My cousin asked me to make a fairy costume for her baby, who will turn one in September. She’s having a fairy-theme party for her.
I started with a basic baby sundress pattern, and, um, went from there. I used a crinkly pink poly-nylon (as in, This Will Melt When You Put Your Big Stupid Iron On It, Sara) for the bodice and overskirt. The edges of the pointy bits are finished with a narrow zigzag because I have no idea where my serger is at the moment. Besides, I wanted a lighter finish, and the fabric isn’t especially ravelly.
The ends of the points have iridescent pearls and crystals sewn to them. I checked with my cousin to see if this was ok, and she says the baby isn’t really into pulling on stuff and eating it at this point.

The dress is underlined (on the bodice) and lined with lavender silk shantung that I happened to have lying around. Yes, I have that kind of life…just piles and piles of silk everywhere. Stupid remnant bin at stupid Thai Silks is my stupid downfall.
The skirt is made of six layers of tulle, with iridescent sequins on the second layer. I picked that tip up from Bridal Couture – the sequins are better protected if they’re under one layer of tulle, and it doesn’t cut down on the sparkle. Indeedy.

To glue them on, I used a q-tip with the head cut off, dipped the tip in glue, and then held it up to the back of the tulle while I pressed a sequin to the front. I could get several sequins per dip, and there wasn’t any mess. It doesn’t take a lot of glue to hold a sequin.
The wings are just iridescent wrap. They’re nowhere near as elaborate as the ones I did on my last fairy adventure, but I think they work. I just cut the wrap into an upper wing shape and a lower wing shape, and then stitched 2 layers of each of them together in the center. Then I crinkled the wrap up so it’s more sparkly, and also so that I didn’t have to worry about crushing them when I packed the whole thing up to send it to Tennessee. They’re attached to the costume via a tie on the back. I hope they’re good enough. I freak myself out about this stuff sometimes. Still, I think that for someone who is going to be sitting down most of the time (because that’s what ya do when you’re barely a year old) these are going to be the most comfortable option.

The headpiece and the flower trim on the dress came from little bridal flower picks. The headpiece is just flowers wired to pipecleaners, with some twisted-wire bead thingies pointing up here and there. I wrapped the whole thing in ribbon and made some streamers on the back. I cut the heads off some of the flowers and sewed them onto the dress with a sequin and a seed bead in the center.
She’s going to be the cutest little fairy!

Monkey baby!

The monkey baby turned out really cute. I made the whole thing in a day…it was very simple. I found the fabric at Discount Fabrics in San Francisco, which is also walking distance from my office. Just a nice basic low pile brown fur. The tan parts are that cheesy faux suede they sell at Fabric Hell (some folks have asked me about Fabric Hell…that’s my little pet name for Jo-Ann Fabrics. Yeah, they get a lot of my money, but I don’t have to like it). The hat is red silk doupioni that I had lying around, with a gold tassel and gold soutache braid. It’s lined with fusible fleece for body. I thought I’d have to stuff it, but it was fine without it. I really wish I’d topstitched the inner ear, to give that more definition. The ears are kind of lame. The tail totally makes up for it, though. That’s a fine tail. The monkey costume is by Simplicity, in 2007 the number is 3598. They change the number every year or so, but they keep making it.

The baby wasn’t sure what to make of the feet. When the costume arrived, her mom put the feet on her (they’re like little booties) and Jadyn just stared at her feet and finally reached out very carefully to touch them. So, in the end, my hypothesis was correct: babies dressed like monkeys are, indeed, funny.

Wednesday, October 17, 2001

Photos of Sarah’s dress in progress:

Bodice	Front

Thursday, October 11, 2001

The bodice of Sarah’s dress is completely assembled, and I’ve done a lot of the beadwork on MacKenzie’s bodice and sleeves. Things could be worse.

I bought some of those cheesy gold strung beads at Fabric Hell, and sewed them on to the lower sleeves on Sarah’s dress, in a grid pattern. I don’t have a bead foot for my machine, so I just set the presser foot tension to almost nothing (a very cool feature of my Viking – I can tell the machine how hard to press down on the fabric!) and ran over the beads with a large zig zag. It worked! It’s not couture, since the lines aren’t perfectly straight, but it looks really cool. And, as Ryan reminded me about 40 times as we were sewing last weekend, it is just a costume. I think she’s afraid I’m going to melt down from stress, but, really, I don’t have time for that!

MacKenzie’s costume is pink satin, with lots of white lace and pearls and pink ribbon roses. It’s very sweet. I’m looking forward to starting to sew it this weekend. Leigh helped me cut out everything last weekend, so I hopefully I can just get right to work on it!

I found horsehair braid in all kinds of colors today at Britex fabrics in San Francisco – my new office is a few blocks from there, dangerous, dangerous! So, I bought that in green and pink for the hems of their skirts. I’d like to have Sarah’s dress finished by the end of the weekend, and now I have everything I need to do that. I just have to attach the skirt to the bodice, put in the zipper, and hem the skirt, which is easy to do with the horsehair. Horsehair braid (ok, it’s really nylon) gives the bottom of the skirt a bit of extra body so it will be poufier. Poufy is good for princesses!

I still don’t have the fabric for the monkey costume, but that’s because I’m really lazy. I’m going to hunt it down this weekend. I promise.

Tuesday, September 18, 2001

Is it time for this crazy aunt to start thinking about Halloween costumes already? Yes, it is! Sarah and MacKenzie are both going to be beautiful princesses, and the baby will be a monkey (see pattern at right).

I bought the fabric for Sarah’s costume already. Jessica McClintock’s outlet in S. San Francisco is selling fabric again, and I got some really cool dark teal satin with little glitter sparklies that are all over my hands and will soon be all over the house. I got 2 beaded appliques that will look really good with it; they’re a weird shape—I’ll have to cut them up and re-assemble them to fit the bodice of her dress. So, Sarah’s costume is going to have sort of a green and gold theme. I think it will be gorgeous.

They didn’t have the right pink fabric for Kenz’s dress. Mostly, they had a lot of dark or subdued colors, and I want to use some white trims and lace that I have, so I need a non-dusty pink. I’ll go to Fabric Hell for pink satin for her. I did get a nice white lace applique for the front of her dress, and then my big score was a huge bolt of white sequin trim. 72 yards of white sequin trim, actually, for $5. I also got 2 rhinestone button things that will look all kinds of swanky on the dress bodices or as choker necklaces.

I’m still trying to find brown berber fleece for the monkey; I’ll use fur if I have to (done it before!) but I think the baby would be happier in fleece.

I should be further along with these, but, between the wedding and my recent health crisis, September just wasn’t about making Halloween costumes. So, now I have a week left before I leave for a vacation in France, and I need to turn fabric into something interesting. So, Halloween 2000 won’t be my usual extravaganzas.

Luckily, MacKenzie has selected something straightforward; I have to produce a Dalmatian puppy costume, which is a breeze. In fact, I did the main body in one evening, from cutting out to installing the velcro closure. I used fake fur (yes, tiny little bits of it are now everywhere…my housemates are not amused) and a basic Butterick pattern. The hood part is very cute…it didn’t call for a lining, but I lined it in white satin anyway, if only to keep the little bits of fur out of Kenz’s hair. I also changed the pattern by lining the ears in satin, instead of using two layers of fur. I thought that would be too bulky.

Sarah wants to be a genie, which requires a bit more creativity on my part. I don’t like any of the genie costumes available, since she will need to stay warm and most of the patterns have bare midriffs and sheer fabrics. Great for California, not so good for Michigan!

The main fabrics for Sarah’s costume are ones that I bought last year, and didn’t use for the faeries. They’re perfect for this, though—blue glitter stretch velvet and purple sequin satin. I’ve finished the genie pants – they’re knit leggings, in the stretch velvet, with full, open-sided satin pants on top. The velvet shows through at the sides, and I finished the edges with metallic blue trim. The pattern is by New Look; I split the top of the leggings to make a yoke, and then gathered the satin legs to the knit legs, and sewed them together. I put an elastic casing at the bottom of the satin pants, to give them the right poofy shape.

I sewed beads and bells at the ankles and waist, and made beaded fringe on the bottom edge of the yoke. Once again, I had to be taught the lesson that, if you’re going to sew bells to a project, do it when the costume is finished. Sure, it’s fun to sew the bells on, but do you really want to listen to them every time you move the fabric? No, you do not.

The top is made of the sparkly knit, with poofy satin sleeves. The top of the bodice has purple satin draped over it, and a tie in the middle, for sort of a bikini top effect. Sort of. Ok, it’s not the best thing I ever did. Moving on…

The hat is a cute pillbox, made of the sequined satin. I had a great piece of broken costume jewelry, with a big purple stone, and I sewed that to the front of the hat. Above that is a motif I embroidered in gold thread. There are small hooks on the sides, which connect to loops on the veil. The veil is a great metallic sheer knit.

Anyway, the costumes got to the girls in time, I was able to go to France without feeling guilty about unfinished costuming, and everything fit them reasonably well, although I seem to have over-estimated the length of Sarah’s legs; there’s poofy and then there’s ridiculous…

Halloween is upon us, and I would not bea very good Overindulgent Aunt if I didn’t use my skills to produce wonderful

costumes for the girls, now, would I? MacKenzie is going to be Rapunzel…ora reasonable facsimile thereof. This is a kid who doesn’t like having alot of stuff on her head, so we have our doubts about her tolerance for balancing a huge hat with attached braid on top of her noggin. [see photo below - she is about two seconds away from ripping that crown off her head!] She may end up as Generic Royalty, which is also lovely.

Sarah, my budding third grade Goth, wishes to be a Spider Princess. What could be more fun than that? I’m looking forward to crushed velvet, sequins, and sheer fabrics on this one. All in glorious black!

Labor Day Weekend 1998

Last weekend, I found the main fabric at the Jessica McClintock outlet. I got some great deals, as always! MacKenzie’scostume will be a combination of purple satin, pink satin, and a very pretty

white-pink-silver brocade, with royal blue venice lace trim. I guess the market for royal blue venice lace just isn’t what it used to be; I got it for 50 cents a yard! It looks very regal with the purple satin; she may look more like a queen! I found myself drawn to stronger colors for her; I just couldn’t see Kenzie as a wimpy little pale pastel princess! She has a very forceful personality for a 3 and a half year old!

Sarah’s fabric is sooo cool! It’s sort of a black metallic sheer. Hard to describe, but very pretty and I got it for $1.10 a yard. I have all kinds of fun spidery ideas for it. I got a gunmetal gray iridescent taffeta to use as an underskirt. I can’t wait to start playing with it. I’ve started working on a sequined spider for her scepter (she’s gotta have one of those!), since that is a good tv activity.

Pushing pins into styrofoam…very cerebral.

This weekend, I got some of the more ornate parts of Kenzie’s costume moving forward. The sleeves of her dress have

a poofy top and then a narrow bottom, which cleverly closes with velcro for easy on/off. I made the bottom of the brocade fabric, with the blue lace over it, along the edge. I beaded the flowers in the lace with some pink crystals from one of mom’s garage sale jewelry hunt finds. She sent me a huge bag of scary stuff, and at the very bottom, there was a handful

of excellent Austrian crystals. Sparkle city. The top of the sleeve will be in either the pink or the purple satin; I haven’t worked that part out yet.

The bodice of the dress is purple satin, with an inset of brocade on the center front. This is bordered by a trim I invented from layering a sequined silver braid on top of large scale silver rickrack. There is a blue lace motif in the center of the brocade, beaded with more crystals and pearls. The trim goes around the neckline as well. It’s quite pretty, and has the all-important Sparkle Factor.

The skirt is brocade, with a purple satin overskirt. I am gluing the blue lace to the hem of the brocade. I know,

I could sew it…but this isn’t exactly an heirloom. It’s a Halloween costume and I’m a busy geek. I am gluing pearls on the lace, and clear rhinestones for the motifs near the center front.

I’ll use the silver sequin trim on the edge of the overskirt. The other part of the costume is a velvet cape. I’ll be sending this costume to Michigan, and it gets cold there around

trick or treating time! So, I’m making a little cape to go over the costume. I bought some fabulous purple crushed velvet, and white fur trim. I’m going to line it with pink satin. It will have a very nice drape, and be warm enough for serious trick or treating. I also found buttons for the neck which are huge pink acrylic rhinestones. They’re so tacky! This is the only thing I can possibly imagine doing with them, but they will be perfect jewels

for the princess! The cape will be a fun addition to their dress up box after Halloween.

October 4

I am covered in tiny bits of white fur. I’ve been sewing fake fur trim onto the half circle of purple crushed velvet which will form Princess MacKenzie’s cape. It looks good, but I can’t stop sneezing long enough to really admire it.

I’m reasonably impressed with this fur, which is the rather cheesy looking 3″ wide fur from the trim department at FabricHell. Fur is never a delight to sew, but this stuff has behaved itself rather well, and it certainly gives the desired effect on this cape. It will look even better once I get the silver sequin braid sewn over where the fur meets the velvet.

To make the cape, I fused WonderUnder to the back of the velvet (remember, this is crushed velvet, so the iron wasn’t a big deal!), then traced my half circle on the paper backing, cut that out, and fused the velvet to pink satin for the lining. To finish the edges, I sewed the fur to the satin side, right sides together, and then brought the fur around to bind the edge. I used a huge zigzag stitch to hold the fur in place, keeping all of the stitching inside the fur. I’m going to apply the silver braid by hand, so I will catch any stray edges to the velvet in the process.

MacKenzie’s dress is just about finished; it went together without a struggle. I finished the edges of the overskirt with my serger, using a rolled hem to attach silver rick rack. I pressed the seam under, so the points of the rick rack are the edge of the overskirt. It’s really cute. I still have to put the zipper in, and then I think I want to put a big bow on the back, because: a) princesses like big bows; and b) I’m not completely happy with the gathering of the overskirt at center back, and a big bow will do a good job of covering that up! Once that is done, I just have to clip threads, check that all the rhinestones & pearls are secure, and that one is finished!

Sarah’s dress is not as far along, but most of the handwork is finished, so I don’t expect it to give me too much trouble. I’m not worried yet,and I still plan to send them both out next weekend.

October 5

Oh, such coolness for Sarah’s dress. Today, I picked up some Sulky black/silver metallic thread, and I am having a wonderful time using it to embroider on the black velvet of her peplum. I’m using a narrow zig zag stitch to make lines in a spider web pattern. It’s really cool. I definitely need to pick up some embroidery needles, though; my regular needles are shredding the thread because the holes aren’t large enough.

October 11

I just finished Kenzie’s cape; it looks great! It’s so regal. The tacky pink jewel buttons are perfect; I think she will like them!

Sarah’s costume is still in the Some Assembly Required stage, but it is definitely starting to look like something. Unfortunately, she broke her ankle yesterday! She’s going to be getting around on crutches for Halloween, so I’m trying to decide what to send to decorate them to go with her costume. I think she needs a few spiders (on elastic bands) to decorate her cast. And glitter polish for her toenails, of course. Poor thing.

Some details on Sarah’s costume: the bodice is black velvet, with silver metallic spiderwebs embroidered with Sulky thread. The leg o’ mutton sleeves are made of gunmetal iridescent taffeta, with an overlayer of silver mesh. I really like this silver mesh fabric; it has large diamond shaped holes, almost like a Russian veiling on steroids. It’s perfect. The bottom half of the sleeves is more of the black embroidered velvet.

There is a large lace motif on the bodice (thank you, bargain bin @ Jessica McClintock), which is set over layers of the net & taffeta, so that the silver shows through the lace. The motif had a small amount of beading when I bought it, and then I added more, including a beaded spider near the neckline. The spider is made from 2 largish black acrylic beads, with bugle beads for legs. It’s fun.

There is a black velvet peplum, which is formed into points; I will add beaded drops at each of the points. The skirt is gunmetal taffeta. The center front has another piece of lace from the bargain bin, which I beaded to a rather excessive degree while watching bad TV this weekend. The hem is finished with a rolled serger edge, and then I put a 1½” black sequin braid along the bottom edge. Plenty o’ sparkle. The overskirt is made of the silver net. I’m planning to gather it up a bit, and attach small spiders to it. I found some fabulous little raffia spiders @ Beverly’s Fabrics in San Jose (conveniently located a few blocks from my office), and I have put them on eyepins so I can attach them to the dress.

What? Oh, of course there is a headpiece! I’m making a tiara-type thing out of some black beaded lace and a ton of millinery wire.

So, that’s where we are as of tonight. These costumes will be leaving at some point this week, so I shall keep on working…

October 12

I’m definitely in the Falling in Love with the Project stage with Sarah’s costume. I think I’m spending as much time admiring it as I am working on it. The bodice is assembled, and the skirt has been gathered to the peplum. I still have to attach the lining to the bodice, and put the two parts together. Then, it’s just a matter of putting the zipper in and doing a final check for stupid errors.

It’s gorgeous.

October 15/16

Wow, the bodice lining on Sarah’s dress went in without a struggle. Normally, trying to mate velvet and taffeta is a much more frustrating experience. I used a trick I picked up on one of my sewing discussion lists, and pinned it every inch or so, using 2 pins in an X configuration. That keeps it from slipping.

The dress is all but finished. After my triumphant lining attachment experience, sewing the skirt to the bodice was a breeze. Then I sat down for some serious handwork, including setting the zipper (which knew better than to give me any trouble!), tacking the lining in place, and applying some trims. I added a black venice lace around the neckline, and tacked the lining down at the same time, then put the large beaded applique on the front of the bodice. I’m still completely infatuated with this costume.

Sarah will be in a walking cast for the next four weeks; she chose a black one instead of hot pink, to better match her costume. I picked up some black stretch sequins yesterday, and am planning to come up with some sort of cast decoration.

We have decided against the big hat for Kenzie; instead, I just bought a beaded tiara @ FabricHell, and then tarted it up a bit. I added more ‘peaks’ to it, using the pink crystals that are on her dress and cape, and removed the really lame curling ribbon streamers that were on the back.

I made a similar headpiece for Sarah, except that hers was made from scratch, instead of cheating by starting with a ready made one. I used black acrylic beads, and attached them to a base made of black beaded alencon lace. I started off using covered millinery wire, but that seemed a bit wimpy, so I ended up using 20 gauge beading wire. It is very pretty and sparkly.

So, this project is complete. The costumes will go to their new home in the next few days, leaving me with nothing to do…yeah, right! I have a full day’s work ahead of me, reclaiming my sewing room from it’s current state of chaos, and filing away all of these fabric scraps for later use.