Cute Pictures!

I know I'm biased about the fact that they're cute, but I don't care!  First up we have Charlotte as Maleficent.  She's doing her dark and vengeful look.  Couldn't get her to smile at all!

I added some elastic under her chin to try to keep the headdress on.  It doesn't look great, but it's effective.  It means she can actually move her head now while wearing it and she doesn't have to hold on to one of the horns to keep it stable.  When I look at these pictures I realise just how over the top and big those horns are for her size!

The expression slipped slightly in the next picture and a smile half appeared!

Then we have the essential 'back of the costume' shots.

I think if I made Maleficent again I would put some wire in the collar pieces.  They will stand up, but they won't stay up at the moment.  Other than that I think I'm happy overall.

Next up we have Katie as Anna.

I'm loving this outfit!  Even though I had a couple of meltdowns making it I think it's one of my favourites.  Mind you, I think it's the cloak with the pom poms that I like best!

And what I think may be the cutest picture ever...

We do need a new hairband for the hat already though.  There's a strip of bias binding across the middle of the hat for a hairband to slot through, to keep the hat on.  The hairband has somehow (mysteriously!) broken.  To be honest I'm still amazed that we got her wearing the hat in the first place!

Happy Halloween!

I thought I'd leave the nieces' Halloween outfits until tonight to post, but with hindsight I'd probably have been better off posting sooner.  Ah well.

First up, Katie.  She knew that she wanted to be a vampire.  To start with we thought we'd get away with letting her wear Charlotte's old vampire costume.

It fitted alright, but Katie doesn't like things rough on her skin.  She didn't like the velcro attaching the collar or the spider web tulle sleeves.  We should have known better.  I remember when she was a toddler hunting around for seamless socks for her!  We couldn't find a design that she was totally happy with.  I was hoping that we could persuade her into some kind of Goth get-up.  We did find a picture of a 'grown up' vampire, with a very short ruffled skirt.  We liked the ruffles, but the rest of the outfit was not appropriate for a seven year old.  I drew a beautiful (I'm sure you'll agree!) picture of what I had in mind.  I was thinking Victorian/Goth, with really long sleeves and a big collar.

I used the basic bodice from Simplicity 2569 (the infamous witches dresses)

With the sleeves from Simplicity 5520 (Merida and Elsa).  

For the skirt I drafted a basic A-line skirt and added lots of layers of ruffles.  I was very sick of gathering layers of fabric by the end.  Actually that's a lie, I was sick of gathering by the end of the first layer.  The collar I drafted myself, and may one day do a tutorial for it.  I know, you just can't wait, can you?  To eliminate the problem with the scratchy velcro, I put buttonholes in the back of the dress and sewed buttons onto the collar itself, so that the buttons would point outwards.  I will give credit where credit is due at this point, that bit was Other Half's idea.

While making this dress, the ruffles did look a bit unfortunate.  That is to say, it looked like something a barmaid in the Wild West would wear, or, as my Mam said, Nancy from Oliver.  I think it looks better finished, so here you are, one Victorian/Goth/Lady of the Night Halloween costume!

  

And from the back

I have to say, I think this is one of my favourite dresses I've made.

On to Charlotte.  Charlotte wanted to be a witch.  We trawled the internet looking for inspiration.  Nothing was right.  Until we found a picture of a GOOD witch.  It turns out she wanted to be Glinda from 'Oz The Great And Powerful'.

Oh dear.  It's got a crown!  Which was, of course, vital to the outfit.  In a reversal of Katie's costume, I used the dress from Simplicity 5520 and sleeves from Simplicity 2569.  The sleeves and front panel were made from a two-tone chiffon, decorated with some glitter glue.  The crown I made with gold painted corrugated card and a clear plastic hairband.  I know, so hi-tech!

During the making of Charlotte's outfit, I did look suspiciously like a nightie, although now it's done, I actually really like it.

Poor bairn did spend a lot of time at the school Halloween disco explaining who she was!  She seems to have learnt from this experience though.  When I asked her last week if she wanted a princess dress for Christmas she said she would like to be...

"With the horns and wings please Auntie Sandra."  Oh dear!

Repairing Elsa

I'll get my excuses out of the way first.  I'm up to my eyeballs in projects at the moment, including a few secret ones.  These will be blogged about eventually, but in the meantime I'm afraid I'm just doing a quick update on Elsa dresses.  There will also be posts on Halloween costumes for the nieces when my parcel of fabric arrives.

So.  You may or may not remember that both Charlotte and Katie wanted Elsa from Frozen dresses for their birthdays earlier in the year.  Along with every other girl of Disney princess age in the World.  I couldn't figure out how to attach cloaks and zips, so ended up making them from lycra.  Charlotte wanted some red on hers.  As you do.  Exhibits A and B.  Two beautiful and clean Elsa dresses.
 

Then I gave them to the girls.  And they wore them!  I know, anyone would think that's why I'd made them!  

Last night they went to see 'Disney on Ice'.  This meant (I'm told) that they had to dress up.  Guess who they wanted to go as?  I dread to think how many Elsas were in that audience.  So, a couple of weeks the dresses were returned to Auntie Sandra for running repairs.  I think the kindest way to put it was that the dresses had been loved to death.  They obviously get plenty of wear out of them.  

We had grubby marks...

Torn under arm seams...

Ripped bodice net...

And then there were the cloaks...

I had had doubts about using net, but this proved it.  I did hear a rumour that at least one of the tears in the cloaks was from a bike riding incident, but we won't dwell on that.

I thought the best way forward would be to change the net for something more substantial.  When searching for ideas I kept coming across organza.  If you've been reading for a while you may recall how much I detest organza.  Then I found this

 and I fell in love.  I NEEDED it.  Sooo pretty.  I ordered 3m.  You can't have too much fabric in a cloak right?  I also ordered some thin, semi-transparent lycra to replace the bodice and arm net.  

I traced the pieces of the dresses I needed to replace.  That was harder than I thought.  Of course, for once in my life I'd actually thrown some traced pattern pieces out a couple of weeks before, and yes the Elsa patterns went with them.  D'Oh!

Anyhoo, here are the final dresses.

Charlotte's still with her red bows.

How pretty?!!  The fabric actually wasn't too bad to work with.  It didn't fray as much as the last stuff I used and it seemed a lot more stable.  I wouldn't say that it's made organza my first choice in future though.  I even attempted a couple of rolled hems, as witnessed above.  They're not brilliant, but I figure no one's going to be paying that much attention.

And here are the girls in action, so to speak.

There may have been lots of Elsas, but how many of them had such pretty cloaks?

On a side note, I was devastated when I started looking for fabric for the dresses.  There's now a McCall's sewing pattern out!

Five Tiny Baby Quilts

I've finally finished some incubator quilts.  They've only been a year or so in the making.  But now they're all pieced, sandwiched, quilted, bound and ready to go.  Yay.  Now I just hope they're suitable!

We have the star design and the pirates which you've already seen partially completed.

Then we have pink and lilac fairies.  It's really quite girly.

Frogs.

And my personal favourite (i.e. the brightest) the insects.

I did have a bit of a whoopsie when cutting the fabric for this one.  The orange background was going to be spotty, but I managed to cut the strips too small.  I'm not quite sure what it says about my fabric stash that I had another bright orange fabric that I could substitute.

I'm proud of them now they're finished, but I didn't see much of the weekend.  I was either at work or sewing.  Mainly by hand.  My machine is capable of quilting, but I've never had time to practice!  One day maybe.  I didn't draw blood too many times either.  Woo hoo.  I'm afraid you will probably be treated to many more pictures of quilts over the coming months.  I think I'm up to making three for later in the year.

The nieces haven't been neglected either.  I mean they have been sewing-wise but they now have their first loom band princesses.

Made using videos by Izzalicious Designs we have Rapunzel from Tangled and Elsa from Frozen.  The girls were thrilled.  They're now debating as to who to get next.  Charlotte's fancying Aurora, but Katie can't decide between Ariel (with a tail, no surprises there!) and Rapunzel.  I think she liked the long hair of Rapunzel.

My next project is a somewhat scary one.  I don't mean it's Halloween themed or anything.  Although come to think of it I'll probably be doing a couple of those as well.  If anyone creates a machine in the next few months that's capable of making time, please let me know.  I'd be most grateful!  Anyway, I digress.  I've been asked to make a christening dress (definitely more a dress than gown).  Remember the baby blocks I made?  Well, Libby is going to be christened in August and her Mam asked me if I'd make her outfit.  The scary part is I'm going to be using Libby's Mam's wedding dress!  I'm really flattered I've been asked, but I'm very nervous.  There is a train on the dress, so the idea is to remove that and use it to make the bairn's dress.  Wish me luck!  I feel lots of deep calming breaths coming on.  It generally takes me ages to get up the nerve to cut into any fabric.  On the plus side, the christening is in August, so I haven't got long to procrastinate!

Also in August, my Auntie Linda is getting married.  And, you've guessed it, I'm going to be making a dress for myself.    I've found a dress on Modcloth that I think I'm using as inspiration.

How pretty is that?!  I'm not sure what colour to do, but I think I want something quite pale as I'm wearing nude colour shoes.  That's right, I have shoes, but no outfit.  Why not do things backwards?

So about that time creation machine...

Updates

I've been quiet on the blogging lately because I've been too busy actually crafting.  And it's only going to get busier.  I've finished the black and white spotty dress.  I love it!  It's definitely the most wearable dress I've made for myself. I've had a couple of comments at work about it and I've done really well not to point out all the flaws and mistakes in it.  You're not going to get off so lightly though I'm afraid.  I need to get other half to take some photos of me in it.  I'm not sure I want to post pictures of myself, but fair's fair.  I'd have some done already but in the past week when I haven't been at work it's been really foggy here.  And I think it's going to be bad enough posing as it is.  Although, in the mist nobody would see me.  I didn't think this through fully.

I've just started this project in the past week

Recognise it?  Yes, Charlotte decided she wanted an Elsa dress for her birthday in May.  We've had tears.  From Katie.  Who doesn't think that Charlotte should get the same dress as her.  Charlotte has decided on a couple of changes.  She wants red sparkles on the cape and a bow on the front.  I'm really not sure how this is going to work out.  But, if it's what she wants, who am I to argue.  I'm just the slave.  Sorry, the adoring Auntie who loves to sew and make costumes for her two delightful nieces.  I think I was closer with the first description!  SShh.  Don't tell Katie, but the point at the front of Charlotte's bodice and the matching of the panel seams is loads better than the first one I did.

I should think myself lucky.  When I was looking for inspiration for Katie's Elsa dress I came across this website.  Charlotte saw this and wanted, I quote, "the pink one with the big bum".  By which she meant this

How amazing is that?  I think I dodged a bullet there mind!  I heard a couple of days ago that official Elsa dresses were sold out in Disney stores in America and were being sold for hundreds of dollars on Ebay.  I think I'm in the wrong business.  While I was in a fabric/haberdashery shop the other day I got talking to a lady in the queue who was on making her fourth Elsa dress.  I feel quite inadequate only being on my second.  

In a couple of weeks I'm off to a wedding.  I wanted to make my own dress and it's suddenly dawned on me just how close this wedding is.  Panic has started to set in.  I bought this fabric (hence the trip to the fabric shop).

I now just need to decide what to make with it.  I want the basic silhouette of the black and white dress, but with a fuller skirt.  I have no ideas on the details yet.

Also in the next few months I'm going back to my patchwork and quilting roots.  There's several babies on the way from family and friends so I'll be making quilts and blocks for them.  I also owe a friend of other half's family an outfit for their not-quite-so-new baby.  She was born before Christmas.  On top of all that I have my usual cards to make.  As well as a few special ones.  I think I need a lie down, and that's just thinking about all I have to do.