Guess what I did last night??

So, as many of you know, I have this wonderful friend named Norma who has a WIDE variety of hobbies and interests.  Earlier this year Norma gave me her ENTIRE collection of doll houses and all the furniture and accessories to go with them.  Anyway...

Last night Norma hosted a Medieval Dinner at her house, and asked that her guests come in costume.  I have been looking forward to this event since she first brought it up about a year ago.  We'll last night was the big night and I wanted to share some pictures with you all!

My costume:

I purchased my costume online at Costume Supercenter. I got a great deal on it since it's no where near Halloween lol

Jeff's costume:

Jeff made his own costume!  It's part of his grim reaper costume from Halloween a few years ago and he made the other parts out of leftover material from the Chevelle.  I was so happy he chose to dress up, he's such a good sport :)

This is Lady Barbi of Beech Manor!

Here is the Master of the house, Richard!  I'm sad this picture ended up blurry because his costume was fabulous! They rented it from the people who make the costumes for the Nova Scotia International Tattoo!

Here is the Queen herself, the lady of the manor, Norma!! Her dress was GORGEOUS!!!

Barbi and I

The Lord and Lady of Ram's Head Castle (because we drove there in the Ram lol)

1st course - Haddock and roast red onion salad

2nd course - Butternut squash soup

3rd course - Rendered goose breasts and legs with goose gravy, all stuffed with almonds, sage, and apples, served with herbed mushrooms (below)

Chef with 4th course - Suckling pig with pear jam stuffed with chestnut puree, aged Gruyere, served with saffron asparagus (below)

My plate before the pig was served

This is Melissa, the chef's wife, and our lovely server for the evening :)

I know that there are a bunch more pictures floating around, so I will make sure to add them as they find their way to my inbox. The food was absolutely as delicious as it looked! I had SO much fun!!!

Norma also made every guest a chainmaille keychain and cross! I tell ya, she's the hostess with the mostest!!!

Thanks for checking this out!!

Adventures in Sewing: Oscar's Halloween Costume! (And how I spent my October)

I know this is kind of late, but better late than never!

If you know me, you know how much I LOVE Halloween!  So this being Oscar's very first Halloween, I wanted to make sure he had an extra special costume.  So what I came up with was a Frog Pond.  I know, completely random, but complete unique too, right?

I went to Atlantic Fabrics and bought some cheap cotton fabric that looked like water and some different colored sheets of felt.  At first I was just going to use one of his coats as a template, and then I remembered my McCall's M6455 pattern I used for the bed also had pattern for coats.  Bonus!  Side note, that coat is SUPER easy to make!

I used the leftover fleece from the dog bed to line the inside of the coat as I wasn't sure how chilly it would be on Halloween.  So I got the base of the coat made and then I cut out some grassy looking shapes to use for the underwater plants, some small brown ovals for rocks,  some fish shapes and, of course a big lily pad.

I decided to sew sequins on the fish to make them stand out more and I sewed some more around the outside of the lily pad.  I had thought I'd just be able to glue the felt on, but ended up going back and hand stitching all the felt pieces down, just to make sure they'd stay on.

I got the little frog from Michael's ages ago in a 97¢ bag.  It actually came in handy!

So without further ado, here's Oscar, the Frog Pond!

Originally I had a lily pad hat for him to wear too, but he was NOT havin' it at all.  So I gave up lol

We went to an event called Howl O' Ween Around the Shubie Canal Festival at Shubie park.  It was so much fun!  There were all kinds of booths set up with information and services for dogs, and as you went around, your dog could Trick or Treat and get goodie bags!  Oscar loved it and his costume was a big hit!  There was a costume contest at the end, and we won a prize!

Hard work paid off!  Now I'll have to start planning for next year lol

Since we're on the topic of Halloween, I'll share a few more random shots from October :)

On our way to the Valley

At Howard Dill's

At Howard Dill's sitting on a giant pumpkin

Not sure what to make of the Jack-o-lanterns

Had to share this.  My nephews.  My sister MADE THESE COSTUMES.  By hand. from scratch.  She's amazing!

I guess that's enough picture spamming for now.  That's pretty much what I did in October lol  All Halloween. All the time.  Let me know how your Halloweens were!