Starting the Costume!

Well today I was at an in-service in the afternoon, which means home from school early!  So instead of doing the mountain of homework I had waiting for me I wanted to do nothing more than get to work on my costume!  I started by cutting out the pattern, which took almost half of my floor, as the skirt itself took almost 5 meters of fabric!  My cats found this all too intriguing, and so they began getting in the way as their curiosity drove me a little crazy!  Never the less, I got all of the pattern pieces cut out.  I am using a couple different patterns and putting my own spin on them.  The pattern I used for the skirt is Butterwick B4827


As soon as I had all 10 pieces ready to go, I set up the sewing machine and got right to work.  Within an hour I had the skirt all sewn together.  Tomorrow I need to install the zipper and hem the bottom and just like that the skeleton for my skirt is complete.  While that sounds very impressive, I know, that is really just the easy part.  I am then going to sew hundreds of ruffles all around the skirt.  I have read on a couple of other blogs that this took some people weeks (hence it being Sept 19 and my Halloween costume is started).  I am hoping it will not take this long, but looking at the size of my skirt, I have a feeling it won't be a simple task!  But I am certainly up for the challenge. 

Now as you can imagine, hundreds of ruffles are going to take lots and lots of fabric, so if anyone out there in cyber land happens to have some old black, charcoal, navy or grey fabric lying around that they would like to donate to a worthy cause please let me know!  I am hoping to get an eclectic mix of fabrics, and so any type of fabric would be great.  It can even have a dark pattern on it.

I am so excited about this project, and I cannot wait to see it all come together.  As I am finishing this post I am realizing my excitement has gotten the best of me, and I didn't even mention what my costume is going to be.  I have decided to go as one of my all time favourite characters,  from what is arguably the best musical of all time:  Elphaba from Wicked!  It is a very ambitious project, but I have decided I am in need of a challenge.  I will be making her act II dress, which is absolutely stunning.

Here's hoping I defy gravity!

First Post!

I have been reading many of my friends blogs lately, and I decided I wanted to join the world of bloggers and share my love of crafting with the world!  I have been a crafty/artistic person my whole life, and I am finding now, the more I craft, the more I want to share what I do with other people!
I would like to start today with a few pictures of my favourite costumes that I have sewn, because I just purchased the start of my new Halloween costume for this year and I can hardly wait to get to work on it! 

These pictures are from last Halloween when my husband Dan and I went as Woody and Jessie from Toy Story.

I made his vest and my chaps with some amazing cow print fabric.  The hats we bought and spray painted.  I then added the lacing around the edge and the ribbon around the center of the hat.  I painted the detailing on my shirt with fabric paint.  Dan's shirt was probably the most time consuming.  I took an old white shirt and died it yellow.  I then drew all the red lines on with a fabric marker.  These are some of my favourite costumes.  I think the turned out so well!

Thanks for reading!  Looking forward to more posts to come.  Happy crafting!