tricksy little hobbitses

The good news is: I actually finished all of our Halloween costumes in time to wear them for Halloween! The bad news: It's hard to get good pictures of a two-year-old and three-month-old wearing their costumes. But they did look incredibly adorable, and I think we'll probably have to use these costumes again at some point because they really were pretty awesome.

So here we have Galadriel, Samwise, Frodo, and Gandalf.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any witch hats that weren't covered in feathers and other nonsense and require too much work to make a proper Gandalf hat. And I certainly didn't have time to make an actual hat. So that meant that everyone thought my husband was Moses. Costume FAIL. But really, if you look at all of us together, it's pretty obvious who he is. Right? Right? Apparently these costumes were about a decade too late. Or we just live somewhere with people who clearly aren't awesome enough to appreciate LOTR.

Little Frodo ready to go trick-or-treating.  He looks so happy about it! (He was actually incredibly excited about trick-or-treating, just much less excited about taking pictures.)

I managed to make all four of our costumes for about $35, which considering how complex some of them were, I think was really quite cheap.  (I probably should have spent a few more dollars and gotten Gandalf a hat...Oh well.) Here's how I made them on such a small budget:

For Frodo's costume, I made him a cloak (check out my pattern and tutorial), and a shirt and vest (from a Simplicity pattern), and he wore a pair of 9 month pants that were very much too short, but could still stretch over his skinny waist. I was able to get the felt for the cloak on sale, the fabric for the vest on sale, and use some muslin scraps from a previous project for the shirt. That's one of the nice things about making clothes for little ones - a lot of times you'll have enough fabric in scraps from other projects to make something!

I also made the "leaves of Lorien" with some leaf buttons and silver jewelry wire, and a safety pin on the back. They're pretty small, but it was ok since they were for some pretty small hobbits! I used the same wire to make my headpiece - not nearly as fancy and pretty as Galadriel's, but it worked and it was cheap!

My little hobbits! Frodo and Samwise. Looking tired post trick-or-treating

For my little Samwise, I made the same cloak just a smaller version, and made the leaf pin, and the rest was clothes we already had. He just wore an off-white onesie, brown pants, and an old vest of Jack's that I took in a bit because it was way too big.

For Galadriel, I stole my sister's old angel costume. It was HUGE! So I did what I could to take it in a bit, altered the neck line, added a lace applique, and and found a lace ribbon to tie around my waist so it wouldn't be completely enormous. Oh, and I already mentioned the headpiece, but I also used the silver wire to turn a pretty flower button into Galadriel's ring.

Extra bonus: When I bought the buttons, they were buy one get one free, so the leaf buttons were free!

I actually spent more on the gray fabric for Gandalf's robe than on any other one item. The fabric was actually on sale, I just needed a lot of it! My husband is rather tall... But then we borrowed the wig and beard from his dad, who has a Santa costume, so that was free!  

So here are the keys to doing awesome Halloween costumes cheaply:

1. Use clothes/costumes you already have and just alter them if needed

2. Use scrap fabric

3. Shop sales

4. Borrow things

Some day I hope to have enough money to make more authentic and elaborate costumes... but until then, I think we did pretty well with these!

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!! 

easy baby or toddler cloak

I am so excited for Halloween! I've always loved it, but it's even more fun now with kids. Especially now that Jack is getting old enough to start getting excited about and understanding holidays. And what's better than dressing up a little kid in an awesome costume? Dressing up TWO kids in awesome costumes!

So let's just say I've been more than a little excited for our family's Halloween costumes this year ever since I came up with the brilliant idea a few months ago. And since I came up with the idea a few months ago, I should be long done with all the costumes, right? Of course not! But I am making pretty good progress.

The first items to be finished were the hooded cloaks for the boys. After looking at (and even purchasing) several patterns, and deciding I didn't like any of them, I made my own, which ended up being way better and easier and anyway. So here I present to you:

(These aren't their full costumes... Also, what's harder than taking a picture of one kid? Taking a picture of TWO kids!)

The Super Simple Baby/Toddler Cloak

What you need:
- Felt* (approx 1 yard of 72" felt)
- 1/2" ribbon (about a yard to be safe)
- thread
- fabric marker
- typical sewing supplies (scissors, tape measure, pins, etc.)

*You could use other fabric, but I like felt for a few reasons - 1. It's cheap 2. It's warm (and sometimes it's pretty cold on Halloween!) 3. You don't have to finish the edges. And I'm lazy.

1. Determine how long you need the cloak to be. Measure from the top of the child's shoulder to the desired length of the cloak. (When in doubt, go a little long - you can always cut some off the bottom later.) Now add 3" for a baby, 6" for a toddler. (This allows you to cut out around the neck and maintain the desired length.) For my baby, I wanted the cloak to be 15" long, so my magic number was 18". For my toddler, it was 36" - perfect for 72" felt! (In fact, if your magic number is any bigger than 36, you'll need more than a yard of fabric.)

2. You're going to cut out a half circle from your felt. Lay out the felt on a flat surface, and mark the center point with a fabric marker. Now use a tape measure and measure straight out along the edge of the fabric the number of inches you calculated in step 1. Repeat on the other side of the center mark. Now measure and mark straight out at 90 degree angle. Think of your tape measure as a protractor, and continue moving and marking so you have a dashed line marking out a half circle.

3. Using the same center point, you will now mark the neck line. For a baby cloak, measure out about 3". For a toddler cloak, measure out about 6". Measure and mark just as you did in step 2. (You can adjust this as needed, just remember this was the number you added to your length measurement in step 1.)

4. Cut along the outer dashed line, then cut along the inner line. You now have the main piece of your cloak!

5. Cut out two pieces for the hood. You can use my pattern below, or adapt it to your own size and liking. (I adapted it from one of the patterns I bought. That pattern made an absolutely enormous hood! So I used the basic shape/dimensions and scaled it down a bit.)

Baby Hood Pattern

Toddler Hood Pattern

(To adjust size, just add on or cut back the center back seam. For example, just measure out 1" all the way around the center back seam to make it bigger.)

6. With right sides together, stitch the two hood pieces together along the outer curved edge, forming a seam up the middle of the hood. You can either clip the extra fabric from the seam allowance at the front of the hood, or fold it back and tack/stitch it in place.

7. Time to attach the hood to the cloak! With right sides together, line up the center seam of the hood with the mid point of the neckline. Pin it.

8. Now continue pinning each side of the hood, creating pleats as you go to make the hood line up nicely with the curve of the neckline. I did two pleats in the baby cloak, three in the toddler cloak. The hood should not come all the way to the front of the cloak. It should end 1-2" back from the front edge.

(You can also see the pleats in the previous picture for step 6)

9. Stitch the hood to the cloak.

10. Cut two lengths of ribbon, each at least 12" long. (Better to be too long and trim them later!) Pin them to the inside edge of the front of the cloak, just below where the hood meets the cloak. Stitch along the ribbon to secure it to the cloak.

11. Try it on your little one, see if you need to cut any length off the bottom, and you're done! (If you want a more finished look, you can stitch around the front edges of the hood and cloak, and the hem.)

The finished product, looking slightly creepy without a little person in it!

Baby cloak! And of course he's making his awesome gnome face. I was just glad to get a picture in which he wasn't trying to eat the cloak.

Toddler cloak! In typical toddler fashion, he was throwing a tantrum about wearing the cloak and taking pictures. He kept crying "Jack come out!" (meaning out of the cloak...) This was the best I could get.

special day

This past Sunday was a special day for our family.  It was our baby's blessing day!  In some churches, babies are christened or baptized.  In our church, babies are blessed, usually by their fathers.  We were so grateful to have many of our relatives come for the weekend to meet little Sam and be there for our special day!

Some of our family who came.  So glad you could come!

A few months ago, I decided to make him a little outfit for his blessing.  At the time it seemed like a great idea!  I had loads of time!  But you know how these things always go, and of course I was finishing it Saturday night.  But it was finished and ready for his big day!  And in spite of the fact that it was a little big still, I think it turned out pretty well.

I used a Simplicity pattern, and I'm fairly certain whoever designed the pattern thinks all babies have enormously fat legs.  My babies do not... so it was a little big around his scrawny legs.  But he likes to be wrapped up in a blanket anyway, so you couldn't really tell.

Does it get much more precious than that?  A glimpse of heaven right there.

upcycle an old sweatshirt - the final chapter

I finally finished the last new piece from my old sweatshirt!  The second slipper.  (Because what good is one slipper?)

Now that I'm done, what's left of my sweatshirt looks like it should be an old mop or something.

But the hat, mittens, and slippers are all great!  Check out my previous posts to find out how to make the hat or the mittens too.

I have to be honest and tell you up front that I'm still working out some of the bugs on the slipper pattern.  But they do fit, and they are wearable, and cute!  Just a few little glitches that I'm trying to fix.

What you'll need:

An old sweatshirt (or part of it)  (you could also just buy some fleece)

Coordinating thread

Fabric paint/ puff paint

Fabric markers (if you want to make the doggie face)

Paper and tracing paper/vellum to make the pattern pieces

Scissors

Sewing machine

Needle

1. First you'll need to trace the feet of person you're making the slippers for.

(My little monster didn't really like this part.  He doesn't really get the concept of sitting still.  So good luck!)

2. Use tracing paper/vellum to draw the two feet overlapped one on top of the other, then smooth out the shape - this will give you a more rounded shape so the slippers can be worn on either foot.

That's the inner-most line in the picture below.

3.  I wanted the slippers to be a little big so he'd have room to grow into them, so I made another line about 1/2" bigger all the way around.  Then I made the final outer line 1/2" from that one to allow for the seams.  That is the size of the final pattern piece for the sole of the slipper.

4.  Measure the length of the final pattern piece.  This measurement will be used as a base line (x) for determining the rest of the slipper measurements.  For my slipper, x = 6"

5. Next you need to make the pattern for the upper part of the slipper.

This is where it gets a little tricky and requires a little math (and a calculator if you're horrible at math like I am.)

The bottom part, where it will attach to the sole, is x + 1/2".  (So mine was 6 + 1/2" = 6.5")

The toe comes up about 1/2" no matter what size you're making (unless it's for an adult.  then you might want it a little bigger.)

The longest side, the part that goes up over the ankle, is 1.15x (Mine: 1.15 x 6 = 7")

The top, which will be the opening to put the foot in,  is 0.75x  (Mine 0.75 x 6 = 4.5")

Then come down the other side 0.75x (Mine 0.75 x 6 = 4.5")

Then just draw a diagonal line connecting from the toe to the last line.

And now the math is done!  

6.  Cut out your pieces!  I cut out two of the sole for each slipper just for added padding and durability.  You'll need two of the upper pieces for each slipper as well.

Hint: Cut out the upper pieces so that the stretch of the fabric goes in the direction of the length of the foot.  Then it will stretch better putting the slippers on and off.

For the next several steps, I'm only giving instructions for one slipper.  So don't get confused!  And don't forget to repeat and make the second slipper!  (Like I did for about a month... oops!)

7. Pin both sole pieces together, right side facing wrong side, so the soft fuzzy side will be on the inside of the slipper, and the "right" side will be on the bottom of the slipper.

8. Stitch the sole pieces together around the outside edge.

9. For each of the upper pieces of the slipper, fold the top down to meet the corner where the diagonal line begins.  This will make the finished "cuff" at the top.  Stitch it in place.

*If you want to add elastic, you can make a casing for it just above this stitch line.  This is where things got a bit tricky for me, and I'm still working on the best way to do this.  I tried a few things, and didn't love the way either of them worked, so when I come up with a really good way, I'll come edit this post!  Both ways technically worked... but were kind of a pain.  And I'm lazy.  So I'm working on the easiest way!

10. Pin right sides together of upper section of slipper, and stitch down both sides, leaving the top and bottom open.

11. With right sides together, pin the top portion to the sole of the slipper.  

I like to start with a pin at the toe and heel, and then kind of ease the rest in.  That tends to work best for the curves of the pieces.

12.  Stitch them together, and turn the slipper right side out!  

Technically, the slipper is done at this point!

13.  But, if you have exposed seams that bug you

Just use some cute bias tape to cover them up.  (I'm lazy and didn't really care.  Plus, these are just for my little man to wear around the house, and will probably be tucked up under his pant legs anyway.)  This is the other problem I'm working out with this pattern... 

14.  And if you want to make them look like little doggies, cut out four kind of rounded triangle pieces (for each slipper) for the ears.

15.  With right sides together, stitch them together around the edges, leaving the top open.  Turn them right side out.

*I actually did these wrong side out, because I liked the look of the slight contrast in the fabric.

16.  Hand stitch the tops of each ear shut, then stitch them in place on the slipper.

17.  Use a fabric marker to draw on a little nose and eyes.

18.  And to make the slippers have a little "tread," use the puff paint to make squiqqle lines, or any pattern you like, on the bottom.  It will keep them from slipping on slick floors!

19.  Repeat steps 7 - 18 for the other slipper, and you're done!

Now your little one will have warm little toes and look quite cute!  :)

upcycle an old sweatshirt - part 2

I recently found some old sweatshirts which I knew would never be worn again, and decided to put them to better use!  In part 1 I used the sleeves to make some mittens for my little boy (with not so little hands!)

Today is all about making a little beanie/baby hat out of the old sweatshirts.  It's great, because the fabric is already warm, soft, and stretchy!

So the first thing you'll need to do is figure out the size.  If you already have a similar hat, you can just measure that, and add some room for the seam allowances.  If not, then you'll have to measure the head of the person the hat is intended for.  

Once you have the head circumference, you'll want to divide it by 2.  So for example, if the head circumference is 18", then your magic number (we'll call it x) will be 9.  The circumference divided by two works because this gives you room for the seams, and then the fabric will stretch just a little over the head and keep it snugly in place.

I would also recommend measuring from just above the brow to the top of the head.  My first hat ended up a little too short because I kind of just eyeballed it... oops!  It kind of looks like a little sailor hat.

(And I promise my son doesn't always look like a zombie - he's watching Toy Story.  It's the only way I can get him to hold still long enough for a picture.)

So this hat was 9" across (remember, x=9), and only 5" tall.  I think a better ratio is to do about .66x tall (9 x .66 = 6)  You'll see hat #2 shortly, which fits much better.

So let's recap on the measurements:  

1. Measure the head circumference. 

2. Divide by 2 to find x.

3. x = the width of the pattern piece you will cut out

4. .66x = the height of the pattern piece you will cut out

And for those of you who hate math like I do, here are some pictures:

The pattern on the left is the good one.  The one on the right is the one used on the first hat that was too short.

Once you have your measurements, you'll need to make a pattern.  It's really pretty easy.  Use vellum or tracing paper if you have it, or just computer paper if you don't.

1. Measure out x length across the bottom of the paper.

2. Find the middle, then measure .66x up from that mid point on the base.

3. Draw a neat curve from the peak of the hat down to the brim.  You can use a large circular object to guide you if you're not confident in your own abilities.  But since you still have to sew it anyway, it doesn't have to be perfect.  To make it symmetrical, I like to draw out one side, then cut it out, fold it, and trace it on the other side.

Next you'll need to cut out your pattern pieces.

For the first hat I cut out the pieces vertically, which worked fine

But for the second, I cut them on an angle, because that was the direction the fabric was stretchiest.  So just give the sweatshirt a few tugs, and see which way it stretches most.  You'll want the base of the hat going the direction of the stretch, so it will stretch around the head.

You may also notice that both sweatshirts are missing the little stretch band at the bottom.  That's because I cut it off to use for the brim of the hats!  It works so well because it's nice and stretchy, and it's already a finished edge!  (I'm lazy like that.)

So go ahead and just cut the whole thing right off.  You can measure it out after it's cut.  You'll need approximately 2x (the head circumference).

Now you're ready to sew!

Pin the right sides of hat pieces together, and stitch around the curve with 3/8" seam allowance.

Now pin the right side of the brim piece (although really, either side could be the "right" side) to the wrong side of the hat.

Stitch the ends of the brim piece together to make a circle.

Stitch the brim onto the hat.

Turn it right side out, flip up the brim, and you're done!

  If you don't want to the brim to be able to fold back down, simply tack it in place with a few stitches.

You can add an appliqué or other decorations to the hat if you want, but it's ready to wear!  I'm contemplating adding some doggie ears and a little doggie face to this brown one.  Then it would match the little slippers I made from the sweatshirt that you'll get to see in part 3!

(Slightly less zombie-like in this picture.  Only slightly.  And this hat definitely fits better.)

upcycle an old sweatshirt - part 1

I recently found a box of old clothes from college, 90% of which I will never wear again.  I was about to throw them all in the "get rid of" box, when I realized several items could actually be reused.  My little guy needs some new hats and mittens for winter, and what better material than an old sweatshirt?  It's already warm and soft and stretchy!

So today I'm just going to write about making the mittens - I'll post about the hats and slippers later (probably whenever I get around to finishing them... hmm...)

Honestly, the hardest part of this whole project was getting my little monster to hold still enough to trace his hands.  So that's the first thing you have to do.

1. Trace the hands of the person you're making the mittens for.  (Just one hand will work if you can't get the other one traced too.)

I made two attempts - one with the fingers separated, outlining between each, the other more like a mitten.  (Please notice the scribbles and wrinkles in the paper.  He really doesn't like to hold still.)  Either way works, but be sure if you trace with the fingers separated, you make the pattern a little smaller than just outlining all the way around the fingers.

2. Use a piece of tracing paper or vellum (I always use vellum because it's a bit stronger and works really well as a pattern piece) and trace around the hand in the shape of a mitten to get the approximate size and shape you need the finished mitten to be.

3. Add about 1/2" around the mitten shape you just drew to allow for the seams.  This will also leave a little growing room too, since your seams won't be quite 1/2".  Then cut out your pattern piece.  (The picture above shows the cut out pattern piece over the original hand tracing.)

4. Line up your pattern piece at the bottom of one of the sweatshirt sleeves so that the wrist of the mitten lines up with the cuff seam of the sleeve - this lets you use the already finished cuff as the bottom of the mitten.  It makes it easy (no hemming! I'm super lazy) and it's already stretchy to fit over the hand, and hold around the wrist.  Trace your pattern with an erasable fabric marker.

(See how the base of the hand lines up with seam of the sweatshirt?)

5. Pin around your traced mitten to hold both layers of fabric in place, and cut out both pieces.

6. Now re-pin the two pieces together, this time with right sides together.

7. Stitch around the outside of the mitten, making sure to leave the bottom open!  (I stitched mine with 1/4" seams to leave a little room to grow)

8. Turn it right side out, and you're done!  If the unfinished edges inside the mitten bother you, you can use bias tape to finish them.  But like I said, I'm lazy, so I left mine.  Plus, the mittens are pretty long on my boy and tuck up under his sleeves anyway - which is actually really nice!  It helps them stay on even better.

9. Repeat steps 4-8 for the other mitten, of course.

I'll post about the cute hat (also made from the sweatshirt) soon!