happy Halloween!

for Halloween this year I decided to be polychrome from the 4th wizard of oz book, “the road to oz”. this as my sister likes to point out to me is a bit on the obscure side, but there is a reason I chose this particular character.
but before I get into that long story I will give a quick overview of making the costume.
the shirt I used a vintage Vogue pattern #1189. I have had the rainbow fabric for years, someone gave it to me, and I have had it so long I contemplated getting rid of it, but then this costume idea came up, which is why its so hard to get rid of fabric, because eventually I will need it one day, even if it take ten years.

this pattern was actually easier then I anticipated. I don't generally sew with vogue patterns and they have a reputation for being complicated but this went together easily enough. the hardest part of the whole thing was cutting out the sequin fabric it made a huge mess, but then I knew it would. my floor was covered with them. I tried at first to serge the edges but all that did was cause three broken needles so I gave up on that idea. I should have given up on that with the first broken needle, but hey I can be stubborn sometimes. I decided though I couldn't afford to lose anymore, as I only had one more needle left for my serger, which reminds me I need to get some more needles.

after breaking the needles I put the garment aside for a few days before deciding on binding the edges with the selvage edge of the fabric. it had a good 2 inch selvage of black sheer fabric which worked perfectly for the binding.
the top zips in the back so I did a lapped zipper, which went in really easy. I was afraid the fabric would stretch as I sewed it but it didn't. everything about the shirt was pretty straight forward. though I did have to re-sew a few of the sequins as they were put on with a chain stitch, and after sitting for years and years some of it had started to unravel.

the skirt was an adventure in itself. it was not exactly what I wanted to do, but I ran into some trouble finding rainbow fabric. which I don’t get since I was shopping during prime Halloween costume making time. I wanted to do more of a circle skirt or a simple gather skirt. I just wanted something easy, so onto Joanns website I go, and search for rainbow fabric, and they have nothing! well they had stuff, they had it listed but everything was "in store pick up only". not a problem I have three stores within an hour or so drive but I did want to be sure they had it before I went because I don’t want to drive that far and then they don't have it. so I check my stores and none of them have it, so I expand the search to within 100 miles and no store within 100 miles has a rainbow fabric and I am not going to drive hundreds of miles for this costume. by the time I discover this though I needed to go to bed and decided I would look around online after I got off the next day I really would rather buy fabric in person I like to touch it and feel the drape, but in a situation such as this I can make an exception if I have too.

on my way home the next day I stopped at a dollar store, (not for fabric) and they had these little kid dress up skirts. I think they were for dressing up like a mermaid? not really how that works for a mermaid, but it's what the packaging said. they were cute fluffy little things but only 10 inches long. which is way short, but they were only $1 a piece so I bought out the store! I bought 10 in all, which really is all they had. the skirts were double layer so I figured I could take them apart and sew them long ways together, then gather at the waist. I think it worked out pretty well, each piece was 54 inches long so I had plenty of length, and I added a different color ribbon to each of the 14 seams, to make it look like I meant to just piece this together the whole time.
I think it worked out pretty well, even for having to re-design the entire thing.

now onto the why I chose this costume.
last year I decided I was going to read all the oz books by L. Frank Baum, and just his,I don;t think I could read all the oz books ever there are just too many. I have not read all the Baum books yet yet, but I am going through them slowly. I am currently reading the fifth one. I like to put some books in between long series though so I don’t bored of them, it will probably take me a while to get through them all.
as I was reading the forth book and came across the character Polychrome it made me laugh. “Polly” as they call her in the book is the rainbows daughter. I think its pretty cool the rainbow has a daughter Actually he has several daughters but Polly is the only one that made it to being a main character. she’s a bit annoying, a little bit on the ditzy side and she dances to keep warm, those are not the things that attracted me to her character though, no what gave me the idea I had to be her was the fact she fell off the rainbow. in the book she is dancing on the edge of the rainbow when bam! she falls to the earth, and her father, not paying any attention to her picks up the rainbow and Poly becomes a poor lost little girl whom Dorothy runs into and agrees to help poly find her way home.

now I am in no exuberant dancing kind of person. however I did once fall off a rainbow.
when I was a child our local park had one of the best play structures I have seen in my life. they had four different wooden buildings that were like forts. they each had two levels to them with platforms and a firehouse pole to slide down. two of them were connected by a bridge that was about 18 inches wide and four feet off the ground. another one had a small slide. there were also swing sets and an awesome 12 foot slide that was open, as in it only had sides that came up about three inches. and there was also a wooden arch that had metal rungs on either side of it for climbing, the very top of the arch was over six feet high, and everyone called this the rainbow.

there were different ways to play on this rainbow and varying views on how it should be played on. one could either climb on the rungs to make ones way over the rainbow, or you could use them like monkey bars and try to make your way over that way. the monkey bar thing though was very difficult and ultimately kids reverted to the climbing over the rainbow.
my mother didn’t like the rainbow for obvious reasons it was dangerous, and I was not allowed to go all the way over till I was bigger. I enviously watched my older siblings playing on the rainbow while never going farther up then the forth rung. till one day I convinced my mother I was big enough and ready to climb over the entire thing... yeah, I wasn’t.
there was a trick to making it over the rainbow, and that trick was knowing where to turn around at exactly the top of the arch so you would go over the other side feet first. I had seen many a child do just this trick, but I misjudged the middle and went to far, which sent me sliding head first down the rainbow. I tried hard as I could to grab on to the bars on either side of me, but I was just going too fast. I face planted at the bottom and was rewarded with a mouthful of dirt. I had so much dirt in my mouth my mother was convinced I had knocked my teeth out. but no they were fine. I was fine, a bit shaken but fine, and banned from going over the rainbow again. this banishment lasted until I was a teenager, actually my mother probably would have let me try again when I was around 10 or so but I was petrified of the thing, so I never asked. the summer I was sixteen or seventeen my cousin, sister and I went to the park one Sunday to do some pictures for our “band”. my cousin wanted to do some pictures on the rainbow and I was like umm.... ok.... but that day was Amazing! because that was the day I faced a fear and beat it. I went over the rainbow,I climbed to the top and turned around and climbed back down the other side feet first no face planting this time, just sucsess!

here I am on top of the rainbow with my cousin. and the weird thing is shortly after I tackled the rainbow they tore it down. they took away everything in that park because it was too dangerous, because it had too much of a potential for children to get hurt. because kids like me face planted off the rainbow. but I was glad I made it over the rainbow

palazzo pants & a black shirt.

a friend of mine purged her stash in the spring, which means I added way more fabric then I have room for to mine. but really how can one say no to free fabric, and nice quality fabrics at that.
the moment I saw the brown stripe I knew which pattern I needed to make.

Vogue pattern #9301, this pattern was a give to me by a former co-worker a few years back. though it doesn’t appear she made it herself as her name is not on the pattern or she did make it but didn‘t sign it. I was drawn to this pattern for several reasons. 1: I like palazzo’s. 2: I thought is was really cool the people who made this pattern before had signed it, which means its rich in history. I have no idea who any of these people are but this pattern has been made at least 6 times, by at least 5 different people over the course of 44 years. 4 times before I was even born. and yet here it is withstanding the test of time.
the pattern itself is a bit torn here and there, its been cut in places for resizing, but its all still there.
the first date is 1975, underneath that name is Julie, and beside Julie’s name is the date 1980. so I don’t know if she made it twice 5 years apart or if 1975 person didn’t put there name on the pattern. underneath Julie is Susan 1981, then Patty 1983. and this is where it must have been put in a drawer and forgotten about, I know Palazzos went out for a while, but also came back during this patterns hiatus. they do seem to come and go as time goes by. the next name is Merideth 9/02, then me I made these for 2019.


the pattern was fairly easy except for the pockets, but that had to do with the matching of the stripes not the actual pattern. I think I would like to make these again but in view B, and with longer pockets. I mean what is the point of a pocket if its too shallow to put anything in? and with the trouble I had putting these in I wished I had opted to leave them out completely.

I thought when I cut the pants out that I had carefully matched the stripes into the pockets and it would be no big deal to put them in. I mean they are easy enough to install, very basic instructions nothing weird about it at all. however when I put them in and held them up the stripes did not match up in the least. I think I forgot to take into account the seam allowances when I was laying out the pattern and how it would actually be over 5/8inch from each cut line. sewing really does have a lot of math to consider in it. on a plain fabric the way the fabric is cut doesn’t matter nearly as much, but stripes and repeats certainly have a mind of there own. in the end I cut out five pockets before I was satisfied with the matching. and by that point it didn’t matter if I was happy with it or not, I was out of fabric. so its a good thing I cut it out right the last time.
I also added a half lining just to be on the safe side in case the fabric was a bit see through, though I think that may have been overkill.
they turned out cute and I think will make a nice pair of pants for the fall.

the black shirt is also made from my newly acquired fabric. its a really nice quality knit that sewed up nicely. I used Butterick #3391 View B. I wasn’t really happy with this shirt. it went together fine but the front ended up being a bit wonky. the pattern has you thread 1/4inch elastic through the neckline. I guess its to help stiffen it so it stays up, but the reality of it doesn’t work very well. there is too much fabric for the amount of elastic it calls for causing the fabric to gather, which I think makes it look odd, and have that look of “yeah I am homemade” and not in a good way. I tried adding a bit more elastic, but that made it gap really badly, so I messed with it and messed with it till I got it halfway decent. I ended up taking out a lot of the fabric under the arm, just in the front of the left side. at least it wearable now. though it still does gap at times and that drives me a bit crazy.

I was a little worried about the neckline being too low as it looks kind of low on the pattern picture, but its not, so I was glad I didn’t try to make it any higher then the original pattern called for. I have worn it a few times but I don’t love it the way I was hoping too. that’s okay though because I actually used something from the stash, and I have many more things to go.

my goal is use what I have, and only buy what I have too. no more just buying because its cute and I will use it one day. I have enough of that already, and one day needs to be now. however that being said. if I have a project in the works and I need to buy something I totally will, just no extras.

An epic train.

a friend of mine got married recently, I helped her out some with the dress.
we live several hundred miles away from each other so I actually had no idea I was going to be helping her with the dress till we arrived a few days before the wedding.
she was making her own dress and I knew she had been struggling with getting everything done before the wedding,(there is just so much to do before a wedding, a lot that has nothing to do with the dress) but she had a back up dress and said she would be fine with wearing it if she couldn't finish the one she was making. but really it was not what she wanted.
she had come up with a design that really was very practical, a slim fitting under dress that could be worn under a removable skirt with a 12 foot train. practical because a train that long is really only good for the ceremony and pictures. it would have been a nightmare at the reception with everyone stepping all over it and a nightmare to bustle because that is lot of fabric!.
when we got there she was making good progress on the under dress. it was mostly done, but she was having trouble figuring out how to put the lacing in the back. Her cousin was coming over to help with that. they talked back and forth about how to do the lacing, and I kind of jumped in the conversation with a few ideas. then basically volunteered to put the lacing in, because I have done that before. it went together very nicely, I sewed silk cord to a strip of cotton, curving the cord back and forth where needed to make the loops, then installed the strip of lacing loops into the back of the dress.
meanwhile, while I was doing this, my friend, her cousin, her mother and my sister were cutting out the train. yes it took 4 people to even cut the train out! and it took up the entire living room!


the next morning I woke up early, added a waistband and hemmed the train.
the train wasn’t exact, exactly what she wanted but it was as close as we could get in such a short amount of time and it was pretty close.

and I just want to say she picked some of the most beautiful fabric to work with. the under dress was a beautiful silk, that was a dream to work with. it didn’t fray and it didn’t slide all over the place and was not full of static. it just did what it was supposed to do, sewing up beautifully. the over skirt train, was a polished cotton that was also a very nice quality. there is just something so satisfying about working with high quality fabric.



the wedding itself was absolutely gorgeous, she did a nice job planning exactly how she wanted the ceremony to go, that honored both her family traditions and her new husbands. the dress of course was quite a statement, and she looked just like a princess in all that white, with her bridesmaids walking in behind her guiding the train.

my sister was one of the bridesmaids and I made the lace top she wore over her gown. I need to make her wear it again so I can get some good photos of it and make a post about it.
I wanted to make myself a dress to wear to the wedding but I ended up buying one, because work was insane the two months before the wedding and I just couldn’t find the time. I did pick me out some fabric and a pattern though so that will be a project for another time.

the reception was also very nice with good food and fun dancing that went on well into the night. the bride was beautiful in her slim fitting white silk dress with a corset back.

we didn’t know if we could all get the dress done in time but in the end with a group effort, it all worked out beautifully.

photos by:lizzardtears. (me)