a viking, a ghost, and Spongebob - it's beginning to look a lot like Halloween

 

baby Viking hat from Bella Knitting (sold as kit with Aurora 8 yarn)
ghost and Spongebob poncho costumes by me

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I was sewing up to the final minute, but when the time came, the boys looked great for trick-or-treating. They were so excited! Wee one, on the other hand, had been napping until it was time to go out and was still quite groggy when we were all dressed and ready to go. So let's start with some pics of her wearing her costume over the weekend at a kiddie Halloween party. She was the cutest viking ever!

And here she was as tired viking with mommy last night.

Hey, do you like my hat? Swedish Sockapalooza, Sandra, sent it to me all the way from Sweden to wear so I could match wee one. It was so fun being a viking mama - thanks so much Sandra!! And check out the shoes wee one wore with her costume. They were a baby shower gift from Johanna's mom (now we know how Johanna got so crafty!). They're Raggedy Ann booties and I just love 'em. They were perfect for the costume. And off we went...

Look, a viking with a binkie! Wee one stayed pretty sedate in the bjorn (hey, also from Sweden!) while we were out.

The boys got 52 and 58 pieces of candy each. Their Halloween night homework was to count their candy. Of course now that they know how much they got, that means I can't eat any of it. Darn!

Now for the crappy parts. We'd left a bowl of candy out for kids while we were out trick-or-treating. We do this every year and so do a lot of other folks who go out with their kids or don't want to come to the door all night long. S predicted that all the candy would be gone and B predicted that there would still be some candy left. Well, not only was all the candy gone but so was the bowl and my little "Happy Halloween - have some candy! :0)" sign. Grrrr.

And then to make it a really scary Halloween night, wee one decided to wake up at midnight and 2am and stay awake until 5am. She's great this morning, but I look like Hell. I haven't gotten a really good night's sleep in weeks since the Red Sox were in all those late night playoff games and I've been staying up to finish the Halloween costumes. I hope I can catch up on my sleep (not to mention my knitting, my emails, maybe clean the toilets) over the next few days. 365 days left until we do it all again!

PS - Ooooh, I've got one more happy Halloween story from this morning! At breakfast, S tells me that one of his classmates had his birthday yesterday. Apparently, when someone in class has a birthday, the teacher goes to the secret vending machine in the teacher's lounge and gets a piece of candy as a special treat for the child. But yesterday, the machine ate her dollar and so she couldn't get the 3 Musketeers bar for the birthday boy. (They were already having a Halloween party in class, so there were plenty of treats for all to eat anyway, so I think it was okay. Pretty sweet having your birthday on Halloween, huh?) Anyway, S tells me this story and then says, 'I got lots of 3 Musketeers bars last night, so I want to bring one in for him cause he didn't get his yesterday.' Isn't that sweet?! And it's a happy Halloween again!

Today's the day! I've been busy transforming the felt and satin fabrics into Halloween fun. The boys' classes are having a Halloween party at school today and visiting a local senior center in costume, so they got to wear their costumes this morning to school. And I got to get some preview pics...

B "loves his ghost costume" (direct quote!!). After the basic shape was done, I added some big black eyes to the hood and then he asked for some spiders and spooky details. I rushed out to JoAnn's Fabric yesterday morning and grabbed the last two pieces of black felt that they had in the store to make some spiders and a big "BOO". I'll be making more spiders today while he's at school and tonight I'll hang some of that fake cobweb stuff all over it, so he's even more ghosty. He walked at least half the way to school with his arms up and you could tell he loved being a ghost. I had sort of poo-pooed it as a kind of boring costume idea at first (bad mommy!), but he is such a character, he is totally making it work.

Spongebob was a absolute blast to make! I used the sewing machine to draw on all the face details and just stitched down the top of the tie (since fabric will stick to flannel on its own). S put it on the first time and giggled, saying, "the tie is right near my penis." Ha! He's such a goofy kid, a perfect Spongebob. The Krusty Krab hat wasn't done in time to be a part of the school costume, but it's looking great and will be the perfect final touch to add to the costume for this evening.

This year has been a real experiment for me in coming up with costume patterns and details all on my own. It's been fun and freeing to try things out in this low-pressure, no-fit, just-for-fun project. I've learned a lot, feel so much more comfortable with the sewing machine and am excited to get back to my other sewing projects. Right after I change my needle of course - layers upon layers of felt and flannel and satin and this one is DONE!

See ya tomorrow with photos of the whole family, including wee viking and mommy....

If you're anything like my boys (and you are, aren't you?), you've started to get a little worried about the status of those Halloween costumes. Never fear, Spongebob and the friendly ghost costume are well underway!

I stayed up late this evening piecing Spongebob's shirt and pants together and sewing hems and edges everywhere (uugh, is it ever a pain turning up the edge in this sparkly slippery "ghost" fabric!). Both costumes are pretty much done now though, with only details like big eyes and a tie for Spongebob left to add. I scored a great red plaid fabric on sale at my local quilt shop for his tie - I'm so excited about that find! Oh and B still wants a big oversized hood to cover his head and I've got to try to make up some kind of Krusty Krab hat to top off S's costume.

I've pretty much made up both costumes so far. The ghost is based on a fun poncho from Simple Gifts to Stitch and really was very simple to make. S's costume was a little trickier since Spongebob is so boxy, and yet I didn't want to just stick S in a giant box. I finally decided to make him an open-on-the-sides Anouk-style garment, like a soft Spongebob sandwich board. Two layers of flannel should give it enough weight and ties on the sides should help the front and the back stay lined up properly. We'll see....

Try on is scheduled for tomorrow and then I've got, what, like five days? No problem. Everyone reassured now?

And here to celebrate Leif Erikson Day....

we have intrepid living room explorer, baby L, discovering new worlds (like the camera case),

and looking super cute in her new baby brunhilde hat.

The hat was really fun to make, the details like the bobbles, wings and braids are very well explained in the pattern and the final result is just adorable. I made wee one's hat extra big so she can wear it all winter long and next year too. My favorite part was doing the braids. As I was braiding the i-cords, I thought, this is the first time I've fixed my daughter's hair. Awwww. (Yes, I've made her hair before, but that was just one big hair helmet - this time I got to actually give her a hair-do.)

Now I hear that the real Vikings didn't actually have wings or horns on their helmets and even I'll admit that the blond braids are really more Helga the Horrible and Monty Python Spam than anything genuinely Viking-y. But I can't help myself, I love it!

My Rhinebeck sweater is back on track. And just in time - how did it get to be October already??!

Here's about 7 inches of the body, worked in the round. Can you believe that that's just ONE skein of the Shelridge Farm worsted?! And what's really cool is that in juuuust the right lighting, you can see very subtle color variations in the green. Now I have to jot down some design notes of my work so far and do some math so I can keep knitting. Only 19 days left!

And only 30 days until Halloween. (And you thought Christmas was a busy time to be a knitter!) I started wee one's baby Viking hat but I'm knitting it along with my beginning knitting class and I can't get too far ahead of them so I couldn't knit too much more on it. Instead I moved on to making the wings and the braids.

Only one more week of hat class, so I should be able to have this done in time for a reveal on Leif Erikson Day. Then I can focus on the boys' costumes. I may knit hats for them to wear with the costumes I'm sewing. These Mac & Me hat patterns (thanks for the link Zelda Zunk!) are so funny, I feel like I've got to make at least one. The ghost hat would be a perfect way to top off B's ghost poncho. And S's Spongebob is going to need a Krusty Krab hat, no? Take off the big black eyes, add an anchor and a bill and it's perfect.

Only 30 days....

The baby Viking hat is underway! We all know, I love bobbles, so so far I'm loving this pattern.

And after a good trip out to JoAnn's Fabric, I'm ready to sew up costumes for the boys. I'm sort of winging the patterns - simple poncho styles, wearable, comfortable. It'll all be about the details that the boys want.

We've got a slighly sparkly white fabric for B's ghost. Boo! And guess who S is going to be?

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Spongebob, of course!

Wee one helped me finish her wee hallowig this morning, so it was ready for modeling right after lunch.

By George, I think she likes it!

My wee wig mods:

Cast on 60 stitches, work rib as given in pattern for 4 inches. Cast on 20 stitches for bangs as instructed and work 2 inches before beginning decreases. Decreases were worked as written with markers placed at (counting from center of bangs) 13 sts, 14 sts, 26 sts, and 14 sts. This made a small hat that fits her 6 mo. head just fine, although the length in the back, combined with baby's general no-neck-edness, does tend to push the hat up off her head a bit when she looks up. But I don't think this design produces a perfectly snug hat anyway. So when adjusting the size for your baby/child, remember to keep stitch count as a multiple of 4, place your front markers two stitches before and two stitches after the added bang stitches (and the back markers in the same positions over the back half of wig), and add length based on baby's ability to hold up her neck!

And have fun!

It's that time of year again - time to plan the Halloween costumes...

The boys have been extremely schizophrenic in the last weeks about what they want to be. We've gone all the way from a ghost to Spongebob and back again several times. Right now, we're at one ghost and one Spongebob, but I'm pretty sure that will change. It doesn't appear however that I will be knitting or sewing large costumes for them this time around. The ghost wants just a sheet with eyes cut out. I suggested a poncho-style costume (like this cool rain poncho from this cool sewing book) but no go. And the Spongebob wants normal pants, shirt and shoes. Bah!

So I'm focusing all my Halloween energy on wee one. After bookmarking and visiting this baby viking hat pattern about a dozen times over the years, I finally come up with a reason to get it. Wee one is going as a baby Viking!

I've always been curious what you get for $24.50! The pattern is extremely thorough with pages of abbreviations and techniques and the Aurora 8 yarn is lovely, but still, I would have been happy with just the hat instructions for, oh let's say $6.95. This gotta-buy-the-yarn-to-get-the-pattern thing is sort of a pet peeve of mine and is the reason I never shop at The Yarn Co. in NYC. They were pretty rude when I asked where I could find the patterns for a couple of the wonderful samples they have hanging everywhere in their shop. There was this sort of if-you-have-to-ask-you-can't-afford-it attitude that they had when they said 'well, if you buy yarn, we'll write down the pattern for you.' I didn't buy yarn. And you know what, when they started coming out with books, I didn't buy them either. But I have to admit that their latest book well surpassed my knitable projects quota that I use to decide if a book is worth buying or not. It's good. (Hey, in the comments, Christa says that she visited their booth at Stitches and they were selling patterns! Maybe they've changed their sales approach since their pattern books have come out. That sounds very promising! Whoops, looks like she was talking about the Bella Knitting/viking hat people - check out this post about pattern sales. Was it too much to ask for that the Yarn Co change its ways?)

Anyhoo, I bought the viking hat pattern and, despite the cost, I'm excited about making it. It's a small price to pay so that my bald little girl will finally have some hair! And with the help of "real Viking" Helene, I've got some ideas of a simple little apron-style dress to sew up for her to wear with the hat. Oh boy!