A Little Halloween, A Little Christmas Festival

I will start with the Halloween things since I got some pretty nice shots of the kiddos in their costumes.  Such fun, and they all looked so nice.

Luke Skywalker (Joey) and Batman (Jackson).

Princess Leah (Lexi) with a sweet witch (Zoe).

Luke Skywalker with his sister, Leah.

The not so sweet witch with the super hero Batman.  Maybe Batman will have to save the world from the evil witch.

Luke, Leah, evil witch, and Batman ready for trick-or-treat.

With Halloween out of the way, I turned my attention to projects for the Christmas festival that will be on Dec. 5th.  I have decided to have a booth at the festival and I had nothing to put up for sale, so I have been working around the clock in every spare moment I have to finish some products.  Here are my accomplishments so far.

My sweet little Annie makes the cutest cow on the planet Earth. She loved smiling for me, but it was very difficult to get her to stay still and keep the hat on long enough to take her picture.  This is the best one I could get.

These are the hats that could go as a set with the accompanying toy.  I had patterns for the hats and the toys, although they were from totally different pattern books.  They looked so similar that I thought it might make a good combination.  The hats can sell separately from the toys, or they can go as a set.

I do have a cat pattern for a toy also, but I may not get time to make it to go with the cat hat.  I do not have a pattern for a knitted cow, but I do have a pattern for a cloth toy.  I may also make one of those later if I get time.

These are the two lady or older girl hats. The purple one is called a cam and just sits on the top of the head like a barrette. If this one does not sell, my granddaughter, Dot, wants it.  That is good because it is made from the same yarn that I used to make her Christmas sweater.  The gray hat is like the one that I made for me last year and so many people liked it that they had me make them one.  All of these hats, except for mine, are made from this same dark gray yarn.  The picture doesn't show the cable stitching too well.  Someone has already seen this hat and wants to buy it.

I think I really need to retake this picture.  These are my men hats.  The one on the left is just a ribbed hat that sits just over the ears.  The one on the right is a slouchy but it is hard to see it in this picture.

Some more toys that do not have matching hats.  This is the adorable little skunk wearing a flower to sweeten her smell.

This just shows the skunk from the back view so that you can see the flower better and also the stripe.

This nutty little squirrel comes with a winter hat to keep him warm.

View of the squirrel without the hat.

Side view of the squirrel so that you can see his tail.

2-year-old boy's hooded sweater zippers up the front.

12-18 month old cabled hoodie.

I am going to make some Christmas hats next.  If I get time, I would like to make some more men's hats and possibly some more animal hat, toy combinations.  I plan to also make some Christmas decorations out of plastic canvas.  I have not done that for quite a while and I think it would be fun to do for a change.  I may also make some of my cloth toys on the sewing machine.  We will see.  That might be too ambitious.

Costumes Finished

I just finished the costumes for this year.  I can show some of the kids with their costumes now and will show the others after Halloween.  I made one costume that I forgot to take a picture of before I sent it off to the little boy who needed it for the church party this coming Friday.  I will take a picture of him that night wearing the lion costume that he wanted.

Portia wearing her yellow pumpkin with orange eyes, no mouth and nose, and a yellow hat with a pink stem (although it doesn't really look pink in the picture) just like she ordered.

Portia showing her clock on the back of her pumpkin.  This was also a special order from her.

Ellis striking a serious pose in his Black Panther costume.

The Black Panther showing off another fearsome pose.

Lexi's Princess Leah from Star Wars costume. The back is just plain so I didn't show it.

Joey's Luke Skywalker from the series where he wore black. It is hard to see the detail in this costume because everything is black, except for the white triangle on the front of the shirt. I was really happy with the way the vest and belt turned out.

I will blog more pictures after I am able to capture the kiddos in their costumes.

Well That Didn't Take Too Long!

I got a call from my Maine grandchildren last night. They were calling to place their orders for the Halloween costumes.  Ellis, age 8 wanted to be the Black Panther, which is a new character in the Avengers series.  I didn't know what he looked like, but the internet is wonderful.  I pulled up a good picture of the character that looked easy enough to make the costume.  It took a whole night just to cut it out.  I think the cutting is always the hardest thing to do.  I sewed it this morning and was surprised at how easy my plan worked, except for those darn muscles.  The shoulder and arm muscles are the hardest.  I made them too long, then too short, then still not long enough, and finally, I hope they are going to be okay.  They still look a little too short.  I will have to wait to see after he tries it on. 

Portia was another story.  What you get from a 4-year old can be quite surprising.  You will see when you take a peek at her costumes.  I made a pumpkin for her last year and she really loved it.  Her mom said she wore it all the time until she could no longer squeeze into it.  Well, she loved it so much that she requested a pumpkin again this year.  No amount of coaxing from her mom and me would work.  She was determined to be a pumpkin again this year, but, it is quite different from last year's.  She requested that the pumpkin be yellow, instead of orange.  The eyes were to be orange, but absolutely no mouth or nose.  I tried to convince her that a pumpkin should have a mouth, but she wasn't buying it.  Since I knitted a hat last year that had a stem on it, she needs one this year, too, but like the rest of the costume, it is different.  She wants the hat to be yellow like the pumpkin, but the stem has to be pink.  This is where it really gets interesting, on the back of the pumpkin, there is to be a clock.  Don't ask me what that one is about, but she insisted that I put a clock on the back.

So, here is the Black Panther. Things look a little out of proportion with no body in them, but I think when it is on, it will look more normal.  I made a one piece body suit like the animal pattern that I use to make my costumes out of. I made the vest and belt out of vinyl, white felt for the strip and the stars, and some other shiny red material. The ears and boots are also vinyl.  The arms look really skinny here because there are wrist bands around the elbows. I purchased them and some batting gloves and volleyball knee pads.  I hot glue gunned the stars on to cover the logos on the purchased items. The character also had bands around his wrists, but the batting gloves already had a band, so I didn't have to make them.  I hope this will fit.  Ellis is getting pretty tall, so that shouldn't be a problem.

With a little imagination, I hope you can see a pumpkin in this costume. It is what she asked for, so I hope it will fit. I bought a black shirt and some black leggings to go under her costume.

I hope the numbers will stay on.  I had to use stick on letters.  They seem pretty good right now, but with a little rubbing, I am afraid they will come off.  They are too tiny to use glue to put them on, so if they fall off, I guess we will have to use a black marker and just draw the numbers on. For a little while the numbers should work.

As for the hat that goes with Portia's, I will work on it on the ride up to Maine.  We are going up this weekend and I always like to have some knitting to work on.  I will blog a picture of it when she is wearing it.  I will be taking my sewing machine along, just in case I have to change the sizing on anything, or do some other tweaking of the costumes.

Costume Time Again

I totally forgot that I would need to be making Halloween costumes before I finish Christmas projects.  The orders are flowing in.  Joey wants to be the Return of the Jedi Luke Skywalker and Lexi wants to be Princess Leah again.  They both were Luke and Leah when they were three and two, but that is what they want to be again.  Joey is a different Luke. The last costume was white, but this one is going to be black.  Lexi's will be pretty much the same, just bigger.  I will wait to work on theirs because I have some that need to be done by next weekend.  I finished two of those, Zoe's witch costume and Jackson's Batman costume.  I am waiting on what the two from Maine want to be.  I need to finish them by Thursday, because we are going up on Thursday night.  I hope they call soon to let me know what to make.  I always get things done, but I don't like needing to do them in such a short time, just in case I run into problems. Here are the two finished costumes.

Jackson's Batman is made of gray sweatshirt material.  I had a bunch of it and no other gray.  I couldn't see buying more when I could use this.  The hood, shorts, and leggings are made of black vinyl material. The cape is made of a light weight cotton material.  The mask is just one of those little black masks that go around the eyes.  I hot glued it to the hood.  The hood and cape are sewn together as one piece.  The belt and logo are made from felt and fused into place.  I bought the gloves.

Zoe's witch costume is a story in itself.  I thought I was making a child's size 7 pattern, but after I started sewing it, I realized that it was much too big.  I looked more closely at the picture and realized it was an adult 7.  I have done quite a bit of tucking to get it smaller and cutting to get things shorter.  I may still need to cut some more, but if she wears a belt, I think it will fit okay around the waist and I think I got the top short enough.  The skirt and cape still seem long.  Zoe is taller and bigger than most 7 year olds, so it may not be too big.  I sure hope not. It is really cute. It will be easy enough to just cut the bottom because neither of the materials that was used for the dress or the cape need to be hemmed.

This is just a view of the dress without the cape.

The hat is made of felt. It may also be a little big, but she can stuff it and it will fit okay.  She has a ton of hair so that should help to fill it out.

This just shows the hat sitting on top of the cape so I could get the whole costume in view.

I wonder what my next blog will be. Last year the two were Batman and a jack-o-latern.

Aahh...the Sweaters are Done!

I just finished the last of the sweater jackets that I am making for the granddaughters for Christmas.  I just finished Annie's, my youngest granddaughter.  It looks so cute.  I am happy to be finished with this project.

Annie is just 13 months now, so this is much smaller than the others.  It barely fit the hanger, as you can see, the arms are sticking way out.

I made a little mistake in the back of the sweater.  I was suppose to do short rows with four new stitches each time, but I did it with two new stitches, and so the back is longer in the middle than it should be. It still looks okay, but the back is quite a bit longer than the front and it should only be a little bit longer like with the other sweaters.

I am now ready to get back to the grandsons' jackets that I am sewing on the machine.  I still need to cut them out and sew them.  I wanted to finish the first two to see if they would come out the right size.  I need to use a whole new pattern for the two that are left.  I hate starting with a  new pattern because I don't like finding the pieces on the big sheets of pattern and having to cut them out to start putting them on the material.  It always takes more time than I like to devote to it.  But, since I am not good at enlarging patterns, I will need to do it to get the right size for the older boys. I also need to get to work on something for the men.  I have decided to do hats. Some will be slouchies (probably two) and the other three will be regular hats. I'm glad that the women's gifts are already finished, which I will blog after Christmas.

Jackets for the Boys

I have finished two of the four jackets I am making for the boys for Christmas.  They are all going to be the same.  I will only need to post these two because, except for the trim in Ezra's, they are exactly alike.  I did not have enough black rib knit to do all four, but I had some of the tan that I felt matched well enough to use for the one. I just had enough of it to do one, so this is the only one with tan.

Ezra's from the front is the only one with the light bands.

Ezra's back

Jackson's front view. This is the way the other two will look.

Jackson's back view.

Another Sweater and a Cake

I finished another of the sweater jackets. This one came out probably the best of all, I think.  I finally got the proportion of the top and bottom better.  Actually, there are only two that I really feel the bottom should be longer to be more in proportion to the top.

Front of Lucy's sweater.

Back view.

We just had an un-birthday party for the young women at church.  We decided to celebrate everyone's birthday at the same time, even though it wasn't actually anyone's birthday.  I made the cake for the event.  I chose to make a cake like the first cake I learned to make, an elephant cake.  Using two round cakes, the elephant is formed.  One cake is the body and the other is used to cut the head, legs, trunk, tusk, tail, and hat. I made balloons with mini cupcakes and yarn for the strings.  I put the initials of each of the girls on the balloons.  Everyone loved the cake.  I can't believe that it took me five hours to decorate the cake.  It just takes so long to design, cut, and frost it all.  It was so hard to do the strings.  I used yarn and hot glue to put them in place.

The cake looks more blue in this picture.  It actually was purple.

 I'm almost finished with the last sweater for little Annie.  I have had to make it so much smaller because she is only 13 months now, so she is much smaller than Portia's who is four. I still have to make something for the men, but I haven't decided what it is going to be for sure.