Our first family Halloween.....

Being relatively new to the world of celebrating Halloween, when it came to all us of needing a dress up costume this year for a party we were invited to I went down a tried and tested path and picked probably the most overdone Halloween costume ever - the Addams Family! Luckily it was quite a quick and easy costume to DIY.

For myself as Morticia Addams, I made a long, tight fitting dress from some black wool crepe I picked up in a garage sale a long time ago that had some mothball damage which I thought was quite appropriate. I made it from a 1989 Butterick pattern - once again my stash of 80s sewing patterns has come in handy!

The dress has a sweetheart neckline and I just made it extra long so I could cut the bottom of the dress below the knee into long trailing bits. I didn't have enough fabric to do similar sleeves, so I had to make do with some sheer sleeves instead. I accessorised with a long black wig, some false red fingernails, and loads of white face paint and black eye makeup.

My husband's Gomez Addams costume was super easy - he already had a pinstripe suit and black bow-tie, all we had to get was a stick on moustache and plastic cigar.

 The kid's costumes were also pretty easy to do. I made Anna a simple a-line dress in plain black with a white collar, both from fabric in the stash. I put her hair in plaits, a bit of white face paint and black eyeshadow under the eyes and she was dressed too.

For Toby's costume I made a simple black and white stripe t-shirt using a Kwik Sew pattern from some ponte I had in the stash - funnily enough this is probably the best quality t-shirt in his wardrobe now! He just wore some RTW black cotton shorts, and a bit of hair gel to make his hair stick up and he was all dressed too.

And sadly I discovered that the real horror of Halloween happens the morning after if you drink a few too many cups of punch after a few too many champagnes! Waking up with a hangover, with false eyelashes hanging off your eyes, your face in a mess of white and black makeup and a splitting headache is a truly scary look......

Halloween sewing - the simple edition

Halloween is certainly growing on me. Before having children I used to be firmly in the bah humbug camp ("it's an imported tradition"/"no relevance for Australia"/"begging for lollies is unseemly"/etc) but now I realise that it's just an opportunity for the kids to dress up and have fun with their friends - but I still am on the fence about the trick or treating part, it just seems to go against everything we tell our kids (don't each too much sugar! don't talk to strangers! don't go around demanding food!)

Halloween in Sydney is generally quite hot, which rules out quite a lot of costume so this year I opted for simple and sweet. Those sexy Halloween costumes make me shudder, especially when seen on young people. Since my kids are still young, I decided to go with cute and sweet instead:

Anna wanted to dress up as a cat, but in a nearly six year old's mind every dress up costume must involve a tutu or twirly skirt, so her cat costume consists of a black t-shirt that I quickly made up using a simple Kwik Sew t-shirt pattern and an elastic waist skirt made of six layers of black polyester organza (because I have a huge roll of the stuff) with the edges rolled stitch to try to make them stick out even more. A tail made of the same black knit fabric, strands of white wool at the tip and stuffed rather lumpily was safety pinned to the back of the skirt (so she can wear the skirt again in future separately) and a store bought cat ear headband. And how could I not mention the face painting? It was what sealed the deal:

Of course whatever big sister gets, little brother wants too. So I made Toby a mouse costume by sewing an oval of white felt to the front of one his grey t-shirts, a stuffed tail pinned to the back of the shirt, and a mouse ear headband made of felt and hand stitched for that twee look. Worn with a pair of grey cotton knit pants and matching face paint he was good to go too:

Don't let these very cute photos fool you - these two can be quite scary when they choose to be!

The authentic Cinderella

The arrival of the August Burda magazine in my letter box the other day quickly made me realise that not only had July slipped by in blur of sickness, lethargy and general busyness, but I hadn't made a project from either the June or July issues of Burda! Even worse is that I have actually traced out the patterns from each, but haven't got as far as actually making them - but the good thing with self imposed challenges that it matters to no one else if I'm a little late.

My sewing room is now pretty much completely deconstructed and all that remains in there is my sewing desk with my machines and a box of fabrics and notions I think I'll need frequently. The rest of my sewing stuff is stored at my parents house - an hour and a half away so I need to get organised with my projects now! My sewing room is now a shared sewing space and children's playroom - a recipe for disaster I'm sure. But to sell our house we had to turn the kid's playroom back into a fourth bedroom so it's for a good reason even if it is annoying to have my sewing supplies so spread about the place.

Of course there has been sewing though - birthday party dresses for my social butterfly, as well as a dress up costume for Anna's school Education Week book character parade. I have to admit to being pretty excited about sewing a costume for the dress up parade, because I have fond memories of my parents getting very creative with costumes for me as a child. I tried to talk her into a cool or quirky character, but unfortunately for the kindergarten set it seems that Disney characters rule the day.

Anna demanded a Cinderella dress - not just any Cinderella dress though, it had to be a faithful reproduction of her Golden Book version. The ones available for purchase just weren't good enough for Anna's liking because they weren't authentic enough! So instead I spent just as much money on ice blue and white satin to make this:

Happily though Anna really loves it and it is better quality than the costumes available in the stores - those were so plasticky they looked like they would spontaneously combust! 

My version met with approval because the skirt is full length and very full - look at it twirl:

I got another tick for making the waistband at the centre front come down in a point and not straight across, which was very important:

Although I did get a little reprimand for adding that trim to the neckline and princess seams because it wasn't on the picture in her book.

And the pouffy hip thingies are made of white satin to match the sleeves, and not of tulle like the ones we saw in the shop:

I wasn't sure how to make those hip things, so in the end I just made them a rectangle the full width of the fabric with rounded edges, and then just folded it and pleated it to fit the waist (leaving a little gap in the front of course!). Seems to work I think.

Of course I had to make the black choker necklace and headband to complete the outfit:

All in all I think someone really enjoyed their day as a princess!

Very handily I managed to find a girls dress sewing pattern in my stash that was perfectly designed for this style, although it wasn't a costume pattern. Sewing was rather fiddly dealing with all that slippery fabric and trying to get my hands in small spaces like the sleeve head and hem. Annoyingly the fabric puckered a little bit even though I used a sharps needle, which is most obvious at the neckline, but it's only a dress up costume so I can live with it.

Now to get on with some sewing for me! I've got a few fabrics and patterns out so it's time to get productive.

1970s - love or hate?

The 70s is often described as the decade that style forgot, but after a bit of googling and reviewing my sewing patterns I realise that I actually quite like a fair bit of the 70s look.  Not the flares or wide collars or puffy shoulders, but the suiting, shirt style dresses and wrap dresses are right up my alley.  In fact I think the 90s is the decade that style forgot since the fashion was so bland, and the 80s is the decade we all should forget (and not revive) because it was just so awful and embarrassing for everyone involved.

We were invited out to the races and picnic day in Orange, a beautiful regional town about 4 hours west of Sydney, for a 40th birthday party.  Perfect opportunity for me to wear one of my under utilised  beautiful frocks and hats and generally dress up as one does (or should do) for the races.   Sadly though this group of my husband's friends just love the themed dress up party - the last big party we went to was an Elvis and Priscilla theme.  Ever seen a Chinese Elvis? 

The funniest thing about that photo is not my husband wearing an Elvis costume (made out of some white overalls bought from an op shop with triangle godets sewn in to make flares) but the fact that we were staying in a very fancy hotel and got quite a lot of amused/horrified looks from the other guests in the lobby whilst we tried to hail a taxi!

Anyway the theme for this weekend was the 70s.  As I said in the last post I was planning to try to embarrass my husband as much as possible, and so I had planned to make him some brown polyester pants and a brown + orange paisley print body shirt from this vintage Simplicity pattern (all of which I actually do have in my stash):

But last week we had such heatwave conditions that it was just too much to do anything other than loll about in front of the fan, let alone sew with polyester.  Plus the forecast for Saturday was for very hot weather too, so a back up plan was required.  Which is where a bit of research with Dr Google came in handy.  I came across this photo of Asher Keddie looking gorgeous as Ita Buttrose in Paper Giants (a fantastic ABC mini series) on a post from BusinessChic on 70s workwear inspiration:

photo via Businesschic.com

Whilst I love that green patterned skirt with the minty green fitted shirt, it's the guy in the background with the newspaper that really caught my eye.  He may look like someone out of Abba but the short sleeved shirt, dress shorts and knee high socks is the quintessential smart casual look for men in the 70s. Although I remember some school teachers of mine during the 80s still rocking this look, and even worse some old school building inspectors from my first council job still wearing this style in the late 90s! 

So I dug out a cotton knit/mesh style top that was my grandad's, cut the legs off some chinos to make shorts and finally tracked down some knee high walking socks.  Boy are they hard to find these days - if anyone else is looking for some try Lowes (if you're under the age of 65 they'll know straight away it's for a dress up costume ha ha ha).

And no, he still wasn't embarrassed by his outfit, just a little hot and sweaty.  Finding something for myself wasn't going to be too difficult since I've sewn quite a few things from 70s sewing patterns but I decided to go 100% authentic and wear a shirt dress that was my grandma's in stripes of purple in varying shades that is proudly labelled as 'crimpelene':

I accessorised with a pair of oversized sunglasses and a timber/chain necklace which was also my grandma's that Toby spend the entire day chewing and pulling on.  The hat is my everyday hat for sun protection, but it has a bit of 70s vibe with the floppiness.   Even though I felt a bit frumpy in the dress because it's a little too large for me, I didn't actually feel in costume at all because a shirt dress is totally something I would wear now (although not in polyester).  Not like the others in our group who were in mini dresses with white knee high boots, maxi dresses in crazy prints with wedge heels, safari suits and one guy getting around like Hugh Hefner in a satin smoking jacket.

And now on my with my normal sewing - I have January's Burda of the month about 80% done and I want to get it done before the month is out.

One last photo from the Paper Giants show - I love that the character of Ita who is a high flying fashion magazine executive is not only sewing at home, but is sewing on a bright orange Husqvarna sewing machine because my mum still has and uses that exact same sewing machine!

photo via abc.net.au

Ahoy me hearties!

Who would have thought that throwing a birthday party for a four year old would be so much work? Especially when it was a joint party with two other friends so we were able to share the load.  I think I've been spending far too much time on Pinterest and I became overloaded with awesome ideas - and being an overachieving crafty type I then tried out too many!

We decided to have a pirate themed party, which of course required pirate costumes.  For the birthday girl I made her a girly version of a pirate costume:

I made the top from some white broderie anglaise cotton that I had in the stash leftover from a previous project, using Kwik Sew 3665 which I've used before and so it sewed up in about 30 minutes.  It looks pretty and summery so it will have a life beyond the pirate costume:

And because this is Anna we're talking about, she had to have a twirly skirt for her version of a pirate costume, so I made a quarter circle skirt from Burda 11/07 #134 - sure it's just a simple circle skirt but it was easier to trace a pattern than to do the maths to draft my own circle skirt!  The polyester I used has been sitting in my stash for a long time and probably should have been chucked a long time ago because it was so nasty that it made my machine spew forth cotton and skip stitches when stitching. It's a relief to get it out of the stash - the scraps went straight into the bin!

I also made a little red cotton vest from a vintage pattern, Butterick 6489 by making the jacket pattern without the cap sleeves, which she wore for about  30 minutes on the day and refused to put it back on even for photos, so that was a good use of my time!

Since us mums did all the work in getting the party done, we decided the dads could also dress up and be in charge of the party games.  In an attempt to embarrass my husband as much as possible, I made his costume matchy matchy with Anna's.  I took one of his old white business shirts and cut off the collar and cuffs, and then sewed some narrow elastic around the sleeve edges to puff the shirt sleeves up.  I made him a matching red vest from Burda 1/2011 #148 which is actually the bolero vest from the snake charmers costume in the magazine - I never thought I would use one of the crazy carnival costume patterns in Burda but I guess there is a first time for everything. 

Burda 1/2011 #148

Worn with an eye patch and black bandanna, a red sash around the waist plus a pair of his black shorts, this is how he looked:

Unfortunately for me not much fazes my husband and he wasn't embarrassed in the slightest - in fact when I told him I wanted to take his photo for my blog he grabbed that scooter and hammed it up for the camera!

But the sewing and craftiness didn't stop there, damn you Pinterest and all those over the top parties I pinned in earnest! I made 30 eye patches from felt and elastic for the guests:

Then I made 30 'telescopes' from cardboard tubes painted black with bits of corrugated cardboard and gold paper strips with drawn on screws glued on (although I think some of these were used as swords on the day):

And then I also made 30 drawstring bags made from a really cute cotton poplin in a pirate print bought from Spotlight to keep all these things in:

'take a bag and join our motley crew'

I think it was worth the effort though, the kids seemed to love them and I hope that the little kits live on in some one's dress up box for a while yet instead of the usual mountain of rubbish that gets thrown out right after a party.

We had some pretty cool party food too:

very cool pirate cupcakes, not made by me though!

honeyed popcorn clusters in cups and jelly cups

a birthday cake for each of the birthday kids to save tears at cutting time

My sister made an awesome birthday cake for Anna, totally out of theme but it's what the birthday girl requested:

Of course 30 kids plus their parents wouldn't fit in my modestly sized back yard, so we hired out some space at a local park which meant we had to lug so much stuff there.  We had a jumping castle to help burn off some of that sugar, had a pinata to bust open and a treasure hunt which turned out remarkably well for a bunch of 4 year olds!  The weather caused a bit of stress, with a heatwave on Friday followed by gale force winds on Friday night but Saturday turned out just right, with the temperature cooler and the rain holding off until after the party.

So now it's back to some regular sewing - thank god birthday parties are only once a year! Although this weekend we're off to a 40th birthday party out in the country and it's a 70s theme - let's see if I can find a totally cringeworthy outfit for my husband and see if that embarrasses him!

Internet starvation, and a birthday dress

I am finally home from our annual pilgrimage north to spend time with the inlaws.  As much as I love visiting my husband's parents, not having to cook or clean or wash and getting to spend time with my husband and kids (much easier when there's two of us against the two of them!) it's also nice to be home.  We did manage to squeeze in a mini holiday to a lovely beach resort on the sunshine coast, which was great, but there's only so much sun and heat I can handle.  Ironically we returned home to a Sydney heatwave, the hottest day in 150 years apparently at 42 C (107.6F).

Apologies for the blog silence around here,  pre Christmas was very busy for me and internet access the past few weeks has been sparse and sporadic.  I'm not one of those people who find a technology break refreshing - dear internet, blog and blog readers I missed you! I'm such a newshound that not being able to access several newspapers each day made me feel quite isolated, and of course I've missed reading every one's blogs, especially the end of year roundups.

And being away from home also meant being away from my sewing machine and no sewing so far.  But I can reveal the pink princess dress I sewed for Anna for a Christmas present, using McCalls 4948 which is the same pattern I used for her Halloween costume:

To say she loves it, and the tiara and little plastic heels would be understatement (despite her cranky look above - it was Christmas morning and she didn't want to stop for photos). It's good to have a handmade present so well received.  I also made a few wristlet purses from scrap fabrics (recognise the green drill and black floral?) with movie tickets tucked inside for Anna's teachers at her daycare centre:

Anna turned 4 while we were away on holidays.  Four already, can you believe it?!  For her birthday dress I made Burda 7/2011 #148 from a blue cotton floral, with a white cotton eyelet fabric bib on the front:

Amazingly for a Burda pattern the sizing is pretty spot on and the instructions were sort of clear but it's a pretty simple dress anyway.  The only annoying part is that the triangular bib is actually a lace motif that is appliqued onto the dress last.  Since I didn't have a lace motif handy, I just cut a triangle shape of fabric matching the curve of the neckline, finished the edges by rolled edge on my overlocker and then topstitched it down.  If I was to make this again I would sew on the bib first before finishing the neckline edge.  If you're interested, here is her 3rd, 2nd and 1st birthday dresses.

And now I need to make pirate eye patches, cardboard tube telescopes and drawstring bags for a birthday party we're having for Anna next week before I can get stuck into my real sewing - I need to get back on track with my Burda challenge!

Happy Halloween

Celebrating Halloween isn't really a big thing here in Australia.  Growing up on a steady diet of American sitcoms and movies, I was insanely jealous that kids got to dress up, roam the streets at night and get bucketloads of lollies.  My dad is a Type 1 insulin dependent diabetic, so the only lollies in our house were for emergencies and not for us kids - probably why I have such a sweet tooth now!

Retailers here are trying their best to get us into the Halloween tradition, but each year the predictable laments start about the Americanisation of our culture, which is quite funny given that Halloween is based on a pagan tradition from ye olde Europe.  Anna is too young to go trick or treating so it's not something I have to take a stand on just yet, but when her daycare decided to have a spooky dress up day I started to think up some cool costume ideas - Wednesday Addams, Pippi Longstocking or the like but Anna was pretty set on being a plain old witch.  Sure I could've gone and bought an outfit so plasticky it might spontaneously combust, but as an overachieving crafty mum I was loving the opportunity to make something instead.

And I just happened to have a costume pattern purchased not long after Anna was born just waiting for the day when I could start making dress up costumes:

Because it's pretty hot here, I made her witchy dress from a lightweight cotton voile and polyester organza both out of the stash, with short sleeves and a mid calf length so she wouldn't trip over:

Accessorised with a store bought hat she pilfered from her aunt (saved me messing around with boning and fabric to make a pointy hat), and some cardboard buckles she looks quite cute, if understated.  My favourite bit are the red stripey socks and black pointy shoes:

It seems the witchcraft community has undergone the feminist revolution too, and the broom has been left at home with the other cleaning implements.  The modern witch gets about town these days on a zooming scooter:

Little brother wasn't to be left out either.  I was given a Tigger outfit as a gift that so far has been too big, but is perfect for a Halloween dress up:

And the best bit about this diversion is that it's given me more time to think about what fabric to use for the cowl neck dress.  You all gave me so many good reasons to go in many directions that I'm still mulling over the comments - thanks everyone, I knew you'd all have some good ideas.  I just didn't realise there'd be so many good ideas.