I don't suffer from insanity,

I have a rule with my kiddos. They must make up their mind on their Halloween costume by October 1. This gives me plenty of time to (procrastinate and finally) make the costumes. If they change their mind in the subsequent weeks before Halloween, they must make do with something from the costume box.

So, we have been watching the Lord of the Rings as a family in the past two weeks. As you can probably guess, someone changed their mind about the costume they want to wear for Halloween. Morgan decided he wanted to be Frodo for Halloween instead of Link.

Lucky for him, I had several years ago stumbled across a rustic, collarless shirt and waistcoat at a thrift store in a size 6. I bought it, because it was perfect for Victorian stuff and my tiny boy would one day be big enough. And my pack-rat, opportunistic ways paid off!

I pulled the shirt and waistcoat out, some breeches that I inherited from Jen's son, and a cloak from the costume box. I present to you Frodo Baggins of the Shire:



((P.S. Thanks for making it easy on me, my son. I'm glad I worked on Vee's costume first.))

((P.P.S. in honor of our viewing fun, we also decided to have a hobbit feast.))

Dinner today, based somewhat on the meal that Bilbo fed to the unexpected visitors:


Cookbook I found and bought, although the above meal wasn't derived from it, heh:

I found the fabric for the Pink Tea so underwhelming that I almost didn't do anything or even plan on going. Then Beth talked me into it by mentioning I should just do something really easy, like a Regency spencer or something. I immediately thought of the Curtain-Along spencerino that I love, and remembered how truly quickly that pattern goes together. Yeah, it's fast. Ten hours later, including some hand stitching which added like three hours to it, the Pepto Bismol spencerino is done.

Ta da! Laying out the pattern:


Back detail, hand stitching in progress, since I needed something to do while the kids were in karate:


Finished spencerino:


Surprisingly, I actually kind of like the spencerino now. I don't know how often I'll wear it, but it's done. It'll make a good loaner piece if the friend is even remotely shaped like me, too. Also, I think we'll all look neat together at the Tea, so there's that.

I also made a hair piece. It looks ok, but next time I need to make sure that the synthetic hair does well with heat. This one looks a bit frizzy. It'll do for Saturday, though.

I chose my fabric, and since I am in the time crunch now, I'm not doing a mock up. I'm just going to go for it and hope for the best. Well, kinda like I always do, honestly. The only time I really do mock ups is if it's the lining of something, heh. Ah, well. Some day I will be awesome and do the mock up. Today is not that day.

I traced the pattern out during the babies' nap time, and hopefully I can get everything cut out tonight after the kids are in bed. I decided to go with a pale gray-green velveteen that I've had forever. It's very soft and lovely.

It is a blend of these two colors, with the light sheen the lighter color and the shade being the darker. I really do like it.



If I have time, I'll piece what I have left of the black faux fur for an end result along these lines:



If I don't get the fur on it this go around, I'll add it later for sure, though, and wear it to the archery event without. Fun, fun. The only real downside is I knew I should have used gold ribbon on my hat flower thing instead of the red. Doh! Hah! I'll go back and change that another time.

Anyway, I better go make dinner. Trying something new tonight... Some kind of curry custard by my hubby's request. Spicy! Hopefully it turns out as yummy as it sounded, heh.

So, all my costuming friends got to do costuming stuff in, oh, the past three months that I haven't been able to go to for various reasons. That isn't to say I haven't done anything. I haven't done much, true, but I did finish an outfit for both Vee and Morgan. Morgan's isn't anything to write home about, just a very basic 1860 saque coat from adayin1862's pattern and some pants of matching fabric with an elastic waistband. Plus he never even got to wear it and he'll be too big for it next winter. Ah, well.

However, I'm really proud of Vee's dress. I did her dress and bloomers from Elizabeth Stewart Clark's patterns. The dress is completely hand sewn, including the four growth tucks and button holes. It was fun and came together in about a week, interruptions from babies included. Her bloomers were totally machine sewn and have an elastic waist band, as does the petticoat. Heh. Although we haven't gone to any costuming events in for ever, she's worn it to church several times and many, many days at home*. Hooray for effectively timeless girl's dresses! :D

Anyway, here are some basic images of her 1860's dress and undies. I haven't done a chemise for her yet. That's for the near future. She can wear the chemise and bloomers as pajamas, I'm sure.

So here's the front top of the dress:


Back top of the dress (I used snaps at the waist since the hook/eyes kept coming loose. Vee is a very active three year old):


Close-up of the button holes:


Growth tucks:


Bloomers:


The petticoat I found in a box of stuff my mom was keeping for me from one of my relatives. I think maybe my mom's maternal grandmother? I almost felt bad about chopping it up, but I know my very frugal great-grandmother Nina would have approved the re-use of the no longer viable underclothing.

Anyway, petticoat before the make-over:


Petticoat now Vee-sized with about four inches of growth built in:


And once I finally make it to an event in costume, maybe I'll show pictures of my sweet daughter in her dress. It has quite a bit of growth built into it, and she'll probably get three years out of it. I'm sure it'll show up in pictures many, many times in the future. Heh!




*Vee has more than once asked me in the morning: "Mommy, I want to wear my wonderful, beautiful princess dress that you made for me, please!" How can I resist that request?! So she's worn it in daily wear quite often, too. Heh!