Costumes

A new year, a new costume....

This time it was a 'dress as your favourite book character' day at school, so can you guess what the brief was?

If you answered Angelina Ballerina, you'd be correct!

In the last six months I've had to rustle up 3 dressing up costumes, which I've thoroughly enjoyed and have been glad that I got the sewing machine out again.

We had a robot for a Halloween party, an angel for the nativity and now this, hopefully my ideas will get a bit better as I've tended to go for simple items. I quite like the challenge of making a homemade costume as so many others just re-use any shop bought costumes they already have, there was an Indiana Jones at the book character day, which is surely stretching it a bit!

Anyway, so I got the leotard from eBay (£4), pink headband from Claire's Accessories and then some felt and ribbon, so less than £10 and then just used stuff we already had like the net tutu.

I just cut out a tail shape from some white felt, stitched, turned right way out and stuffed and hand sewed up the gap.

Cut out white and pink felt circles, glued together, but it didn't hold strongly enough (made it nice and rigid though) so I hand sewed the edges.

I rolled up some fischia ribbon to make a flower and stitch that onto the net tutu.

I also attached the tail with a popper as I was worried it would get in the way at school but I think I would have been safe just stitching it in place.

The feedback was very good, although she was a bit disappointed to find there was another 'Angelina' in her class!

Job well done I think and today I was pleased to spot a Sale in our local sewing shop today, fingers crossed as I'd really like some money off fabric so I can justify making the dress mentioned previously!

Sew Hip

This is my latest magazine addiction!
I can't stop picking it up even though I've read it cover to cover, I have the previous issues by my bed for a little persual before bedtime with a cup of tea!
I have been lucky enough to receive a subscription from my sister for Christmas which is so lovely although I suspect she will be wanting her mitts on them too!
Last issue had a great dress pattern that I really want to make up but looking at the fabric in my local shop it's so pricey, 2m for £26, I wouldn't pay that for a new dress, sorry but money's tight and the likes of Matalan/Primark make it hard to justify the luxury of dressmaking. Especially when with my skills it's likely to look a tad wonky! What happened to the days of people made their own clothes (like my mothers generation) because it was CHEAPER?! The world has gone a little mad.
Anyway, I can't recommend this magazine enough it's trying to tap into this 'new' world of crafting without being twee or complicated.

Post Christmas

Ah an indoor picnic! Lay out a blanket, with lots of nibbles, left-overs, add kids and voila an instant no-hassle meal-time!! This buffet style eating is one of the things I love about Christmas and when I've got a miserable cold it's also much easier than sweating over the cooker!

The cold has been doing the rounds and we have all had it over Christmas at one time, so it is now my turn unfortunately!

One of my best presents this year has been from my other half:

A knit your own monkey kit!! Supposedly for 8-12 year olds! I'm really enjoying it, it's very easy for a newbie and I can't wait to finish it. It is a pre-cursor to a better present apparently as he has promised me a real Sock Monkey!!! All the hints may have paid off!
Underneath is my second best present, "The Ultimate Knitting Bible", which is a fantastic resource, nicely laid out and the diagrams are the best I've found for explaining techniques.

All I need to do now is suss out the french knitting kit my daughter got as the instructions with that are beyond me!!

Handm@de Fair, Oxford

Went to this craft fair on Sunday, it was really fab, such a wide range of handmade items, if I had lots of money I would have gone mad and bought tons of stuff! I especially liked Mondo's monsters, which I have been dropping hints about to the Other Half for Xmas ideas! So fingers crossed. The crochet and knitted items really made me very envious! I am so going to keep at it!

Mamatomama.org

Please visit this link, this is a great idea to help Mum's by sending handmade baby caps to Haiti.

A great idea from SouleMama, whose blog I absolutely love:

http://www.soulemama.typepad.com/

Halloween and other things going on...

A rather jolly pumpkin!!

Courtesy of Grampy, who didn't want it too scary apparently!

This is Aeryn's Halloween robot costume, almost finished, thank goodness for foil and glue!

Then we made a chart of simple flash card words using a magnetic photo holder, Aeryn is learning to read so I thought it would help to have simple words/letters around. The cards are from the Oxford Reading Tree, which is a great teaching resource, I'm just sorry they're not using it at her school.

This is THE simple cat hat I've been knitting for Aeryn as my first knitting project, I've now finished and cast off but am struggling to get the mattress stitch neat on sewing together, so am going to practice on a spare bit first! I'm quite happy with it, I've enjoyed seeing it grow and it is simple but as feared I'm not very neat and I dropped quite a few stitches!! Still I'm hoping with practice that both these things will get better!!

And this is my project for my textile evening course, we were asked to choose a landscape so I've chosen a London cityscape and painted a background onto a piece of secondhand linen (from Oxfam, it used to be an antimacassar!!) and now I've appliqued on geometric shapes for the buildings, next is lots of stitch work to build up texture and shape. I'm enjoying the course, it's quite relaxed and no homework is expected, which is good as I've struggled to get going, I've felt a bit hesitant to get going as my stitching is not great, but as above practice makes perfect!

I've only just got back online properly after three weeks of intermittent access due to faulty power adapters, fingers crossed this latest one will survive! Thanks to Sony Vaio helpdesk for their replacements!

Getting ready for Halloween

Bats and black paint, this year as I'm home more at the moment I thought we'd make more of an effort to have fun at Halloween, so I donwloaded a free bat template, cut them out of cereal boxes and got the kiddlies to paint! Kira ended up painting her hands and arms black, she looked like a coal miner!! Aeryn decorated her Halloween costume, which she decided is going to be a robot (!), so lots of gluing with foil.

And then off to the park for a pre-dinner play, then home for sausages for tea oh and a Dora episode!