Friday, October 30, 2009

Halloween Craftiness




I decided to make a Halloween costume for my son this year because my mom always made ours for us when we were little. I remember how important it was to me that my mom would make my costumes from scratch and would always let me choose what I wanted to be. It's one of those things that I will never forget; I was motivated to steal hours away from other things (like laundry, dishes, or relaxing with a good book and a cup of tea at the end of the day) so that I might provide that same sense of security to little E. He might not know it now, but every step this little monkey takes is imbued with family tradition.

E. chose the pattern. We thought we might make him into a duck, so the three of us trekked to the fabric store to look for duck patterns. We were looking through the book and found the monkey pattern, as well as a very cute duck. I pulled both patterns and set them in front of E. He pointed at the monkey and laughed, and the choice was made. He's been wearing it most of today and seems pretty comfortable.

Pattern is Simplicity and I followed it pretty precisely... didn't make the feet for practical reasons, I added a dart rather than elastic on the hood, and I didn't make bands at the wrist (again, practicality).
Happy Halloween!

Getting My Crafting Mojo Back...

I don't know if anyone will even check this blog anymore, since it's been well over a year since I last posted. But I'm happy to virtually announce the rebirth of my crafting cool, even if no one actually reads about it.

Having a child, moving to a new house, selling an old house, doing renovations on both houses, and finding out that my crappy, crappy sleep patterns are actually because of a medical condition that I've likely had my whole life (sleep apnea) and not just the "normal" first-year-of-parenthood sleep deprivation... it's been a wild ride. And one of the first things to go during this roller-coaster-of-a-year were craft projects. Initially I started this blog to keep track of the ways crafting influenced my life (either through projects I created myself, projects that inspired me, or projects that others had given me). It seemed impossible to keep juggling that ball with all the new ones that came my way in 2008-09.

But- miraculously- I'm ready to start juggling again. Over the past couple of weeks, I started crafting in earnest again. I made a market bag for a good friend's birthday, I made a Halloween costume for my son, and I participated in a lovely Vintage Swap with a most excellent partner. More on all these small victories soon (including pictures)... this post is just to announce the rebirth of Craft Buff. Yippee!