Buzz Lightyear

I realize how late I am in posting this tutorial, but hopefully it will be useful for next year's Halloween! My son is obsessed with all things Toy Story, and most of all with Buzz Lightyear. The base of this costume is a white hooded sweatshirt and white sweatpants. I love working with sweatshirt material and felt for costumes, the biggest drawback is bulkiness. I almost wish I had used a sweat suit in a size smaller so it would fit better. But on to the tutorial!

Materials:

• 1 (white) hooded sweatshirt
• 1 (white) pair of sweatpants (I purchased mine online from hanes.com)
• 1 (white) pair of gloves
• 1 yd of green felt
• 1/4 yd of shiny silver material (or use gray felt
• 3/4 yd of purple felt
• 1 yd of white felt
• 1/2 yd of black felt
• Square of yellow felt
• Square of red felt
• Square of blue felt
• Thread to match all of your felt (white, green, yellow, black, red, & blue)
• Foam core board
• Purple and Red ductape
• Sticky backed Velcro
• Polyfill (stuffing)

Pants

The pants were the easiest part of the costume. I wanted to add "spat-like" parts to the bottom, kind of like adding a bell bottom with green on the edge. I also added a belt of the green at the top of the pants. I cut a trapezoid shape that was approximately twice the circumference of the existing pant bottom. The top of the trapezoid is the front of the pant width at the knee. The height of the trapezoid is from the knee of the pant to approximately 3 inches past the pant bottom. You want these "spats" to cover the tops of your child's shoes.

 

I then added a 3 in wide strip of green felt to the bottom of the  trapezoid.

I then positioned the top of the trapezoid where I wanted it to be on the pant.

I then top-stitched the "spat" to the pants. The great thing about felt and matching thread is that I didn't worry about hiding my seams.

Then I pulled the "wings" of the "spat" (way too many quote marks - sorry) around to the back of the pant and sewed those down as well. Sew only the white down on the back of the pant (the sides of the trapezoid, so that the "bell" of the spat can cover the shoe.

 

I then added a 4 in wide belt for the pants.
 

Since the sweatpants have an elastic waist band, sewing down the belt will create a few bunches. I waited until after I added the belt to cut the front section out so that it would be centered.

And Yeah! Pants done! Let's move onto the top, which will be in my next post!

Halloween Costumes

One of the fondest memories I have about Halloween as a child is working with my mother on making my costume. We would keep all of them and use my old costumes for dress-up throughout the year. Since my son was born I have been wanting to keep with this tradition and for the past two years I have been able to actually do it. Last year my son was Nemo from Finding Nemo. I'm not the best with clothing, so I used an orange sweatshirt as a base and felt for the embellishments.  Have you ever worked with felt before???  After all my years with cotton and quilting it was a dream to work with felt, it was so easy to work with.  I was really happy with my result, and so was Evan - he slept in it for a couple nights :) This year I submitted it to Ohdeeho as part of their Halloween roundup, and was listed on their site! I didn't really take pictures of my process, so for this year, Evan was Buzz Lightyear, I have a tutorial I will be posting about next!

MIA - but I have a good excuse....

I've been Missing In Action for over a month now - but I have a great excuse. I have been in CHINA!!!  Between preparing for China, actually traveling, and then coming back I have had little time to blog.  However, I did come back with some inspiration (see below) and will post more soon!

Who's it from?

Since I started doing gift tags this way for Christmas last year, nobody asks that! To me, wrapping a gift is almost as much fun as picking it out, and I feel like it's another way to show the recipient that alot of thought went into preparing their gift.

Last year, I had the idea to just use pictures in lieu of traditional gift tags. It was alot of fun finding good pictures to use, and we had nearly as much fun trying to guess when the photos were taken as we did opening the gifts!

My littlest niece, Virginia, is about to turn 3 in the next few weeks. She dotes on James and they had soooo much fun together at the beach this year, so I had quite a few good shots to choose from! These were my favorite. I combined them with some fun scrapbook paper I picked up on the Target dollar aisle (a FAVORITE craft supply stop!) for a super-fun, kid-friendly gift tag!

Decisions, Decisions....

I recently joined a new quilt group, Triangle Modern Quilt Guild, that is based on the new national movement, The Modern Quilt Guild.  I had stopped being active in my local guild when my son was born and I really didn't have time for sewing, better yet meetings about sewing. Recently, I have really gotten back into my crafting (hence this blog) and when I came across the TMQG I knew I needed to give it a chance, and boy am I glad I did.  I have met some wonderful people that are not only my age (I always felt like the little kid at the big kids table at CQG) but they make quilts that look like what I would make (except better). It just feels right.
I would say the biggest issue I run into is how talented everyone else is! There are some heavy hitters in our quilt group that produce some fantastic quilts. I have yet to have the gumption to bring any of my own work, I am not worthy - yet. However, I did sign-up to be part of our Glam Garden Gala Challenge which given a free layer cake of Glam Garden (and seriously who can turn down free fabric) I am to make something.  Everything I come up with is just not good enough, and I don't know what to do.  My top contenders are:

Wonky Log Cabin

via Quilt Dad http://www.quiltdad.com

or

Maverick Stars

via http://marilynbutler.blogspot.com/

possibly a combination of both?!?!

or a

Liberated Cross Quilt

via http://www.lollyquiltz.blogspot.com/

I even started to design a quilt of my own, but i just don't know what I can actually get done in less than a month.  Should I "Go Big or Go Home?" or should I play it safe?  I just don't know. But I need to make up my mind soon!

Fall Gardening

Ok, in spite of the calendar, it's not *really* Fall here yet, but the Fall Garden is in place, and so far so good! Our summer garden was totally stink-o this year. Between the Squash Vine Borers, Flea Beetles on my eggplants, deer eating my tomatoes, and general malaise afflicting my bell peppers, it was not a very productive summer! There was a sh!t-ton of work that went into that doggone garden for very little output. Oh, well, I did get a buttload of chili peppers, but only because no bugs eat chili peppers. So my hard work this summer has yielded... hot sauce. Poo.

Anyhoo.. Fall. A few weeks back, we ripped up the summer stock and planted neat little rows of cabbage, romaine lettuce, broccoli and collard greens! Additionally, we'd planted some pumpkins and gourds a few weeks prior, along with some carrots. As you can see, these babies are doing SOO much better! Now if I can just keep it well-watered during this dry spell and these 90 DEGREE "Fall" days!!

Beach Quilt

One of the issues that I always run into as a crafter is that anytime I see something even remotely handmade, I feel like instead of buying it - I should make it.  I end up never making them, or making it and spending about three times the price.  This is one of those times that I actually think I made out better. I had been browsing through the Pottery Barn Catalog a few years ago (~8) and saw a great quilt with a Hawaiian theme. I had been wanting to make a heavy duty quilt that we could take to the beach our use as a picnic blanket and wanted to replicate the look and feel of the one in the catalog.

I bought my fabrics at my first excursion to Mary Jo's, the fabric mecca of the Greater Charlotte Area, while visiting my parents. If you have never been to Mary Jo's it is quite an experience, and although I strongly support my local quilt shops, I love getting a good deal at Mary Jo's. Anyways, back to the quilt.  This was the first time I didn't follow a pattern and decided to make my own. I used a few big square blocks, but mostly I cut thick strips of fabric and created a modified log cabin. Instead of ending with square log cabin blocks, I would stop one or two strips short with a rectangle. I sewed these together to make rows and then voila! A finished quilt top! I free-motion quilted it and outlined a few flowers in the fabrics to vary it a little. I am happy with the results, and even though I would pick different fabrics now, it has held up quite well. It isn't a beach vacation without it!