Learning to Sew

When I was in eighth grade, I took a class called, Home Economics.  Do they still have those in high school? We learned to cook and sew...and actually sewed two projects during that class:  an apron and something else that could be of our choosing.  I chose to make a pair of navy pants.  We were not shown how to install a zipper so my navy pants had elastic in the waist.  Yuck.  I'm not a big fan of the elastic waist band. lol

Fast forward to 1983 and I'm 26 years old.  It was the first Halloween after the birth of our son, Chip and we decided to have a little Halloween party for all our friends.   My husband was in the JAG Corp and we were stationed at Ft. McClellan in Anniston, Alabama.

If you've been reading BNOTP for a while, you may remember the "Tablescaping Story" story from THIS post that mentions this "Dip and Drape" witch.   She was put to work as part of the table centerpiece for the Halloween party that year.

We were not able to find a place to rent or buy Halloween costumes, so with my very limited sewing skills, I made these clown costumes.


Chip was about 3 days shy of being 5 months old when this pic was taken.  From the time I cut the costumes out and started sewing them until we wore them on Halloween night, he had almost outgrown his. lol.  Keep that in mind when you're sewing for little ones.

Chip's costume had ghosts all over it (that's what those white things are) and a black ruffle down the front. Don't ask me why in the world I was wearing a witches hat with a clown costume.  Ha! I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.  The blue collar was cut from felt and there were bells attached to the end of each thingy.  (Sorry can't remember what you call that type collar now.)

Fast forward again and Chip is 5 years old.   Dinosaurs were all the rage and he loved 'em!  He knew the names of all the dinosaurs, played with dinosaur figures and we made trips to the Fernbank Science Center to see the life-size robotic dinosaurs in action.  Yep, life was all about dinosaurs.

Chip wanted to be a dinosaur for Halloween that year, so I broke out the old Kenmore sewing machine again.  It had been my sisters for many years before it was gifted to me and unfortunately, it had developed a very bad habit of breaking thread every 5 seconds.  Even a trip to Sears for a "tune-up" didn't cure it.  It took me about a month to make the dinosaur costume, sewing whenever I had a little free time .

There were many "firsts" for me in the making of this costume:
1. First time I had ever put in a zipper (it's down the front)
2. First time I worked with satin and lamé (the front "chest" area is red satin and the pointed plates on the head and down the back are green lamé)
3. First time I had ever done any quilting (the red satin chest is quilted)
4. First time I had ever "lined" anything.  (The hood is lined with the same red satin that's quilted on the front of the costume.

I just followed the directions in the pattern to install the zipper and to do the quilting.  Today, we would go online to figure all that out, wouldn't we? :)  The mask he's wearing is just a plastic one we found at a local store.  He does have eyes under there.  I guess the mask slid down in this pic. lol

I also made red satin claws for all four legs...uh, I mean hands and feet...well, you know what I mean. ;)

This evening, I hung the costume on the dress form in the office and took a pic so you could see the plates that run down the hood and the back of the costume.  Those are sewn out of green lamé, which unravels at the rate of about one inch per second when you're handling it. ;)

The plates are a little squished from hanging in the closet.  I've forgotten now what's inside that makes them stand out.  I remember the tail is stuffed with polyfiber filling.  I think the plates were made with a thick polyfiber padding/lining.

The costume is the color green you see in the above pic.  This pic was taken at night and in the office lighting, it came out much darker in color.  I've saved this costume all these years thinking one day a grandchild might want to wear it for Halloween.  Unfortunately, a moth or something has chewed a tiny hole or two into the satin on the front.  Maybe that can be patched or hidden somehow.

Fast forward again...Chip is now 28 years old. It's been about 24 years since this girl did any sewing.  When I decided to makeover the porch for this year's 4th of July celebration...

...I really wanted to make some new pillows for the swing.

Here's how the porch looked for the 4th.  You can view it in full in THIS post.

Since my old Sears sewing machine was now around 45 years old, and still  up to its thread-breaking tricks, I decided to treat myself to a new machine.  Wow, have sewing machines come a long, long way!

This post is getting a bit long, so I'm going to show how I made the piping and the pillows you see below on the swing in another post that I'm going to try and get ready by this afternoon.  So stop back by later today and I should have that post up.

Met Monday Miracle Makeover:
Thanks so much to everyone for leaving comments on the Met Monday post.  Every comment you left and leave by August 18th will raise $1 for the next miracle makeover.  You guys are awesome!


Scavenger Hunt:
I'll be announcing the winner of the Scavenger Hunt this week, so please be patient while I go through all the entries.


Shopping Trip to New York City for Christmas and You're Invited!

Mark Ballard is planning a shopping trip to New York, y'all!  And you're invited!

Mark and his wife Debra always take a group to New York for a fun shopping trip around Christmas time each year.  One of these years I'm going to go.  I can't go this year, but Mark asked me to let you know he still has a few openings.  The group is getting close to being full, so if you would love to meet Mark and see all the best shopping haunts in New York City between December 1 and December 5th, contact Mark at the e-mail shown at the bottom of this agenda.  He'll forward the registration form your way.

If you go, take lots of pics and share them with me. I'd love to share them here on BNOTP!

See you later today with the second half of this "pillow sewing" tutorial. :)  In the meantime, there are some awesome "Before and Afters" linked for yesterday's Met Monday, so scroll on down and check 'em out!