Sewing Dreams

Me and Maeve at an Irish dance competition - Aonghus is in the sling I made.

It's been a long, long while since I've been in the sewing room. I've got a million things planned but haven't been able to get in there because... well, because the baby is a lovely little boy who wants to be awake - all. the. time. He pretty much doesn't do more than a small cat nap or 2 during the day, although he is known to fall asleep in the infant seat while I drive, which really does me no good. It means that there are things that I cannot do when he's awake, since he really needs to be upright due to his reflux. So I usually have him in the sling. Actually, now that I think about it, I did stumble into the sewing room about 2 weeks ago and I made a new sling, which he loves. And by loves I mean that he squeals and makes happy baby noises when he sees me put it on my shoulder. I bought the aluminum rings from Sling Rings, and used the instructions at the Maya Wrap website. It was all pretty straightforward: I ordered a selection of rings because I didn't know what size would be best and then used the largest size, bought 2.5 yards each of 2 coordinating fabrics because I wanted something that was reversible and because I didn't like any of the heavier fabrics that didn't have a wrong side. I washed the fabrics, then trimmed them up, placed them wrong sides together and serged the sides, turned them toward what I wanted to be the inside, and stitched them. Next I serged the ends and then simply followed the rest of the instructions on the Maya Wrap site. I used the entire width of the 45"-wide fabric because I wanted to be sure that this would grow with baby boy. In fact, the only reason I made it was because I was so frustrated with trying to adjust the old one I'd had for ages; it had padded rails and they just didn't allow for fine-tuning and made me feel as though Aonghus wasn't secure in the sling. The length means that even my husband could wear him, and that's a good thing, plus the longer tail means that I've got an impromptu nursing cover if I need one. The fabric is Kaffe Fasset and I think it's quite a lovely combo.

Not sure if you can see the lining, but it's a mustard-yellow with turquoise dots.

Meanwhile, my oldest has moved up in Irish dance so that she is at Beginner 2 level in all her dances. A few competitions ago, she came in 4th in her reel and 3rd in her treble jig, putting her quite close to moving up to the next level in those dances. Then last weekend she placed 4th in Slip Jig, which is great even though she couldn't move up. That's really important to her, since next level is the Novice level, and while it may sound as though it has absolutely nothing to do with sewing, it actually does. At the Novice level dancers are allowed to wear a solo dress and if you know anything about Irish dance at all, you'll know it's a big deal. If not, Google the term feis dress. You can also check out my Irish dance board on Pinterest. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Back already, are you? Do you see what I mean? Gorgeous dresses. Lots of embroidery. In some instances, lots of fancy fabrics and trims, lots of crystals. Maeve isn't really into the dresses that are ultra sequined or heavy with crystals - it's not her style. But she loves the traditional Celtic knot work motifs and really can't wait to be allowed to wear such a creation. But the cost of a dress is highly prohibitive. A good simple dress can cost upwards of $400 or $500 dollars, used! If you're lucky you can find one somewhere for less, but it's been worn quite a bit and most of these dresses cannot be cleaned in the washer or by a dry-cleaner. And a used dress is less likely to be what you want and every girl wants THE dress. So I've become obsessed with the idea of making a solo dress.

Yes, I know it's probably biting off way more than I can chew but honestly I know I can give Maeve what she wants and liking the dress you wear means that you feel good when you're competing. And that means you're more likely to smile and more likely to do well. Judges like smiles. Yes, in the end it will probably end up costing the same or close to it as if I had bought a used one. But at least it will be new. And I want her to have something that no one else has.

Maeve in her school dance outfit. This is 2 pieces - a black net skirt with gold sequin trim and a black top with Celtic knot embroidered appliqués (purchased patches) and a lace collar sewn on.

The other part of this is that I desperately want to stretch myself in my sewing. I already have the embroidery machine, so that's in my favor. The local woman who does dresses does an okay job but I feel like her craftsmanship is slightly sloppy. She makes the school dance dresses and the one that Maeve has is not exactly up to my standards on the interior. Personally, I wouldn't let something like that out of my workroom but I'm a perfectionist. And she doesn't do embroidery, she just uses fancy fabrics. Since the fabrics won't be as glitzy, the work on the appliqués and embroidery would really stand out on the one I plan to do. Patterns for Irish dance dresses are available from Irish Threads and from Feis Dress and I plan to buy one of each, so that I can do a muslin of both and then determine what direction I want to go in. It will be a true labor of love, think. And I'm so excited to do it. I'll definitely end up doing many blog posts about it, just because I want to document the process. But it will probably be interesting to anyone reading this who sews. And the dress she loves best? A gorgeous dress by the company Prime Dress Designs. Just to prove that I need to make this, rather than buy one? That dress cost $1500 new, and it's not even got a ton of crystals or lots of fancy fabrics. Granted, the one I make won't be exactly like that one; it's the color combo and the fabrics that really make the dress, and as long as I can get the right embroidery and appliqué shapes it should come pretty close. *fingers crossed* In the meantime, I haven't bought the patterns and won't until she makes Novice in at least 1 dance. Then I'll buy them and start with the muslin, but I won't buy the fabric for the actual dress until she's made Novice in 1 or 2 more dances, since she won't be able to wear it if she's not in Novice level. This seems to be motivating her to practice more, so I'm hoping that she'll continue to improve and place in her Beginner 2 dances.

Tales from the Sewing Crypt

It's Halloween-time again and that means that my sewing machine is going full-steam ahead. This year Maeve decided to wear her costume from last year, so I don't have to try to top that one! However, this year I have to make a costume for the baby (yes, I'm masochistic like that), as well as Miss G., T-bird and myself. Luckily, they should be fairly easy to do, with the exception of Miss G's.

Gwyneth decided that she wants to dress as Merida from the movie "Brave" this year. I've done several Disney princesses - Maeve was Cinderella and Snow White, as well as a sort-of Sleeping Beauty (the dress was pink, anyway). Anyway, I was kind of hoping that Gwyneth would opt for the Snow White costume this year and give me a break on costume sewing. Of course not. Merida is her favorite princess and I have to agree with her on that, since Merida is the one princess who doesn't end up falling for the prince at the end, and is actually the one who does the 'saving'. Tallon decided that if she was going to be Merida, he wanted to be one of her brothers the triplets.

At first I was hesitant but then I decided that this was a good idea. Normally I'm a stickler for authenticity when it comes to iconic costumes like the Disney ones, but I'm taking a different view this time. Here's why: there is plaid involved and a kilt. I could make a kilt, but it would be time-consuming and I wouldn't be able to find a plaid that was the same as the plaid in the movie. Since that's the case, I decided to go an easier route, unusual as that may be for me. Tallon already owns a kilt in our clan tartan and Gwyneth, Maeve and I have sashes in the same tartan. How easy is it to just have him wear our tartan? Then all I have to do is make a green shirt to go with it and I'll have to do very little sewing. I like this idea.

The Merida dress, however, is more difficult. We decided on this project before McCall's put out their Halloween patterns and apparently they have a 'licensed' Merida dress pattern. I personally don't like it that much and since it wasn't available, I scoured online pattern sources until I found a pattern that most closely resembled the dress from the movie - McCall's 5207, which is currently out of print. I got my copy on ebay and I'm sure there are several copies out there. The thing I like about this pattern is that it runs up into the larger girl sizes (12, 14) so I could make her another dress from this same pattern when she's older. To keep that option open, I traced the pattern pieces. I will be altering the sleeve construction to make it do what I want (not surprising) and I'm adding embroidery to the neckline and hem. Yes, I know that in the film Merida's dress is plain, but I'm not sticking to the authentic version, remember? Besides, I need to justify having the embroidery machine and this is a good reason. That and the dress will look that much better when it's finished. Lastly, I'm going to do hand-made eyelets on the back (it laces up!), rather than apply the metal eyelets which never stay properly, anyway. And it's a good excuse to practice making eyelets by hand.

Merida wig before haircut.

Accessory-wise, Gwyneth already has a Merida wig that she got for her birthday last year and I ordered a bow-and-arrow from the Disney store so it will look authentic. Mr. T is blonde and insisted on having a wig too, so I bought a cheap Merida wig from Party City and I've cut it down to look like a boy.

 

Here you can see the wig in the middle of the trimming process, after I'd cut off the long pieces at the back and on the sides. I was concerned that I would cut too much off and then I would have wasted $15 on the wig, so I went slow and only cut a bit at a time. The triplets in Brave are drawn with curly reddish hair that's short on the sides but the front bangs are puffy and stand up quite a bit, so I didn't want to cut too much from the front. The trick was getting it to not look too much like Merida with short hair. Here is the end result, from front, back and side:

 As you can see, I tried to make the back look as natural as possible, cutting it short but leaving enough that you can't see the wig base. I also needed it to look a little messy, otherwise the curls would look too girly. I think I managed to get a good balance. This wig was in the section for littler girls and I think it's a tad small for his head, but that's okay because that way the curls aren't too overwhelming. Overall it looks pretty close to the triplets' hair in the movie, but I think it's  best judged with the entire costume, and that will come next time.

Adventure Down the Rabbit Hole, Part 3: The Queen's Bodice

An Alice in Wonderland needs a Red Queen. As I mentioned before, my oldest decided that she preferred the costume worn by Helena Bonham Carter in the recent Tim Burton version of the classic tale, rather than the standard animated Disney version. I don't blame her - the Tim Burton costume is far more interesting. It is, however, quite an undertaking but since I'm not one to shrink from a challenge, I went with it.

First, we decided on a pattern for a jumping-off point. Simplicity actually makes a pattern for the Red Queen and Alice, based on the movie costumes but I didn't like it and neither did Miss Maeve. It doesn't really do a good job of copying what you see in the film. So I decided to go with McCall's 5954, view E. It has the same type of sleeve as the original, and though it doesn't have a separate corset bodice, I can give it the illusion of one.

The skirt isn't the same as the original, but I'm loathe to have her dragging a full-length overskirt around. I made a sketch to indicate the changes. I'm no fashion illustrator, but you get the idea.

As you can see, there are some small differences from the original. First, I decided to add some hearts in order to make it more recognizable as the Queen of Hearts. My daughter, apparently, doesn't like the idea of being called the Red Queen, since that's a reference to the other Alice book, Through the Looking Glass. The movie happens to be an amalgam of the two, but that's another blog post altogether. Anyway, I figured that not everyone had seen the movie or might remember the costume, so we added a heart at the center of the bodice front, and then hearts along the bottom of the skirt. The original costume has a velvet bodice, with a gold silk center panel. I had some leftover black velvet from another project in my vast fabric stash, so I used that and made the center portion from gold damask upholstery fabric.

The gold is darker than the original costume, but it's as close as I could get without spending a fortune. I couldn't tell from photos online what kind of fabric the over-sleeves were made from, so I went with black taffeta from my stash. The under-sleeve of the original is a black net with an underlining of a light gold fabric. I substituted a bonded lace fabric for this, and it works pretty well.

Of course, the sleeves themselves are decorated with fred ribbons, both on the puffed over-sleeve and on the longer under-sleeve. The originals have some kind of black embellishment on them and I couldn't tell if it was sequins, beads or something entirely different. I decided to use a combination of black sequins and black ribbon roses, and the effect is pretty similar to the original:

I did all this bead and sequin work by hand. It's taken me a while to do it, since I have to do each one individually, but I've been doing this embellishment while waiting for the small ones at gymnastics lessons, and even did some while Miss Maeve was at an Irish dance competition and wasn't dancing. Of course I stopped sewing to watch her dance. Eventually there will be beading on the top portion and all kids of wonderfulness - I hope. I'm kind of running out of time! But I have all morning and afternoon to finish this, plus time at gymnastics tonight, which should be enough, as long as I can get the White Rabbit done today. That one is going together pretty quickly, thankfully.

Happy Halloween

Time to get caught up on posting the things I've been making.
October was a crazy month, full of sewing for the kids - well 2 of them, anyway. Halloween costumes at our house are always an "all or nothing" kind of deal. I always feel compelled to make something even more fantastic than the year before. This is good for my sewing skills but not always good for my sanity and certainly doesn't always mesh with my time constraints. But I persevere. Fortunately, this year Gwyneth made the wise decision to dress as Cinderella and I already had a costume that I'd made for Maeve, back when she was 4. Okay, I kinda urged Gwyneth to wear the Cinderella dress so that I didn't have to make a full-on Belle dress. But she agreed that it was a good idea and now she has decided to wear it for her birthday party in a week. Then, naturally, I'll have to take it to the cleaners. But I digress.
So first up this year we have Tallon as an elephant. I'm exceedingly pleased with the way that this turned out, if I do say so. The fabric was a genius choice, imho, because it really looks like elephant skin. This was a happy accident. I'd gone into JoAnn's to find some faux-suede for the costume and right next to it was this faux suede which had been treated in some way so that it looked like distressed leather/skin. The moment I saw it I knew it was the right choice. And it turned out that I was able to recycle an old french terry sweatshirt of mine that was barely worn by using it as the hood lining.
The pattern went together surprisingly well (McCall's 6105) although I did make some modifications to it. As this model contains patterns for 4 or 5 different animal costumes, it only comes in 1 size, rather than the standard multi-size range that most modern patterns come in. Tallon is a big kid. Last year I made a size 2 of the lion from this same pattern and length-wise it was a perfect fit, with little extra room. The hood portion of the size 2 didn't even come close to fitting his head, something I discovered after I'd made it. Anyway, in order to avoid this problem I sized up, thinking that I could always shorten the legs and arms. The hood ended up still being a bit too small, but that wasn't a hug problem the way it was last year. The genius in sewing the size 4, rather than the size 3 he wears in street clothes, is that I was able to use elastic and gathering stitches in combination to hike up the legs and achieved a really cute 'wrinkled elephant knees' look.
The other modification I made was to leave off the soles of the feet. The pattern was meant to have feet like a sleeper but really - how practical is that for a 3 year-old who will be outside trick-or-treating? Not very. So I simply attached the hoof pieces, backed with some sturdy foam that is used for headliners in cars. It was left over from another costume project from Maeve's toddler years (Blue from Blue's Clues) and was just the right weight and stiffness to keep the shape of the feet while still allowing Tallon to be able to wear his shoes. In this photo you can see the modified feet, as well as the "wrinkled knees" effect.
T was thrilled with the whole thing and went around stomping his feet -"walking like an elephant" - and trying to trumpet. He pretty much got rave reviews at every house we stopped.

For Maeve, the planning of the next Halloween costume usually happens the day after Halloween. So I was surprised that September rolled around and she still didn't have an idea. Her friend, K., was going on and on about how she wanted to be an "Irish Dancer Vampire" and telling Maeve to be a "Ballerina Vampire". I guess anything is a Halloween costume if you tack the word vampire onto the end of it. I convinced Maeve that this was not a good idea, since it usually lends itself to people asking "What are you supposed to be?" and then a puzzled look when you tell them. If it requires explaining, it's generally not going to work as a costume. I wasn't opposed to the idea of a vampire, though, since it's a traditional scary costume that requires no explanation and can look cool when done right.

After perusal of the Chasing Fireflies website, Maeve determined that she wanted to do an 18th century vampire costume, with a dress à la Marie Antoinette. The costume on the website was about $150 and didn't include the accessories - no way was I going to buy something for Halloween that cost that much when I could make a similar costume for a fraction of that. I searched for a pattern that was similar and then we went shopping. This was also a McCall's pattern, 5731. The problem with this pattern is that it's sized for girls up to a size 8, then it skips on to misses' sizes. I had to take the womens' size small and then cut it down, which required making a muslin of the bodice. I probably would have made a muslin anyway, just because the red brocade fabric was kind of expensive and I didn't want to buy more. So, a purchase of red and black poly/rayon brocade and some wretched black acetate taffeta was made, along with some black net lace and red scalloped lace trim and I felt like I could start the costume.
In all it went together pretty smoothly, with the minor exception of the bodice 'lacing', which I forgot to sew on prior to the bodice construction, in my haste to get started. An easy fix, though. I simply did it afterwards, and then covered the raw ribbon edges with the trim. When it came time to put lace at the neckline, we opted for a double-layer lace trim, since the neckline seemed a bit low for someone Maeve's age. Then we added a choker made from velvet ribbon and a cameo from Michael's jewelry section. I'd wanted a more traditional cameo, with a woman's profile, but couldn't find one that was the right color. Then I saw this one with the lilies and thought it was perfect, since lilies are often funeral flowers. Last, but not least, a Marie-Antoinette-style white wig with curls. It was only $10 online and I couldn't resist. I think it really made the look. My only regret is that I didn't have time to make a petticoat so the skirt would stand out better. Better pictures here, here and here.
They all got lots of compliments on their costumes, and that always makes me feel good. People went crazy over T's costume because he's just too darn cute anyway, and as an elephant he was hilarious, trumpeting all the time. They didn't get as much candy as in years past, but that's not really what it's about. It's mostly about dressing up. Interestingly, Maeve's friend decided to just go with a standard vampire costume and when she came to the door and saw Maeve's costume the jealousy was apparent to me, if not to Maeve. Maeve chose not to go with K. but do go out with me and the small ones, which was fine with me. K. is a nice kid, but she kind of gets ignored by her parents (she's the youngest) so she often resorts to telling whoppers in order to feel special and impress her friends and that makes me sad. Maeve recognizes this, so she often ignores the fibs. But I think she realizes that she has it pretty good when it comes to parental involvement compared to K. In all, they had a great time and really enjoyed themselves. The plan for next year? A full "Alice in Wonderland" deal, with Maeve as the Queen of Hearts, Gwyneth as Alice and Tallon as the White Rabbit. Scott has suggested that I make myself a Cheshire Cat costume but I'm vetoing that.