Delusional? Of Course!

My kids have been telling me for several weeks what they want to be for our church's Fall Fun Fest.  This is an event that can either take the place of Halloween trick-or-treating, or be a candy-filled prelude to the later evening candy-gorge-fest that inevitably takes place each 31st of October.

As a little sidenote, or undernote, or whatever you may want to call it, I don't particularly like Halloween.  I don't have any very well-defined arguments or concise thoughts and intelligent answers to the question that has been posed to me before,"Why don't you like it?"  It's probably a combination of several things.   One is the large quantities of sweets doled out to all the children (which I will then invade and eat half of, thank you for that, all you so-called nice people out there...my bottom does not need your Snickers and bite-sized Hershey bars.  When you eat sixteen of them, they turn into a GIANT-sized Hershey bar which has more calories than a couple of Big Macs in the end.  And my end doesn't need all those calories, I say again.)  (I suppose I don't really have to eat half of their candy, especially all at once, but...well, I...oh, it's my fault, isn't it?  Shoot.)  Did I say this was going to be a little sidenote?  Sorry for misleading you.  I misled myself, if that helps.  I also don't care for all the spooky stuff:  the skeletons and the ghosts and the creepy goblins or zombies or whatever.  I know that it's become this funny sort of parody of scary in many ways, but I also think that it adds to that general sense of desensitization (is that even a word?  Should it be desensitizedness?) that we have in this country to things that we should be more sensitive to.  What a sentence.  Can you make sense of that?  The hardest thing for me to put into words has to do with the spiritual aspect...but, seriously, I feel like I'm going to shake to pieces if I even think about starting to talk about that.  I'm more the "I just feel that way" kind of person...so don't ask me to explain it, please.

Now after I've said all that I'll tell you that our kids went trick-or-treating last year around the neighborhood (for the first time in their lives) with a group of friends that was also at the Fall Fun Fest; I really did not feel like I could say no.  It would have been very awkward.  And, my goodness, did they have a good time with their friends.  This going out afterward has now become a tradition that has been long-anticipated by my two older children.  And they have been thinking for quite a while about what they wanted to dress up as.

Which leads me to the reason I began writing this in the first place.  They told me they wanted to be a cowgirl and a Native American.  (Not both together...Michaela wants to be a cowgirl [I'm sure you never would have figured it out that she wanted to be a cowgirl], and Christian wants to be a Native American.  Which will be so easy to pull off since he has hair the color of the sun's rays.)  I thought to myself,"I can make their costumes!"  Sure, since I sew all the time (in my head) and I have nothing else to do (except thirteen loads of laundry, and clean all twelve rooms in my house thoroughly, and actually make dinner one of these nights). 

(See title of post now.)

We went to the Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft store and I found the perfect fabric and craft supplies (imagine that!) for our venture into this great unknown.  I got out my sewing machine, and started cutting and sewing the next day, which was Thursday-two whole days before the 31st.  This is actually a major deal, since I am quite famous for waiting until later than the last minute to do anything.  Especially time-consuming things.  Things started out well, though.  The girls were home with me, and Michaela was sweet to keep Eliana occupied with The Little Einsteins.  I stitched a "fine seam"...

But if I tell the truth then I'll say the seam was really a hem and actually looked like a drunk bear had gotten a hold of my sewing.  Why a bear?  I don't know.  Why not?  It was the crookedest, wacked out hemline I've ever seen. 

Undaunted, I forged on. 

Then my sewing machine went haywire.  One of the most important parts for threading the needle was nowhere to be seen (I mean it, it's like it fell down into this slot that you are suppoed to slip your thread in and I couldn't figure out how to get it out, or if it ever was out, or if it was broken, or if I had a machine that was different than the one in the picture so no wonder I couldn't follow the directions.  I thought I was in the twilight zone when I was telling Mike my troubles and I turned around and there it was popped up out of the slot!  Talk about creepy.) and the bobbin thread managed to get wrapped around the small metal rod that the bobbin slips onto...how on earth did that happen?  It doesn't even seem possible, yet these are the kinds of things that do indeed happen to me when I attempt a project like this.  It wrapped around that metal rod about sixteen times and then also got mangled, tangled, and stuck in the space in between the bobbin cavity and where the needle goes in and out of that cavity.  It was crazy.  I thought I would cry.  I may have actually shed a tear.

I just wanted to sew a straight line. 

I decided that although theoretically a sewing machine would get the job done faster, in my reality hand-stitching would mean that this job would get done before October, 2015.  So, I set to stitching by hand. 

Talk about a straight line!  What talent (I don't have).  But at least now I was getting somewhere.

Somewhere called the Loony Bin.  But somewhere.

Michaela said to me,"Why are you stiching like that, Mommy?"  I told her it would be faster (I was just taking the needle and thread straight [sort of] across the material).  Later, I began using a backstitch, which is what the kids in Christian's class are using for their quilt squares, and she said,"Now are you going to use a real stitch?"

The first thing I worked on was a vest for Michaela...I hadn't seen any while out and about, and I think that even if I had I wouldn't have wanted to buy the plastic ones, or the ones that were fake leather and cost $30.  I didn't have a pattern, but just made it up as I went along (this might go a long way to explain my crooked sewing...).  I think it turned out all right when it was done, and she was very happy with it. 

I'm glad she is so easy to please.  I would like to do something to the shoulders, but I'm not sure what.  I'll look at it again later, since she had it on all day today.  Notice that I covered up my crazy stitching with red ribbon (which, by the way, I should let you know ribbon is very hard to put on a curve when the ribbon is straight, since the curve is, well, curved).  It's cute, and she likes it.  I also got smart and started using the Heat'N'Bond, which you iron into your hems and whatnot.  Sew much easier!  Ha, ha.  I do make myself laugh. 

Next I got to work on Christian's outfit.  I had looked up some stuff online and gotten a general idea of what I wanted to do, but then I just started messing with the fabric and laying it out to see what would happen.  I knew I wanted to double the fabric and cut out a neck hole which seemed easy enough.  I cut off one end of the large piece of fabric; I thought it would be wide enough to use as a tunic.  My plan was to cut slanted lines a little below the top, for his sleeves, and then below that stitch straight down, leaving some unstitched at the bottom.  I did all of that, and it looked pretty good; I flipped it right side out and burst out laughing. 

I wish that you could have seen it for real; it looked like a great tunic for a Native American broomstick.  And Christian is pretty skinny, but...I needed to go back to the drawing board. 

I did save that first attempt, thinking Eliana could wear it.  We convinced her to try it on (and believe me, the child is so opinionated that that was no small feat), and at first she thought it was pretty funny...

When it's just our family around, the child loves to be the center of attention...

"Me?  Why, yes...of course the world is revolving around me?!  Did you not know that?"

Then she realized that this tunic, or dress?, was starting to feel a little like a boa constrictor that had wrapped itself around her squishy little belly...

And she wondered how on earth she was going to unpeel this article of clothing from her body.

She hung out in there for a couple more minutes...

but then she was ready to get it off!  Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that effort; it was equal parts funny and sad since she like to do things all by herself and got into a really tight spot trying to get it off of her arms.  I saved her from her misery, though.  I'm a good mom like that.

I went back to work on Christian's tunic; I cut a new piece and left more room this time.  The sleeves turned out longer, which I liked better anyway.  I stitched the sides again, and this time it looked like it would be roomy enough for the little man.

I cut the extra material off of each side and realized that there was a bonus (or extra bonus, as I always like to say!)...what was left looked just like the breeches that I had seen pictures of, which Native Americans had worn during the cold winter months.  I tried to use the iron-together hemming stuff down one side with the intention of leaving the other side open.  I ironed and ironed and nothing happened; I left it sitting for thirty seconds or more.  I flipped the iron upright and then set it back down just in case it had automatically shut off...nothing was working.  I could feel that the material was warm, but it wasn't hot.  I started to think that all the machines in the world were conspiring to make me lose my mind.  Didn't they know that it was already gone?!  I finally noticed that, no, it had not automatically shut off, but that I had actually turned it off myself.  That helped explain why it wasn't working! 

I started thinking that maybe 2015 wasn't that bad of a guess for finishing, with or without the sewing machine.

Once I had the one side ironed together on each pant leg, I cut holes all the way down the other side in order to be able to wrap the thing around Christian's leg and then use strips of (fake) leather to tie it together.  I thought it would be very cool. 

I finished the tunic and the pants by ironing on a bright strip of woven looking cloth-across the chest, and down the sides of the respective garments. 

I was very pleased with how it ended up looking, and when Christian saw it all and said,"Whoa!" with a huge grin on his face I was even happier.  There is nothing like doing something that your kids actually like.  It was a great moment.  The picture shows the stripes on the pant legs going down the front, but that's just so you could see them.  They will actually go on the outside of them.

Since I was on a roll, I decided to make moccasins.  I had looked around a little in stores, but hadn't found anything in his size.  So, I took his sneakers and covered them all up with this same fake leathery suede material...

After some folding, cutting, and the addition of leather strips, they turned out okay...

The one thing I'm going to have to figure out is how to make them not slippery...the sneaker is literally wrapped up in this fabric and he put them on and went skating through the house.  You know, I could put some of my microfiber cleaning cloths on the bottom of these things and let him go crazy dusting the floors...

I did adjust the tight tunic so that it fit Eliana in a more normal way, and I added a strip of that bright cloth to the bottom of it.  Pretty cute.  I don't know how authentic any of it is, and I don't want to offend anyone.  I tried to make the outfits so that they were more like replicas than the silly costumes you might find in some places.  I need to make the headpiece for Christian and a small quiver for some arrows, but then I'll be done.  I had a good time with this project, but the best part was hearing them say how much they liked the things that I had made.  It was totally worth the time and the needle pokes in my fingers.

And on a final note, I wanted to say that Michaela was so sweet while I was working.  She wanted to sew too, but she watched Eliana when I really needed her to.  She had ideas (I can't tell you how many times she said,"If I were you, I'd do...) and started her own little project with a scrap of the fabric.  She also made a belt for herself and was pleased beyond measure with it when she was done.  I love that girl.

Can you believe her eyes?  I know that it is a bright picture, but I just love the color of her eyes captured here.  That brightness and lovliness are reflected by her inside and out.

And now, since I reminded myself that I have a quiver to make, I am off to make a quiver!

Comments

[Nan]

Oh man. You crack me up! I love this post! And I agree with your non-descript, vague feelings of dislike for the holiday for the same reasons... but at the same time I participated when I was little and my kids have in the past and I don't think it's all horrible evil. I mean... kids dressed up as M & M's and Hersey's Kisses and Chocolate Chip Cookies is only evil in the sense that you mentioned for hating all the candy! LOL

Love her little costume! Great work!

[Mindee@ourfrontdoor]

I don't like Halloween either and I don't know why either! You are my sistah by anothah mothah!

hee-hee

Seriously, though - great sewing. My MIL is across town sewing her fingers off right now so you are a better mother than I!