It was Halloween 2011

You recall the much time and energy I spent creating pioneer outfits for myself and others in July? Well, you may think this would translate easily into a Halloween costume and truck-or-treat idea.

Man, that was sooo July. October its all about HOGWARTS. Unfortunately that picture and the following,
were the only pictures I got at the trunk-or-treat. Yes, I forgot my camera. Yes, I parked in a poor spot for pictures. In my defense, last year I was all washed out so I was trying to get away from the big lights.

I think the big lights would have helped this year. I thought later I should have brought my oil lamp. Duh.

Other people took my picture (some on the sly) and a few said they would send them to me but I've heard that before (from me).

But never fear! My good friend Pat come over afterwards so she could take pictures of it all set up in my garage. Its what good friends do.When they saw me, most people said "Harry Potter!" To which I replied "Do I look like a boy?"Here's the outfit. I remembered the next day that I was going to do my hair in braids... For some reason the hair always gets forgotten in my costumes (unless I'm wearing a turban).
Can you tell which house I'm in? After "Harry Potter!" it was "Hermione?"
"BLUE TIE! What's my middle name?"
"Are you a teacher?" "I'm Penelope Clearwater from Ravenclaw... " (the four house colors and crest)
"And I'm making polyjuice potion in my NEWT level class."
(It was the only recipe I could find on line. Wanted to do Veritaserum cuz its clear but couldn't find a recipe.... not that it really mattered... )
Of course I had my book bag filled with books and parchment... and a water bottle. Wizards need to stay hydrated as well.
Here Pat is Vanna-ing the sorting hat.
I just took my witches hat and made a brown fabric cover for it. Elizabeth's older children tried it on and when I asked them if they were brave, smart, cute, or sneaky, they both replied "SNEAKY!" Slytherin it was.

I forgot to put a few things out for the photo shoot outside so I set it back up inside again.
I had already done a trial run the Saturday before. With all the ideas I had running around in my head (a chess set, random things in bottles, rolls of parchment and books) I'm glad I did. I had plenty to fill up my table and didn't need anything more.
Labels such as salamander blood, doxie eggs, eye of newt, and powdered bicorn.
And my pot, bubbling with dry ice.
A set of brass scales (which Emily told me looked like drug paraphernalia)
My escaping frog (I'm an older student so frogs were still in vogue).
I put some threads in this jar (essence of murtlap) so it would look nasty but you couldn't tell in the dark of the parking lot.
My father made this beautiful wand for me... which I didn't have time to paint but I think it has its own character. Ash, 9 3/4", Unicorn Hair.
All in all, I think it was a success. I might or might not still have it all set up in my living room.
I think I managed to keep up the standard I set last year. BTW, anybody need a nice white men's shirt (medium) and/or charcoal sweater?

PS. Here are some close ups on my color bands in the sweater. It took a long time to sew on so you need to appreciate it. The scarf I spent 3 weeks knitting wrong will get it's own post.I wore my costume to work on Halloween (minus the cloak) and it wasn't until 2pm that one of the engineers stopped on his way past my cubicle and said "Wait... its that kids movie! I've been trying to figure it out since this morning when I heard you say you were in costume".

This is why I've never done halloween for work before (witches hat and my "Italian Goddess" t-shirt doesn't count). Perhaps if I had been wearing the cloak and brandishing the wand..

Halloween 2010

I love Halloween. Its a chance to use my crafting/sewing tendencies to something that is actually somewhat productive.

Somewhat.

So here is my trunk-or-treat production for the year 2010.

Meet... Harimad-sol!Harimad sol... you know, Blue Sword? Robin McKinley? sigh.. doesn't anybody read anymore?
Yes, it was awesome. Random people kept coming by and taking pictures. So finally I texted my wonderful VT to come take pictures with MY camera. She send over another friend from the ward since she was busy handing out candy.

Then I took a couple pictures of key elements of my set up for future edification.

Thank you Mother and Father for bringing me a new bed last week... complete with new decorative pillows. In the book, the tent was white and filled with colorful rugs, cushions, and decorative boxes. Those "rugs" were $2 place mats at Walmart... and of course one of the 2 horse blankets Neita asked me to buy 14 years ago that I never delivered.
Um... Ahem.
Moving on.
I only had that one decorative box (my sewing/ribbon box) so I made a construction paper top on a wicker basket. One of the little witches asked me if it was real.

Real what?

I used my bike drop cloth for the tent. Easy to rip a door and holes for the tie backs... and made it look like the tent had been run over. Unfortunately I forgot to put a blue jewel on my sword.Of course, this was just a practice sword so it wouldn't have had a jewel.
A wooden practice Medieval broadsword.
45" long.
"No, I don't participate in the yearly Renaissance fairs here in Vegas. Why do you ask? Oh, I asked my father to make a wooden sword for my costume. He ordered this on Amazon."
He was so excited when it came. Remember the "death to the dressform" picture from the last post?
The sword now hangs proudly over my mantle where Alec kindly put up pushpins to hold it.
I do have a corset. Mm... No.
I also tried to do this year completely real fire free. IE, battery powered candles stuck to the window,A flickering LED light by my side, and a glowing campfire.
I had high hopes of a fan blowing tissue paper shaped flames but the little fan I bought at Radio Shack wasn't powerful enough running on 2 AA batteries.
Christmas lights under red tissue paper (what did we do before the internet?) with those LED flickering lights made it glow but unfortunately I set up right across from the parking lot floodlight.
This is a picture without the flash. Washed the whole thing out. It ended up that all you could see under the "logs" (dried sunflower stalks) was the flickering lights. It still looked cool with kids skipping out of the way when I said "watch out for the fire!".
A couple princesses and witches asked if it was real. When I asked "What do you think?" I got a long look, then a small, slow shake of the head. One tiny black cat said "yes!" and immediately reached out to check. Mother yelled,"Don't touch! It's hot!"
Bethanie, here's my flag. Gotta be authentic.
In the end, I was left with 2 questions:
1. How will I ever top this next year?
2. Why, in my circle, are there no social situations when a turban is acceptable headgear?

Duct Tape Wrapping

Thank you so much for the movie suggestions. I'm gonna have to do some "research" and report.

Wasn't conference wonderful? I can't wait to get the Ensign so I can really understand the talks. I always love the first session but the rest kinda flow into one another.

In fact, I loved conference so much that during the Saturday afternoon I had my VT wrap me in duct tape.

I had sewed some material on all the openings of the old T-shirt but I actually don't think it was needed.
Isn't my VT AWESOME?!?!?! I can't thank her enough. She is counting this as 2 visits though so I guess thats some form of payment.
I felt a little like a warrior in full armor (even though I couldn't raise my arms).
My VT had brought her daughter to help rip the duct tape into manageable pieces.
I only lasted two layers even though the internet suggested 3 (1.5 hrs is a LONG time to stand in one place... and it was hot. When Tammie cut it off of me, it was pretty wet inside... EW!) so the VT's daughter balanced ALL the chairs in the tin during the last talks of the session. Pretty impressive.

So your probably asking yourself... why oh why would anyone wrap themselves in duct tape?

I'll tell you.

Cuz after scrunching up 2.5 Sunday newspapers (including adds), I now have this- A dress form in the shape of me. I put her on a stool, but I'll need to figure out a stand cuz she's not exactly plum (see the shim in the form of a binder?). Plus, the fact that I couldn't hem my own skirts was the whole reason I started down this road.
She's not exactly tall enough on a stool.
I thought I'd dress her up anyways.
Do you know how hard it is to get clothes on and off someone that can't raise their arms?
Its really weird to see yourself in 3d. Where did that tummy come from? Am I really that large?... man is that bust small.
Duct tape and newspapers don't squish much. No wonder this gaps so much in the back, its a tight fit.
No bust.. So we'll cover it up.
Oops. Forgot the slip.
Tammy is now an expert in wrapping and can charge exorbitant fees. And I'm ready to gum up all my pins just in time for Halloween.
So, what did you do for Conference?

The Grab Bag

I thought I might do a little showing off as to how I made the grab bag for my family reunion.

Unfortunately I gave away all I made! (this picture is what I texted Emily and Mom showing the one I was using as a pattern and my first ful sized attempt).But never fear, I had bought another yard of denim the day before everyone came because I was afraid nobody would want the nylon type and would be fighting over the jean ones (I had made 8 yellow, 8 denim, 4 red, 4 green, and 4 a light blue grey. Originally I was planning on doing them all yellow, but when Emily asked "Are they ALL going to be yellow?" I decided to mix it up a bit :-). Melissa convinced me to just go with what I had.

So now your going to get a tutorial. Isn't that so exciting?!?! You can learn from my mistakes so if you ever want to make some grab bags, you will go buy them.

(It would have cost me just over 180 dollars over the Internet for 30 and I spent around 130 dollars on the materials (including mistakes.. anyone need 10 yards of twill tape?)..... not to mention the 2+ weeks I spent making them. Were the savings worth it? Ask me next year.)
First, I folded the material over lengthwise and cut based on a tissue paper pattern I made at the very beginning. I had decided I wanted to get 4 out of a yard so that is how I set the dimensions.
Then I sewed up the sides, pressed the seams open at the top, and stitched parallel on each side of the side seam about a third of the way down on both sides.

Here it is pinned and ready to sew the hem along the top. Originally in my practice one and the 1st full size one I made, I tried sewing the seam open all the way down, but that took too long and I couldn't get down to the corner as far in the full sized one as I had on my original small practice one.

So I gave up. Its what I do best. I'll show you later what I did to finish the inside.

Eventually we will rip open part of that seam for the drawstrings to come through. The sewing along the seam keeps the edges from coming out (There's a clearer picture later).

I sewed the hem at the top, and then folded it over and sewed again to make the casing.
See how deep that casing is? Its almost 2 inches. (1 3/4" if you want to get technical. And I do) I originally made it too skinny and the rope wouldn't gather the stiff nylon (see that first picture). I tried all sorts of things before finally realizing I just needed to make it deeper.

I also zigzagged twice across the seam so when I opened it there would be a little more support.

Then I ripped out the part where I sewed the seam open right up to the casing (do you like my Micky Mouse pajama's?) (I haven't started ripping in this picture) After clipping the edges (that's why I ripped the line so I could cut the raw edges right under the casing), I zigzagged the seam closed all the way down. (In my example pattern bag, they put a sort of twill tap over the seam but that took too long to do. Besides, the bags only had to last one week :-)
Then I ripped the casing open along each seam. Here it is started. (See how the parallel stitching I ripped earlier now ends at the beginning of the casing?)
Originally, I tried leaving it open and sewing around the opening, but it was just so much easier to sew all the way up and only open it at the end.

On my example bag, they put fake leather in the corners to reinforce the material around the grommets, but I just cut up some old jeans for the nylon bags and used that in the corners (again, only needs to last 1 week!). That seemed kinda silly to do on a bag already made out of denim, so for the denim ones I pulled some random material out of my stash and cut out a couple triangles.
I even made a pattern for that! I didn't want them all to look different. Some of you may remember that material as my pioneer bonnet.

Perhaps only me. The material reminds me of striped ice cream.

Anyway, I pressed the bag closed at the bottom, pinned a triangle in each corner, and then zigzagged around (my machine has been jumping stitches when I zigzag and I don't know why).
Then all that was left was 2 cut a hole in the corner and pound a grommet thingy in (I bought the last gold ones at Joann's so most of 'em had to be silver). I found white nylon clothesline at Home Depot to use as my drawstrings. Originally I looked at Joann's but they only had fat (1/2") rope and it was expensive. Plus, it was just rolled and I like the braided type. I also would have liked to find black but the white works OK.. especially for the price.

Here it is run through and tied at the grommets (At one Home Depot they had this pink/white clotheline that I used on the red bags and some of the denim ones).
I don't know why I didn't get a better shot of the finished bag and I'm too lazy to take another one.
Its all drawn up because the rope was just a smidgen too small. It was all I had left of the pink braided rope and I was trying to use it up.

So now you know.

Wait, I can't resist showing some pictures of them in action. What an awesome daughter/sister/aunt I am!
A sea of yellow and red.
I was right in thinking the denim would be popular with the girls.
There's a green one... and another yellow one.
I just had to throw in a picture of me even though I brought my own backpack.
And here is a grey/blue one being put to good use. (Mm... wait, did I pack this?)

PS.. I went swimming this morning! All by my little lonesome. Man am I awesome.