One costume down!

Here are the finished efforts for Glitter Glue Princess’s costume.

She is going as a Mummer Pirate, and if you don’t know what a mummer is, look here and here..

The hat is her homage to the lead singer – Joziah – of Gandalf Murphy (she saw it at the store and HAD to have it)….

We found the skull button set at Jo-Ann’s, and she hot glued them to the hat.

The skirt is a clearance item from J.Jill.  It is a cool ragged silk number.  It was the smallest petite skirt I’ve ever seen there, and it is a bit long for her, but works great with the costume.  The ragged bias strips make it move and shimmer when she walks.

The shirt was previously posted, and the corset was just finished.  How do you make a corset for a girl?  You make it comfy, that’s how.  Note the shirring on the sides – looks like a corset, but fits like a comfy tank top…  I think we can use it for at least a couple years.

Now she wants some glittery dorothy shoes to go with her jingle-y red belt!

Racing for the cure!

Glitter Glue Princess and I participated in the Komen Race for the Cure.  I was part of a team, and I registered her as an individual.

She earned $105 for the cause!

A big thank you to both Grandmas and Grandpas, Kath, Rosemary, Cheryl and Renee for supporting her!

That Bugger! and a pirate shirt.

Little Mickey was ill all weekend. He was worse than a baby, as he just laid around all weekend, and wanted us to hold him.  He wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink – I was sure he was a goner, and we had no reason for this to occur.  He had the ear mite treatment at the vet, but they were really bothering him – it wouldn’t explain him not eating.  Sunday, I got all bothered with it and started pumping him full of beef baby food and cat milk in a syringe.  He acted a bit better, even though we only got 40 mls of liquid in him.

By Monday, he was back to his little popcorn self – bouncing around and chasing anything that thought about moving.  He ate heartily – but now we can’t get him to eat dry food again.

We’ve had introductions with the other cats – Fat Boy doesn’t care if he is here or not, though Mickey doesn’t like the looks of him.  Miss Dot is not happy about his presence, and has thought about stalking him down a few times, only to be cut down by us.  Mickey just grumbles and growls at them all, even though they are up to 3X larger than him.

When I could, I passed on the little guy to the kiddo – she got to play momma for a bit.  I made her pirate shirt, using no pattern.

On the first fitting, we found that I didn’t give her enough ease, and the armpits were too tight.  No problem!  I actually figured out how to take care of both of these problems with one thing – armpit gussets running to the hem!

You’d never know it was there, and adds a decent amount of ease to the shirt.

Next item is the corset/tank top number using the skull fabric peeking out above.  Lots of shirring on the sides – should be fun.  Aaaarrgh!

Poor Mickey

According to the vet, he only had a serious case of earmites.  The girlie later found a few fleas on him, which resulted in a bath.  No problem.  Still doing well.  The earmites were really bothering him, so we cleaned out his ears.

Then yesterday, he just wanted to sleep.  He isn’t eating.  No indications that he swallowed something he shouldn’t.  We’re going to go get some kitten milk and beef baby food today and syringe feed him if necessary.  He is definitely going to the vet – poor little guy.

Halloween Ball Costume To-Do List

1. Make chemise for Glitter Glue Princess.
2. Make “corset” for Glitter Glue Princess – more like a tube top with shirring on the sides and decorative lacing, but will still look like a corset when worn.  The fabric has little skulls all over it.
3. Make batiked underskirt to wear with my pirate corset.
4. Make light up skirt with planets on it to wear with my pirate corset.  The battery powered neon and l.e.d. lights arrived yesterday.   Figure out where to put the battery packs so I don’t look like I just gained another 10 lbs at the hips…!
5. Help S spray paint his tuxedo jacket with a skull on the back.
6. Debate on whether I should use a space helmet for my helmet.

Totally confused yet?

Here’s a hint:

From slambovia.com

I have a month to get this all done too…  No pressure.

Introducing…… Mickey!

I was working late today, and received an urgent sounding voicemail from the Glitter Glue Princess, saying they were leaving to go get a kitten.  Ummm, o.k…..  I came home to find the house empty, but S and kiddo arrived 5 minutes later with a little friend.

This is Mickey.

He was the first on the list at Craigslist and was in desperate need of a home.

S told me the backstory after we got him situated in his separate quarters (i.e. my bathroom).  The lady who they visited had found him in her apartment complex dumpster, in a trash bag.  He was scrawney and a mess.  She took care of him for a few weeks and nursed him back to health, but had no money to give him anything other than her dog’s food, and her family was allergic.  She just wanted him to get a good home.

When she heard about our last cat, she said we could have him.

We estimate he is around 4 to 5 months old.  He is going to get checked out tomorrow, following an evening in his separate quarters – we want to make sure he doesn’t have ear mites/parasites/etc before the introduction to everyone else.

Of course, the girlie is smitten with him.  She originally named him Midnight.  I had a cat with that name as a kid, so I had some sentimental attachment, and girlie decided he should be Mickey instead.

More pictures (don’t mind the shampoo bottles):

yellow submarine

On our way up to the porcupine mountain music festival, S and I drove to Hayward, WI.  Gandalf Murphy was playing a fund-raising concert for a local radio station.  S requested the following:

Hoop Dreams, Part Deux

Continuing on my quest for making the ideal collapsible hoop, I tried my hand at an infinity style hoop, made with larger connectors that had more grip than the usual ones I use.  I tried it with 4 connectors.  It worked pretty well, except for the untwisting.  It took longer, as I had to torque it into a ring shape from the rounded trapezoid that it unfolded into.  Mind you, they traveled exceptionally well, as I took them to the porcupine mountains, but it just took more than one minute to unpack, which was….awkward when all you wanted to do was hoop!

The next evolution will be two connectors, which may help with this trapezoidal issue I’m encountering.  Just another experiment to complete.  Don’t mind me as I sit in the corner and tape more hoops!

Glitter Glue Princess has been doing quite a few as well – she has been making mostly trick hoops though – the kind that you use on your arms and throw around.

She also made a tinkerbell colored regular hoop – quite nice….

A sewing frenzy

I was sewing up a storm before our trip to the Porcupine Mountains.

Up first a variation of Kwiksew 3467.  I made it short sleeved, shortened the neck facing to snug it up, added about 1/2″ to either side, and extended the length 7″ to make a dress out of the tunic.

The first one I sewed was in a thin bamboo lycra knit in a pale green.  Let me stress the thin and the pale here – both features make it a fashion don’t.  It was in serious need of dye job.  I dyed it a lovely bright green, but failed to remember to filter the green before the dip dye.  Note to self – bright green ALWAYS needs a filter job to prevent blue spots when dip dying!  Insert headsmack here.  I ended up with spots in places that immediately remanded it to the pajama stack and not suitable for photographs.

Never fear, momma’s personal fabric store (aka stash city) to the rescue!

I had a lovely piece of bright lime green cotton lycra, and made the pattern over again:

With the learning curve gone, it only took about 2 hours to make…  I LOVE how the dart is rotated to the center, and how it fits a big busted girl just right!  I think this pattern is a keeper!

Then I sewed up some lovely longer cut gauchos with the nicest waistband ever!  Perfect for festival wear, I used Kwiksew 3384 and a thick piece of black cotton lycra from my stash city.

I traced it straight out of the envelope, and made no height adjustments.  I admit that while the waist fits well, I am swimming in the volume of fabric in the length…  But they don’t fall down with the added fabrics – the added elastic in the top band really helps!  Next time, I need to pull a good 3 inches before cutting!

With a nice small dent made in the cotton lycra bin, I may need to go on a quest and find more nice fabrics to make a winter’s worth of tunics.

In memoriam for Princess

Our 19 year old cat princess passed away last night.

It’s been hard on us for a bit now, as she got lost a couple of weeks ago, and was missing for a day and a half.  Our daughter mourned her loss, crying for a whole day at her absence.  S found her standing in the middle of the road 1/3 mile away from our home the next morning on his way home from work, disoriented and confused.  S brought her home, and our daughter rejoiced in the fact that she was still alive.

Fast forward to two nights ago.  She couldn’t eat or drink, and could barely stand, it happened in just one afternoon.  We placed her in the tub, as that was her favorite place to get a drink, thinking it would help encourage her.  It didn’t.  We tried to get her to eat, but there was nothing we could do.  Our daughter began to realize what was coming and began to mourn again, as she could see the end was near.  Holding her in our laps for an hour helped.  We tried to keep her warm, as we could tell she was getting cold.

Our daughter found her not breathing last night when brushing her teeth. Again, we mourned, but this time in passing.

S and I buried her this morning beneath our burning bush in front of our bay window, as that was her favorite place to hide outside.  I wrapped her in a piece of her favorite fleece blanket.  I’ll save the rest for the kiddo, and make it into a lovey of some kind.

Our favorite memory of her is when our daughter was just a tiny baby, just a month or two old.  Whenever she would cry, Princess would be right there beside her, mewing at her and trying to comfort her, or mewing at us to follow her to the baby if she thought we weren’t parenting well enough…

Because of the situation, this post took precedence over other happy posts.  Give us a few days to get ourselves back in order…

Photos of how we like remembering her: