What a month! I’m always tempted to start these posts by talking about what a crazy month it was but I don’t want to seem redundant or disingenuous. But this month was actually very busy with a few wrenches thrown in for good measure. On top of Halloween, we also had a birthday to celebrate (plus multiple parties), visitors to host, and got colds through it all (bummer!). I try to keep a more positive mindset, but I’ll be honest, I’ll be glad to wave goodbye to this month!
I started the month off with a trip to Fabric Mart where I bought 17 (!!!) yards of fabric to turn into Halloween costumes. I agreed to let my kids choose their own costumes on top of a family costume we wanted to do together. This was excessive, yes, but we do always have multiple Halloween events to attend. That, and our girls’ school has dress up days for the whole week of Halloween, so I knew the costumes would get worn. Which, of course, also implies I thought I could get them made too, but that ended up proving to be more challenging than I had anticipated!
All the costumes combined equaled more than 20 pieces to be sewed! I didn’t calculate this until I was well underway and good thing otherwise I might have noped right out of the commitment! The Toph costume alone needed 10 individual pieces!
A huge challenge for everything was that I didn’t have a direct pattern to use. I used what I had in my pattern stash that was close and then tweaked it until it resembled what I needed. A few of the pieces had layers of challenges courtesy of trying translate an animated article of clothing into something 3 dimensional. Toph’s robe (?) was difficult as was Uncle Iroh’s armour.
Luckily, many of the pieces made can be used outside of the context of Halloween and costumes. And, to be honest, with kids, costumes never seem like a waste. Sure, they’ll go unused for a month, but then will be used in excess for three days straight.
Anyway, right in the middle of the month, in the midst of swaths of fabric and crumpled patterns, my sewing machine stopped working!
What a time to give out! It was getting continuously harder and harder for the needle to go up and down until it just seized completely. There were no obvious blockages and oiling it only helped a bit, so I ended up taking the entire thing apart! This is not something I would normally do because I’m not much of a fix-it person, but the machine, if you recall, came from my parents when I sent my Bernina back with them. It was free for me, they got it for free as well so there really wasn’t much at stake by removing the cover. I FaceTimed my dad who IS a fix-it person but we just could never figure out what was wrong with it. We haven’t given up yet but I was getting antsy about the projects I wasn’t getting done while the machine was out of commission. Cue buying another machine, I guess (insert crying emoji here!).
Even when the now not working Singer was working, I had been toying with the idea of buying a marginally nicer machine. Not anything near as nice as my Bernina, just something that would function a little more smoothly and work a bit better with clothes making. I just hadn’t planned on buying it this month exactly so, unfortunately, I didn’t have the budget to buy locally and ended up buying online. I got this Brother CS7000X and so far, I’ve been pretty happy with it.
I got right back into it, but not without taking a small break from the Halloween sewing to do some birthday decor sewing instead.
This was absolutely unnecessary but I had an idea and wanted to see it through before my oldest’s birthday this month. I love how the colors turned out (more accurately portrayed in the confetti banner than the Happy Birthday one) but these will eventually have to be redone with the proper supplies (firm felt and interfacing!). Oh well, they’ll work for now.
One if the nicest things I did for myself this month (maybe ever) was buying my Appa costume instead of trying to make it. (Baby’s onesie was also bought, but those were the only things not handmade, or found around the house). I’ve never been so grateful to NOT have to make a thing!
Anyway, that was the month! Undeniably full if nothing else! I more than made up for my slower sewing months of late and I’m hoping this will kick start me into more projects as well. I have a few sewing ideas for Christmas and have, just generally, been feeling more inspired, so hopefully this translates to another productive month of sewing in November!
If I’ve got any errors in the post, please forgive me! Our guests are here now so I’ve been trying to squeeze in writing with hosting and I can’t be sure I haven’t rambled or worse!
Happy Halloween, everyone!
