to have to go back to at some point to figure out what it's for or why i even bought it.

and then i lay out that scrap of fabric to see exactly how much i've got.  and i pull out one of my favorite quickie patterns, appropriately called the laundry day tee - for those days when it'd be quicker to make a new top than do a load of laundry.  i realize that i've got enough for a full back piece, sleeves and at least the top portion of the front, and so i head back to the stash to see if i have any fun scraps i can use to colorblock that piece.

a full 20 minutes later, i shut off the machine and find the bean halfway through her morning routine. the first thing she asks me is if she has a top to wear with her skirt, and i hold up the shirt i've just finished (well, mostly finished.  i ended up leaving the hem raw because i knew i didn't have time to change thread and stitch it up) and watch her face light up in delight because that scrap i used to colorblock the front features baymax, one of our most favorite characters like ever.

we throw her hair up into a ponytail, add a red bow, and voila:

haha, you can totally tell this was hastily thrown together.  whatever.  she loves it.

oh, and do you remember my costume from a couple of disney halves ago?  my vanellope von schweetz from "wreck it ralph" ensemble?

well...it's found new life as this year's halloween costume.

see, i knew there was a good reason to save all my crap! the hub calls me a hoarder, which i guess i am, but  it comes in handy when you least expect it.

SO THERE.

BOO! there it is

one of my favorite school mama friends hit up last week to see if i could possibly pull off a costume for her daughter...a little something like this:

monster's inc's boo is one of my all-time favorite characters.  she never really says anything intelligible, but she's so cute and i adore that movie.  and after looking at a few online pictures of costumes others have pulled off, i decided i was totally up for the challenge.  after all, it's not like i don't have experience with creating disney-inspire costumes, amirite?

now, a disclaimer - if you have zero interest in sewing or costumes, this is likely going to be a very boring post for you to read.  to be perfectly honest, i'm actually writing it like a tutorial just so i can come back to it should i ever need to do another one of these. i tried to take pictures along the way, but there were times when i got so into the process that i just forgot.  and because i had to put so much actual brain power into putting this thing together, i figure it's probably a good idea to get it down before i forget.  old, remember?

the other costumes i saw involved creating a tube using shiny purple fabric and some sort of batting, creating a small wearable quilt, if you will.  but because i wanted to add sleeves to my version, i decided that the best way to handle it was to use my somewhat intermediate sewing skills to make a pattern, cut out the materials and then think it through really carefully to make sure i didn't jump ahead and do any steps out of order.  i did a quick (really bad) sketch on the back of an envelope, busted out one of the patterns i use to make a simple top for the bean, and got started.  here's the pattern i ended up making:

i decided that in order to make it work, i needed to cut the back into two pieces.  i cut out one piece of the front out of the main (shiny) fabric, one of the fleece batting, and then i decided use some purple blanket-style fleece to line it so that it would be nice and warm.  i pinned them all together and then sewed four lines across the piece to create the "quilt" effect.  then i used the serger to sew the top edge together and keep it all in place.

next, i took the two back pieces and repeated the process, minus serging the top.

instead, i clipped it all together, flipped the order of the layers and serged the outside edge.  then i flipped the main piece out so that everything was in the right order.

all three pieces got clipped together and then sat on the table for awhile as i tried to figure out what my next step was.

that ended up being sewing the shoulders together and inserting the sleeves, just like i normally would do with a top.

this is what it looked like after i flipped everything right side out (but before sewing the sleeves shut and the sides together):

while i was patting myself on the back because it looked fairly decent, i realized something:  this didn't allow any room at all for adding the hood.  and duh, the hood is probably the most important part of this whole ensemble.  BAH.

after throwing a tantrum, complete with banging angry fists onto the table and growling out a few choice words, i decided i was done for the night and walked away.  the next morning, i sucked it up and busted out the scissors to start snipping the serged shoulder seam off.  as much as i hate ripping up a regular seam sewn with a regular machine, trying to remove one done on the serger is a billion times worse.

luckily, i managed to get it done without cutting any holes in the fabric.  see, a good night's sleep really did do me some good.

looking at the hood pieces i'd cut out using my sad little homemade pattern, i realized that they were way too small and weren't going to work at all.  and so i measured the top part of the front piece and cut out a new hood that i thought was much better.

i remembered that i needed to add a collar of sorts to the neckline so that there was something to attach that hood to.  and so i measured out the entire top and cut out the pieces for that:

and while i was at it, i figured it was time to cut out some teeth, too.

after clipping the collar together, i inserted the teeth in between the main fabric and the batting - upside down, so that after it was sewn together and flipped out, the teeth would face the right way.

when i flipped it out i noticed that the teeth kind of flopped around awkwardly, so i added a topstitch to keep them in place.  and voila:

then i sewed the short edges together to make a circle (and yes, i'm fully aware that it wasn't perfectly even.  sue me):

clipped it to the costume, right sides and raw edges together:

and look!  getting so close!!

after sewing the lining pieces of the hood together, i put it next to the costume to see how it would all come together:

i repeated those steps for the hood.  i layered the fabrics together, inserted the teeth, and boo's head magically appeared.

except that of course, the finished hood was too wide at the bottom.  if i sewed it on as is, i was going to end up sewing right over two of the teeth on the collar.  D-OH.  and so i did a little trimming and turning under and fixed that little problem right up.

the altered hood was sewn to the collar (again, with right sides together and raw edges facing up):

come on, you know i had to try it on to see how it was looking.

the sleeves still had raw edges at the hem.  i thought it might be fun to add a piece inside so that boo could put her hands inside, kind of like a glove of sorts.  and so i cut out two pieces like this and sewed them to the inside of the sleeve:

and here's how it looked at that point.

i'd contemplated making a band for the bottom hem and possibly adding some silver "legs" to it, but because i'd screwed up on the hood and had to cut out more pieces, i was out of main fabric.  plus, i was kind of over it by then.  heh.  and so i just trimmed the edges to make them all line up and serged that bad boy up and called it a day.

setting that aside, i took two black pipe cleaners and twisted them together to form the stems for the eyeballs.

using a couple of foam balls we'd found at the dollar store, i colored in some black circles with a sharpie.  looking back, i would've used some fabric paint and a brush, but this was going to have to do.  i poked the stems into the bottom, pulled them back out and then added a little hot glue to the ends so that they (hopefully) wouldn't come out:

and then i twisted the bottom into a little circle and used a good old fashioned needle and thread to hand sew them to the hood.

the last thing was the "hair."  this, too, came straight from the dollar store:

i pulled the mop head off of the stick and used a pair of pliers to snap off the plastic piece that held it into place.

i'd agonized over how to do this - did i want to attach it to the lining before closing up the hood?  or maybe sew the hair to little circles of the main fabric and then sew the circles to the hood?  in the end, i gave up on trying to be innovative and just sewed clusters of the mop to the hood by hand.  it could have probably used more hair than what i put on, but i think it'll be okay.  i added some strips of purple satin ribbon to the back, and the costume was finished at last.

DONE.  are you ready for this jelly?

i got to see her try it on yesterday, and while i was fairly certain that it would fit just fine (having tried it on myself plus getting the bean to give it a shot), i held my breath for a second as i pulled it over her head.  but it was all worth it when i saw the smile on her face...and her mom's, too.

happy halloween, everybody!