Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Wall...

Who would have thought I would get this costume finished...I started at 6pm last night, it had to be worn by 8.30am the next day, and I have had weeks to do this but didn't know what to do. I looked at all the Humpty Dumpty costumes  online to sew. Their are not a lot out there so I just made it up my style.

The problem I had was that I was given this green looking round stuffed pumpkin thing full of Dacron (which I didn't make myself). No matter what I thought to do...that pumpkin thing was my nemesis. It really needed to be re-stuffed.

My Humpty Dumpty under padding looks similar to
the orange pumpkin pattern here.

To make the Humpty Dumpty costume I simply traced around the stuffed padded green pumpkin I was given to make the white egg cover. Then I kept fitting the egg shell cover over the child wearing the pumpkin shape. The fabric I used was a fairly stiff shiny white fabric, a bit like taffeta in texture.

The red bow tie was taken from my own clown costume. The tights are from the clown costume also. The collar I drafted myself, I wanted to use a coloured fabric, but white was all I had. Shoes I did not need as the children have bare feet in the play.

Really I should have made a new padding for underneath, but I kept putting off. I just didn't want to do it...A new stuffed shape would have made Humpty Dumpty more solid looking, more like a big egg.When finally my creative kicked in I had only 24 hours to put this outfit together. So the green pumpkin padding thing had to do. I didn't even mend it...So here is the end result for my Humpty Dumpty costume.

Humpty is looking a bit flat here....His tummy
needed to be a bit firmer.

He looks like a sinister 'Humpty Dumpty'. The face paint was painted in
a hurry as we ran out of time, but it looks okay he's an egg after all...

The hat dictated the whole outfit...he wouldn't give it up.
He was wearing that hat and that was that.

Chef for a day

For the last couple of days I've been busy sewing a new Chef's outfit. The green spotty Chef's outfit I drafted and sewed a few years back (bottom pics). It's way to small now so I'm sending it over to the girls so they can have fun with it...

For the Italian Chef I drafted the apron and then used a DD ring for the joining of the neck strap. I'm not too sure what I'm doing with the waist ties yet. At the moment they are long enough to tie in the front, but I think I prefer tying them at the back. I don't think it matters much to the Chef though...

For the hat I used a free pattern over at YouCanMakeThis. I cut out the youth size and then embellished the finished hat by making a Italian flag.

The new Chef's outfit, I think he'll be making Pasta...
It's not pressed I forgot to do that before I took the photo!

Way too small now...

And a little to big for the girls...

Halloween

My ghost and witch for Halloween...

Both are made with a balloons for the head, one black, one white. I used a permanent black marker pen to draw the face on the ghost, then Voile (I was de-stashing) was used to cover the balloons. Then I used matching lace to tie off the fabric from under the balloon head. Next I went looking for the witches hat in the dress-up box to complete the faceless witch...

It's daylight savings here so it's not dark till really late...

The Almond King

Today I'm making the 'Almond King's Crown' It's a little bit of craziness in my house... Perhaps your wondering how the Almond King came about?

A couple of Christmases ago my daughter decided to put an almond in the Pavlova she was making. The person who found the almond nut in their slice of Pavlova was the Almond King for the day. Except there were no rules in place and we just made everything up as we went along. But now there are too many creative minds at the Christmas table so there are moments of madness when our imagination runs wild...

Really you don't know all the trouble one almond has caused...When the last Pavlova was baked the cook saw the almond and then diverted the piece of Pavlova to someone else. In the meantime the young man saw it too and was so upset....Luckily the girls were too young to notice.

This year we'll have some order because a special crown has been made for the 'Almond King'. Here it is...

The Almond King's Crown  
A basic zig-zag crown

Materials:
1/2 metre of felt in contrasting colours
Thread for top-stitching
Fake jewels, buttons, scraps felt
Gorilla glue or UHU
Iron-on stiffening
Scissors, or rotary cutter
Hack saw (small)
Sewing Machine

To Make:
Basically you make your own template on paper to the size and height you want. This is an adult crown but because it's made out of felt it tucks nicely behind the children's ears and stays on their heads  okay...I didn't want to have an expanding strap at the back. But this is an option you could just make a half crown with wide covered elastic at the back.

I wanted to trim the bottom with fur but left it plain instead....next time!

Cut out a crown shape. Use the template have you made.
You'll need to cut two one pieces of felt.
Also chose some jewels to glue onto the
crown...

Trace onto stiffening by tracing around the cut crown. Then
cut out the shape

Press the iron on stiffening to
the inner yellow part of the crown. Use a hot iron

Trim to make everything  up to make even. In
the end I used sharp scissors..I need a license
 to use a rotary cutter...

Attaching the centre decoration to  the other side of the buckle.
This jewel represents the almond... 

Cutting the shanks off the buttons ready to glue on.
Use a hack saw blade or in my case I'm using
 a coping saw. I've also top-stitched the two
 pieces of felt leaving back open. Sew On the
felt shapes..

Now top-stitch the back seam through all
layers. Finally decorate and embellish
over  the seam line

The finished crown showing the
inside back seam. 

The Almond King's Crown
by
Sew Sister

Ha Ha said the Clown!

I've been busy putting this clown outfit together...Now three days later I have emerged from totally trashing the dinning room. I didn't clean up after my last project and there was fabric, scraps, and thread everywhere. Not to count all the pins embedded in my carpet, lucky I have a big magnet on the fridge!

I wasn't sure how I was going to make a clown costume, until I spotted this wonderful tutorial on sewing a clown costume over at sew mama sew. The style and design looked very simple and quick to sew. I envisaged that 'this will not take me very long'.

Well it took me a lot longer than I thought because I took a liking to putting circles on the clown pants. I had to sew them on using the blanket stitch setting on my Bernina Activa 220. It took me quite a  while to do that...

My exciting moment though was finding these four large red buttons in my button jar. They were perfect for the straps but very tricky to sew on as they have such small shanks.

The sewing pattern I used was Simplicity 2037 (size S) for the clown pants. I just cut the pyjama pants legs much shorter. For the bands, straps, and bow tie I drafted a pattern. The attached straps cross over at the back of the clown pants and are sewn onto the back band. Buttons are then sewn on top of the straps and this  helps hold them in place too.

For the bow tie I cut an oblong 16"x6" and a smaller oblong I think it was 5"x 3" out of the red satin.  But measurements don't really matter for the bow tie. You can make it as large as you like or as small as you like. To attach the bow tie I hand sewed onto a red satin band which is then fastened with Velcro at the back.

Working it all out....but I forgot
to sew the striped pockets into the
side seams. I changed the tie to
a bow tie too!

Tracing out the circles and
cutting to size using fabric
fro my stash

Ready to press the iron-on stiffening
onto the circles

Placing the circles where I
want them

Red satin leg bands sewn on. I used
iron-on stiffening in all bands. As the
white fabric I used is fairly stiff it
helped to keep the box shape of the
pants

I top-stitched the pants in yellow
thread...

This is a bit of a squeeze perhaps I
should have used the Juki...

Sewing the heart onto the T-shirt

I knew these old buttons would
come in handy one day...

Making a bow tie out of
red satin

All finished there is boning in
the red waist band

Celebrations for a Princess

The 'heels' were a hit with the cat and the girls...and as always the shabby old butterfly wings come out. of the toy box.

Friends...the cat kept running away
with the shoes 

One little Princess only wore shoes and a veil

Green Tea Gateau
From 
Patisserie YAHAGI
376 Riccarton Rd
Church Corner Mall
Upper Riccarton
Christchurch

Dancing Princesses & Celebrations

I've been wanting to make princess dresses for awhile. But I didn't want to spend too much on this project as the girls are growing all the time..

So I went out and bought a pack of vests/singlets  (depends what you call them). They come in packs of two which is great... I used these for the tops of the princess dresses, the wee one has already had a fitting.

To make the dresses I just cut the vests/singlets a few inches down from the armhole I think it was three inches. Then I gathered the fabric as full as I wanted and then sewed this onto the top. I used two layers of fabric to make the gathered skirt part. The stiff pale pink sheer fabric was used underneath and the softer pink flower fabric for the top layer of the skirt.

This is not a fire-proof type of fabric so they've all been given strict instructions that these dresses are for playing only and away from heaters etc. I also had fun buying something pretty for their hair and some pretend shoes so they could be dancing princesses.  You can tell I was princess deprived in my childhood. I'm making up for it now...The girls should look cute for their celebrations tomorrow.

Finally my Elna 745 overlocker performed and it did a nice small 2-thread rolled hem finish....

When I cut the vest I used white hemming tape
to stabilize the knit fabric before sewing on
the gathered Voile type fabric...

Princess dresses for the dress-up box...

Art Apron Sewing

The pattern I have used here is from this website.  You can also download the pattern here. I used a waterproof fabric and added double lined pockets to the bottom of the apron. The size I used was the largest one and I lengthened the apron for the height of the child. It made a very fitted slim full body apron. In hindsight perhaps I could have made it wider...

What I really like about this pattern is that the waist strap is attached by Velcro. Very easy for the child to put on and off with out help of an adult.

This is a Montessori apron I believe...But I think it would be excellent for all early childhood centres like kindergarten and pre-school. This is definitely a good style art apron for older children.

Did it keep the paint off?
Mostly it did, except boys being boys they managed to put paint on each other!

Would I make it again?
Yes I would this is a fabulous pattern and I'll enlarge the size of the pattern as the child grows...

The Sunshine Medal

This is the 'sunshine medal' it's for a little boy who never gets first or anywhere in the running races at school...In fact he hates them so much that he never wants to participate. When he does he gets angry at himself because he is never a winner...No amount of explaining or discussion about how he is very good at other things works...He still hates the whole thing.

To make him feel more positive about school sports events I decided that we would celebrate the fact that he has participated in the running races. If he did this in a positive manner he would attend an awards ceremony when he got home (he so wanted to attend). There he would be given a special sunshine medal, an award for children who ran races with happy smiles on their faces at school sports events (I made that up).

Firstly I made him a medal certificate and laminated it. I used Custom Medal Maker to make a medal certificate like this to go with his medal.

This is an example I worded it
differently, using the child's name etc.

Things you need:
1 plastic buckle
1 metre or less of ribbon
1 curtain ring
Jovi modelling clay
1 hacksaw blade
A glue gun
Acrylic gold paint
Acrylic black paint
2 Paint brushes
Water based varnish
Cookie stamp
Sewing machine
Rolling pin
Glass for cutting circle
Handy towels

To start with you need a belt buckle
 and some ribbon...

Using only the blade of the hacksaw, saw the
bar at each then remove it

Now it's ready for inserting and
 gluing the clay medal onto it. I set the
clay medal  from underneath the buckle,
not on top it was tidier that way

I used an old clay cookie stamp to
press into the clay to make the
sunshine impression

I found store bought clay was the best
for neatness of shape. Though I  did try
making my own clay but it didn't retain
 the sunshine print as well...

Roll the clay out to the thickness needed.
Then cut out a circle shape with a glass.
Next press the cookie stamp firmly onto
 clay circle...

 I tried out the stamp a few times until
 I got the perfect sunshine impression 

Dry the clay shapes. I used the oven I
didn't have time to wait...

Paint the hardened clay gold and
then varnish when dry...

When varnish is dry paint the clay medal
black using a dry brush

Next wipe off the excess black paint off
with a handy towel or  cloth. Buff then re-varnish

Clay medal glued onto the buckle surround
using the glue gun...

A vintage brass curtain ring to glue onto
the back to attach the strap to...

Curtain ring glued on

Now cut your ribbon to length. Sew the
ribbon using a straight stitch and a zipper foot
 so you can stitch close to the ring

The sunshine medal finished 

The 'sunshine medal' ceremony