12th Night Costumes

For the past several years our church has hosted a Medieval 12th Night festival to raise money for local Norman charities.  As the 12th night is the twelfth day of Christmas/Epiphany, it's almost always the first Saturday after the first of the year.  While this is as close to accurate as possible, it is a pretty inconvenient time of year for a big event requiring lots of volunteers and organization.  Everyone is usually just getting over the holidays and of course all the lead up time most people are likewise very busy preparing for Christmas.

However inconvenient the timing though, the actual event itself is pretty fun.  It's theoretically set in 1470 and we have a very yummy Medieval meal, funny skits, and period music provided by the choir (of which I am a part).  The choir also fills the roles of the royal court so has fancy dress costumes.  

In the past we've borrowed or rented costumes from the OU theater department and from a church up in Oklahoma City that does a similar event (at a different time), but this year we started making costumes for the church to have.  I was in charge of this sewing and gathered together a fabulous group of ladies (and three young girls) who were willing to sew.  I bought fabric, patterns, notions, and trim then made up kits for each sewer so each could make her assigned costume.  We were six sewers and we made 4 lady costumes and 2 man costumes.  Next year, hopefully we'll make just about the reverse and that should do it.

I made the costume for our choir director and it was somewhat challenging since I haven't made clothes in ages. 

After doing some alterations, I think it fits pretty well, here are some pictures my friend sent from when she tried it on. 

I was so thrilled with all our contributing sewers; everyone came through brilliantly.  Some people were relative beginners while others were true experts.  Several of the costumes are just exquisitely finished and assembled; way nicer than anything I'd ever make.  Shout out to Ms. Mike Mcgehee, Ms. Helen DeBolt, Ms. Christie Godec, Ms. Kathy Mills, and Ms Vicky Bratton, you guys are awesome! The three young ladies in the front row were all interested in learning how to sew so we got together and I helped them make simple costumes to wear at the feast.  I've blurred their faces so as not to spread them around the internet, but they did really great!

And here's a picture of all the choir members wearing the fabulous new costumes.   The costume I wear is one I made many years ago and its sadly somewhat small now.   Some of the others are also old or borrowed from other sources but the gentleman on the left and all five people on the right are all wearing newly sewn costumes.

Any of you been sewing costumes lately?  It's pretty much the wrong time of year for that I guess, but we were pleased to get these made.

Halloween-The Recent Years

Happy Halloween everyone!

I've always been one of those make-your-own costume people, but in spite of how much I love sewing, I try to minimize costume sewing  (this in spite of the upcoming massive non-Halloween costume sewing I'm orchestrating for a church event, but that's another post).  It seems like I'd just rather make quilts!  So usually my costumes are compilations of things I've sewn and things I've crafted and things I've cobbled together from all over the place.  

In recent years, I've only dressed up if we've had a Halloween party or event to attend since we hardly ever have trick-or-treaters around.  I really do love thinking up fun costumes, and of course the internet is a great source of inspiration.   We're not dressing up this year, but here are some of the costumes I've made from the proverbial "yore".

2010.  I was a fruitfly- drosophila to be exact.  I had fun making it, especially the hat with the big red eyes, and the homemade fly wings but most people didn't get it.

2009.  This was one of my favorite costume years.  Also, since it was the first year Mike and I were together, I was actually able to get him to dress up.  We went as Peanut Butter and Jellyfish (I mean, who doesn't love a terrible pun).  I made his peanut butter shirt and hat, and my jellyfish outfit.  I failed to consider that maneuvering through a party with a large umbrella attached to my head would be difficult, but it was fun all the same.

2004.  Another one of my favorite costume years.  I went as the Madwoman of Chaillot, as portrayed by the incomparable Katharine Hepburn.  I was working at a theater back then and we were allowed to dress up for work on Halloween.  It was a complete blast.  I loved gathering up everything to make all the layers of this costume, especially the hat.

2001.  This year I just went in one of my old RenFaire type dresses.  The year was mostly notable because my then boyfriend had just come here from India and had never celebrated Halloween.  He wasn't too excited about costumes, so I convinced him to go as a Christmas tree; I just sewed a bunch of fake Christmas branches and ornaments onto an old green shirt and there he went.  Sadly, my friends and I tried to host a big party with all the members of our class (~40 people) but not one single person showed up!  The five of us had great fun though.

1997-1998.  These were college years, and while my friend Melinda always sewed fabulous intricate costumes for herself and her now-husband,  I usually just made something up.  On the left- I was some sort of Chemistry-witch-street-salesperson with chemistry supplies hanging inside my cape for any passers-by who happened to need a graduated cylinder.  On the right- I went as the queen of hearts, inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

Hope you guys have gotten a laugh out of some of my crazy costumes.  What are you dressing up as this year?

Halloween-The Mom Years

I was inspired by Kenda to pull out some old Halloween crafty costume pictures to share.  She has made the best dinosaur costume (I want the tail really bad) for her son and the most clever skeleton costumes for herself and her husband.  Seriously, you should go check them out straight away.

Anyway, my mom is the most crafty art sewing person I know and she always made awesome costumes when my sister and I were little.  I have a few pictures from back then I thought I'd share since I don't have any kids to make costumes for now.  Maybe next year I can dig up some of the others.  I'm not really sure about some of the years; it's awfully hard to judge ages with all the costum-ery on!

c. 1987

c. 1988  That's me during my shirley temple curly hair phase.  The Snow White costume my sister is wearing was the most intricate thing I think my mom ever made us.  It had a bunch of separate pieces (the cape, the collar, the dress- not too mention the rather wretched wig) and was an absolute favorite in the dress up bin until we outgrew it.  Somewhere I have to find some better pictures of it.

c.1989  You can see we definitely reused costumes. Hand-me-downs are the way to go.  Also, yes, I am wearing a pom-pom on my head.

c. 1990  Simple matching kitties that year!

What are your kids dressing up as this Halloween?