Halloween 2014: Venipede!

Video games are the hotness at our house! Both boys wanted to go as video game characters, Little Bear as a Baby Beefalo from the game "Don't Starve" and Big Bear as a Venipede, a type of Pokémon:

While the baby beefalo felt rather straight-forward, it took some time for me to wrap my brain around this insectoid creature.

For the main body, I went with old standby Kwik Sew 2711 in a size M. But because I didn't want a back opening (since there were the green carapace bits on the back), I used Kwik Sew 3099 to guide me on doing a front zip opening. Worked like a charm!

From that point, there was lots of customization:

• Did some color-blocking on the back and arms and machine appliqued the circles onto the back shoulders.
• The hood I created was influenced by a fabulous hat by StephyDesigns. There was a lot of color-blocking in the hood itself. I handstitched the stuffed antennae. The eyeballs were created with 2.5" styrofoam balls that I cut in half. I then used glue to cover them with fleece and handstitched them to the hood as well.
• The carapace pieces on the back were each filled with foam cut to fit and then machine stitched to the back. I did some handstitching inbetween the pieces to hold them together vertically.
• I pieced together the tail and then stuffed it using a combination of decorator foam cut to size as well as polyfil stuffing. After it was inserted in the back I handstitched it to the bottom carapace to stabilize it and keep it pointing outward
• The "legs" (the fin-like things on the arms and legs of the costume) were filled with decorator foam (helped them to stand away from the body nicely, without too much flopping about).

Phew! Thankfully, all of the work paid off. Big Bear LOVED his costume.

The Venipede is ready to battle! (And trick-or-treat!)

The boys had an awesome Halloween with LOTS of candy goodness! Yay, for Halloween costume fun!

Halloween 2014: Baby Beefalo!

This year for Halloween, Little Bear decided he wanted to be a baby beefalo. What is that, you may be wondering? While it is an actual creature, he specifically wanted to be a baby beefalo from the game "Don't Starve" by Klei Entertainment:

I started with a pile of fleece, faux fur and Kwik Sew 2711 (a costume staple for me over the last few years!) in size XXS.

I only had to make a couple of minor adjustments for this costume.

The biggest adjustment was with the back closure, pictured above. I wanted the patch of fur on the back to be an unbroken piece, so I layered it on top of the costume opening, stitching half of it down and then securing it with velcro tape on the opposite side. That allowed access to the costume opening, but kept the back furry part pretty clean looking. The downside is it made the costume a little too complicated for Little Bear to put on/take off by himself. But it was otherwise effective.

The other adjustments included color-blocking the sleeves and legs, creating the tuft on the hood, the tail, and the little horns.

Watch out! Baby beefalo is gonna charge!!!

He loved the costume!

Happy Halloween!!!

I'll be sharing costume pics next week! :)

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2014

Finally! A break in the rain and I was finally able to take some pictures of my most recent finish just in time to post for Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2014:

This is from the Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. pattern, "True Blue". Since I chose to do mine in greens, I went ahead and named it "Verum Viridi" which, according to Google, is Latin for "True Green."

Anyway, there's lots of green in this one! And-- even better-- lots of stash used! The quilt measures about 80" x 80".

Through the center, I quilted leafy branches all over, inspired by the tutorial from A Few Scraps (she has so many awesome tutorials and ideas!!!).

Then I went into the first border and did a wavy thing... it is very inconsistent, but as there is so much inconsistency, it kind of looks like it is supposed to be that way. So I figure that works. Ha! The thread used in the center and inner border was Aurifil 50/2 in Light Sand (#2000)-- which was perfect as there was lots of layered stitching in some areas, and it never got too heavy looking.

Finally, in the outer border, I used a darker thread (Aurifil 50/2 in Sandstone #2370) and just did some straight lines to emphasize the piano key piecing action. I did the straight lines free-motion and actually used a ruler to help guide me as I stitched. It worked surprisingly well!

And the label... hoping my Latin is okay! Perhaps I should have gotten my Latin textbook from college out to confirm?

Thanks so much for stopping by to check out my entry. Have fun exploring all of the entries at Blogger's Quilt Festival!

It's that time of year...

A large stack of fleece, foam and fur? Yep. Costume time!

Wish me luck!

Kitty Check

In my quest to find my missing mojo, I decided on a quick quilt project to get me going.

This is from the Me & My Sister Designs book, Crazy for Baby, and is called "Teething Rings."

Mine is a little different from the one in the book. I decided to add a couple of blocks to lengthen it a bit. I also had to narrow the borders so I could efficiently manage the directional print in my fabric. The main fabric is a woven plaid embroidered cats. It ended up being tricky dealing with this fabric and ensuring every cut stayed along the design lines (so much for my "quick and easy" project!). But it worked out in the end! And the fabric got super soft after washing .

I quilted the plaid kitty sections with a stipple and then tried to get a little fancier in the block border with some feather-ish action. All the quilting was completed using Aurifil Mako 50/2 in Violet (2520).

The fabrics all came from stash, including this wild purple print I chose for the backing.

My mom is not in good health. She is currently in a care facility and misses home and her cats. And her favorite color is purple. So I gave this quilt to her.

Hopefully, it will offer some small comfort. If nothing else, it made me feel good to make it for her. There's lots of love in this little quilt!

V1351: Hemmed and done!

I finally got some pictures of me wearing my new dress, Vogue 1351!

I sewed a size 16 with no alterations. The dress is designed for flowy wovens, but I opted for a knit-- a ITY jersey knit (92% poly/8% lycra) purchased from Fabric.com in 2011. For the lining, I used a lightweight swimsuit knit (since it had 4-way stretch like my main fabric). I found that others were able to successfully use knits based on a number of reviews posted on PatternReview.com, so I figured I could work it out. But I have to tell you: I stressed!

I knew I could forgo the zipper, but then I wasn't sure exactly what other instructions I should or should not disregard or otherwise adapt. This meant I had to fend for myself, which was kind of scary. But I think it came out alright in the end, so I guess I was successful.

One of the issues I was most worried about was stabilization in the shoulder, neck and waist areas. After trolling about for information, I finally decided to stabilize the neckline with fusible tricot interfacing. I traced the neckline shape and then cut it out along that edge, making it about 1/2" wide. Then I fused it to the neckline such that it was just into the seamline (I think my picture above better shows what I'm talking about). I did this on the lining front and back necklines as well as the outer back neckline.

I also stabilized the shoulder seam (pictured above). For this, I used a nylon stay tape. In the end, I decided against any waistline stabilization (I have read in a number of places a suggestion to use clear elastic) and opted instead to just follow the directions to handstitch the lining to the outer along the waist seam followed by a regular topstitch. The only issue with this is that I have to be careful when putting the dress on and taking it off so I don't pop the stitches.

I love that this dress is lined! And I think it is beautifully finished. The instructions were a bit labor-intensive, and involved some of handwork, but they were effective. As I couldn't think of an easier way to approach it, I went with it. The lining allows for a perfect finish to the draped neckline as well and everything stays in place-- nothing untoward is gonna be popping out of there! I really wanted an invisible hem, but I could not figure out how to execute it with such a lightweight knit (I tried a blindhem and it was completely ineffective). So the hem was finished with my coverstitch machine.

I envisioned this as a happy, summery sundress. But it almost feels too fancy for that! Almost. I'm totally going to be wearing this one out and about.

The last week has involved zero sewing while my machine made its annual visit the Bernina spa. But-- it is back home, and I'm ready to start stitching again! Huzzah!!!