The Epic Halloween Special!

Here it is, the promised Epic Halloween Special Special Special Special

Matt and I decided to have complementary costumes (as couples are want to do) and we chose to Steampunk Alice and the Mad Hatter.
Matt had many pieces that just alterations or modifications (lucky bastard) I on the other hand had not much (stockings, goggles, bloomers, and shoes... really can't go out in just those things, it is frowned upon)
And so set about making things.

First! Matt needed a waistcoat and I found some spectacular fabric in my stash and I even had lining fabric on hand. He also needed a cravat, and being the Mad Hatter all his fabrics need to be a bit mismatched but still coordinating, I found some great material in a green that went with the colors of the waistcoat, over coat and pants and cravats are sooooo very easy to make.

Matt got drafted to sew on the many buttons (for both his and my new pieces)
I had to alter a pair of pants Matt has had since his caroling days and I ended up taking 6 inches out of the seat of his pants (can I get a DAYUM!) I also had to alter his coat, which is a piece of shyte work he's had for a good long while and never done anything with because it is a piece of shyte. From a Seamstress' standpoint the work on this thing was so shoddy I'd never let anyone I cared about out the door in it... at least not until I could fix what I could and make it hang right.
The sleeves before looked like this

and now the sleeves after

I had to alter the shoulders and the back pleats as well, unfortunately those did not alter as well as the sleeves.

Here he is in all his Mad Hattery glory

the modifications on the goggles are all his work

Now onto my all new costume!

I used this pattern as a base

I decided to go with the classic light blue that is most associated with Alice in Wonderland and went with brown, rather than back, as the contrast. I also shortened the skirt and coat hems to go for a more girlish look.


I made a cheaty face petticoat to give my skirt some poof.

surprisingly the bustier did not require boning, I made it tight enough that it stayed put on it's own.

I decided the coat did not need sleeves, but I didn't get to adorn the like I wanted due to lack of time and energy to finish it (I'll get there at some point)

 I did the buttonholes at around 11:30 the night before I needed this costume and when I had finished the first one I realized it was a bit crooked, so instead of getting upset and trying to redo it I just made all of the buttonholes match and it turned out alright

And I love that the coat has functional pockets

and of course I had to have a bag to go along with this, since Matt's costume didn't have any pockets

unfortunately I didn't think to have someone take a picture of the two of us together, but there will be other opportunities, we plan to wear these pretty much anytime we get the chance to. (I might even put it on for tonight to give candy to trick-or-treaters) I'll be sure and feature any additions we made in the future.

Hope you enjoyed the Epic Halloween Special Special Special Special


I'll have Spartans for you again next week.
Have a crafty day everyone!

Finally

I know, I know… I’m a bad blogger. I let my life get in the way of entertaining you all… shame on me...

*ahem*  

Right, so I’m going to be even lazier and just post the Spartans this week, though to be fair next week is going to be HUGE. I have a Halloween special for you that will be epic! But I’ll not spoil it now, you can just look forward to it all week.

Oh wait! I do have a towel update for you

 It’s starting to get harder to see the changes as it gets bigger; it is 9.25 inches long now

SPARTANS!

I have 40, 41, and 42 today

40 is unclaimed and his name is Damious ( I dunno, I just came up with it)

41 is also unclaimed and his name is Fairion (also just came up with it)

If anyone has any suggestions for names I’d be most appreciative, I’m already starting to pull them from my… uh…thin air

Yeah 

42! Hehehe

This one belongs to Chris, he managed to request this number before any of my other geeky friends.

So #42’s name is Arthurian Dentius (*snerk*) and yes, that is a towel he is holding.

DON’T PANIC!

Hehe

Ok folks that’s all, sorry for the late posting.

Be sure to tune in next week for the EPIC HALLOWEEN SPECIAL!

Good night everybody!

Excues

Soooooo today's post will be late (like after work kind of late) because I spent all weekend at TRF (Texas Renaissance Festival, for those who don't know) I DID in fact take my Spartans and I DID in fact work on them, but by the time we arrived on site after 11pm Friday I didn't have the energy to do much more than chitter with my parents (we were camping with them in their trailer) a bit before passing the hell out.
Last week was ridiculously long and busy trying to prep for faire and Halloween AND do Spartans AAAANNNDDD work my full time job. I am exhausted STILL and I'm not done yet. I actually took a nap twice while INSIDE the faire Saturday, I was that level of tired.
SO as much as I hate to be posting late, I really have nothing for you until tonight when the Spartans are finished.

see you then

Those who craft together....

Stay together

In this episode I will be featuring my hunny!
But first some business to attend to; I have decided to begin posting on Mondays because it is getting harder and harder to get this thing posted during the weekend and still have a life (Saturday was a trip to the State Fair,which we got home late from and yesterday was a hair cut and lunch with a friend I haven't seen in forever then to the fabric store with a client to pick up materials, to my parents house for a bit, I finally got home at 7pm and then we went to a friend's for dinner) Some days during the week I'm not able to work on the Spartans at all after work and then if I don't have a lot of catch up time on Saturday I'm kind of screwed for getting the blog up Sunday morning. So we're going to try posting on Monday morning so that I have both days during the weekend to work on it because honestly keeping my sanity is my number one priority, I know I chose to do this huge project, but that doesn't mean I need to go crazy trying to complete it.
Thank you for your understanding :-)




anywho



Matt (my hunny) plays a game called Warhammer 40k (which is a tabletop, miniature based, strategy war game) and he paints his miniatures, often times while I'm crocheting (see? Crafty togetherness) so today I'm going to show off some of his crafty painting skillz (with a Z)  because I just have to brag on my talented man.


First up we have a Wolf Guard Terminator of the Space Wolf chapter (super badass dude)

I really enjoyed watching him paint this one, the layering of the different paints and washes and detailing, love it!

Next we have an older piece (like 1998...I know right. Ancient) just to compare how his styles have changed in the time between. It is a Giant from Warhammer Fantasy, it was in his orc and goblin army

He also does other painting things, like this skeletal warrior he did for me

Priming! I thought this was a cool pic

I got the thing at Putt Putt and he made it look friggn badass!

 It's going to sit on my window sill at work (along with a tiny dog, Spartan #1, a Chinese coin, and a tiny bottle of Tequila)



Now on to other things!

We are taking our jester characters out to Texas Renaissance Festival on their Pirate weekend and we are dressing our jesters up as pirates (it's going to be epic) Matt is designing and painting us a flag for our "ship" (because he can)

unfortunately it's not finished yet, but it will be in the next day or so.

That's all he'll let me put in the blog from his stuff... this time.



I finished the first ball of cotton yarn for Matt's hand towel
TADA!

I've already started on the second ball of yarn too.

Spartans!

today I have 37, 38, and 39
37 happens to belong to my littlest sister, his name is Tiny

yes, that is a penguin and yes it is a button, no I did not sculpt it. I know, cheaty face, but this week I don't care, I have way too much going on to try and make ALL THE THINGS

38, I believe is homeless currently, his name is Lassius

39 is also homeless, his name is Zephyris

welp, that's all folks. Don't forget, posting is now on Monday (though I hope not so late on Mondays, this week has been CRAZY) have a good week all!

Make This, Not That

I can't remember the last time I made something exactly like the pattern used, I tend to get more creative with it, take liberties and make improvements... or I just flat out change the shape of certain pieces using the pattern as a base so I don't have to draft my own from scratch (I never said I wasn't a lazy crafter)
My most recent commission was to make a full set of Renn Garb for a friend of mine (I LOVE sewing for her, she gives me lots of liberties with design and color and such; so much fun!) she picked out some patterns she liked the last time she was in town and then let me pick which ones to use this time. I went with a pants, shirt, and overdress look and went to find fabric (walking through the fabric store with a headset on talking to someone is hilarious, especially when you purposely cover the headset with your hair. hehehe) I found this lovely brocade for the overdress and then matched pants and shirt fabric to it. She had said she wanted to move away from all blacks so I went with a rich plum and a chocolaty brown, I also found trim (both in black, but it worked)

this is the pattern I had in mind for the shirt

mostly for the neckline, but she wanted bell sleeves on it, which I can make happen easy as you please.
I altered the main body of the shirt down to fit her

and then altered the sleeves

next came the pants. The pattern I used for those was a basic pajama pants pattern that was WAY too large for her, but since I didn't get to measure her myself (usually a problem) I went with overly large because it is so much easier to reduce the size than to increase it. I still altered them a little, but most of it happened when I was fitting them on her.

And then came the overdress...

I had guessed at how much trim it would need for the neck and ended up with quite a bit more than I actually needed, this turned out to be fortuitous though, because I was able to do a bit of detail with the trim that I otherwise might not have thought to do.

and the whole thing together.

Now for a towel update! It  is coming along nicely, if I do say so myself. It's kind of funny, this project tends to go to beer related functions with me (possibly because it will belong to Matt) it went to Oktoberfest and yesterday it went to the Flying Saucer's BeerFeast.

This weeks batch of Spartans hold #s 34, 35, and 36. All of which are homeless (the first of many batches of homeless guys, I'm sure)

34, his name is Bacai

35, his name is Metronus

36, his name is Azilious

that's it for this week kids, I'm going to go crochet til I wanna cry now, I've completely lost the lead I had on these guys (that's why the blog is posting so late today, I had to finish putting the Spartans together this morning. I'm working on getting ahead again) See you next week!




P.S. If you happen to have a spare virtual dollar, consider donating it to the Help Jessica Crochet Faster Fund, the faster i get these guys finished the sooner you get to have your chosen number... just sayin
<3