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!

Adventures in Sewing: Curtains!

Hello my lovelies :)  I hope you are all having a fabulous week!

Last Saturday, hubs and I went out to the PL to go visit his grandparents (Granny & Poppa) and his mom (my MIL).  We had a nice visit, ate some of Granny's amazing scones, and got to talking.  About sewing.  I told Granny and my MIL about my good intentions and disastrous results with my first attempt, and they proceed to herd me down to the back room where all their crafty things are. 

I told them I felt like I needed to start with something easier, and Granny suggested an apron.  Perfect!  I can make it AND use it!  (It's worth mentioning that at this point I'm picturing myself in some amazingly sparkly and blinged out apron that is CLEARLY beyond my level of ability...)

Moving on...

Granny and my MIL then hooked me up with lots of valuable information for a beginner seamstress, handed me an awesome little pattern envelope by Kwik Sew (which has patterns for 2 different types of aprons, a neck scarf and a head scarf), and TONS of fabric!  My MIL gave me what turned out to be a whole bolt of this decent off white fabric, and then it hit me:  Curtains.  (And yes, I had a Maria from the Sound of Music montage going through my mind at this thought.  Don't judge me.).  What could be easier than curtains!

So I did a quick Pinterest search for 'sewing curtains' and there was a Pin that lead me to this blog.  I read through her tutorial and it was nicely laid out & easy to understand, so I went with it.  I did my measurements, rolled out my fabric, did the little cut, followed by the tear (which I did with the gusto, panache & facial expression of a certain 80s wrestler. hahahaha I really did though lol) to make sure everything would be square.

Next I pinned, then ironed, then sewed.  That's really all there was to it.  I don't have them hung up yet, but here's a shot of my amazing seamstress skills:

Here's a couple of things I learned:

1.  If you leave fabric laid out on the floor any flat surface, even for 30 seconds, there will be a cat on it when you return.

2.  Rainbow topped pins are super cute, but if you are using them on light fabric and iron over them, your fabric will look like Sprinkle Party Cake ice cream when you take them out.

3. And just for reference:

I have the fabric cut ready to go for the second set, I just need to get started on them, which I plan to do today.  Or at least by the end of the weekend.  I hope. lol.