Batgirl Birthday Costume Simplicity 1036

Hey!!!

Today is my birthday!  And my 40th one at that!   Yay!

When the gym announced that they would be celebrating Halloween 2 days early, on my birthday, I started thinking about birthday costumes.

First I wanted to be Catwoman, i.e. the 1960's Catwoman (think Eartha Kitt and Julie Newmar).   Seemed simple enough: form fitting black shirt and black workout pants, cat ears that I probably have in the closet from a past Halloween outfit, a wide gold belt worn at the hip and a gold chain or two around my neck.  Maybe buy black gloves and hot glue some gold fake nails for extra credit.

But then I saw Simplicity 1036, Batgirl View A and I had.to.have.that.cape!!!!  Yes, I actually ventured into Joann's during the month of October to buy the pattern and the materials for this outfit.

Also I want to mention that it is really cool that Simplicity has the official licenses for these costumes, because it means it's the pattern for the real bat symbol and not some fake bat symbol.  :)

The cape


I purchased the black satin and yellow costume satin at Joann's.  This satin is more of the "Snow White" or "Robin cape" color yellow and not Batman yellow, but I am trying to give up my perfectionistic tendencies and decided that no one at the gym will say it's a real shame that the yellow satin does not match the yellow accessories.

Falling off the edge of the table


In progress, when I wonder clipped the lining to the cape exterior

Real cape--real shoulder darts!


Notable cape points:

• The cape is a real cape!  It has a shoulder seam so that the cape actually sits on the shoulder and snaps to the front of the shirt.   That is so much better (albeit more time consuming) than a rectangle of fabric velcroed on the back!
• It is fully lined.
• The cape piece was too large for my cutting table so I brought it downstairs to my dining room table where it was still too large!    
• Also I never work with shifty fabrics so this satin was sliding around all over.
• Also the fabric had major wrinkles so I used my Elna Press to press them out, but also wound up getting water marks on the yellow satin after using my spray bottle even though I had tested the technique on a scrap of satin first.  Oh well!
• The bat points are really, truly defined which is awesome!!!  Though I wound up sewing with 3/4" seam allowances instead of 5/8" because I have a new sewing machine and it is different than my old one.

The shirt

• I did not use the shirt pattern exactly.  I muslined it but it wasn't what I was looking for so I used my TNT Simplicity 9776 tank pattern (which has darts) and overlaid it with the Batgirl shirt pattern to morph it into something resembling a shirt.  
• The fabric is Nike Dri-Fit from SewSassy.com.  
• I did not bind the armholes, neckline, nor hemmed it because it is just a costume!  
• Also no sleeves, because I will work out in this and don't need extra fabric on my arms.
• I cut the bat symbol from sticky yellow felt, and tacked it on to the front since it was not staying in place.

The gloves

• Ok, I LOLed when the directions said "You have purchased gloves."  You're supposed to unpick the side seam of the purchased gloves and insert the flanges.  
• Instead, I used some black ponte-ish fabric to make fingerless gloves from the Burda 7287 pattern.  
• The "glove trims" are cut from two layers of yellow felt.  I had no idea that advances had been made in felt, so I bought felt that already has sticky glue on one side, and adhered it to another piece of felt without sticky glue.
• I sewed the glove trims into the side seam of the gloves.
• I did have to rotate the gloves by 180 degrees to get the seam to be on the outside, then cut a hole for my thumb.  
• By using fingerless gloves, this will make my workout a little less hot.
• Somehow one is longer than the other, but I am trying to give up perfectionistic tendencies and it is a costume.

The Utility Belt

• The utility belt was cut using the pattern, but eliminating the seam allowances.  This means it's 2" wide
• as I did not have a continuous piece of felt (I had only purchased the felt rectangles), the belt is actually 4 lengths of felt sewn together to make a "continuous" pieced strip.
• The bat symbol was cut from the felt with the sticky glue on the back, then tacked on in key places.
• I made the "belt capsules" as per the directions; though they are not interfaced, I did faithfully zig zag the black "rings" onto the capsules.
• I hand sewed the capsules on to the utility belt
• I wish I had interfaced the capsules and pressed it because they do tend to get squished, but again, time to release some perfectionistic tendencies!!
• The closure is black velcro, sewn on with yellow thread in the bobbin.  Originally black thread was in the bobbin but that showed on the outside and I couldn't let that one go....so I ripped it out and redid it.

The mask/bat ears

My ham models the face mask and ears

• it's actually supposed to be a hood, but that would be too hot for working out
• I cut the eye mask away from the rest of the face pattern
• I cut it out of black sticky felt and adhered it to a layer of non-sticky felt
• I used bra strapping to make the band, which is stitched in between the layers of felt



• The ears are cut from black crafting foam, with the seam allowances cut away
• I used a headband as a guide and cut a headband from 2 layers of black felt, stitched them together and used the bra strapping as the band.
• The band has velcro sewn on
• The ears have velcro hot glued on.  This way I can adjust the position of the ears

The pants

• I decided to not re-invent the wheel and use my standard RTW workout pants instead of sewing ones from scratch.

The bootcovers

• I'm not making the shoe covers as that would make this outfit too hot to workout in, but do you see the bat ears on the pattern?  Adorable!

Overall I am quite pleased with this outfit and can't wait to wear it to class tonight!  I'm pretty sure I won't be able to do the whole class with the cape on, but maybe half of it??

Be well!!

Happy Birthday Dad, pumpkin harvest, New Look 6103...

Thanks for your kind comments about my dress, and also about the accident!

While I felt no pain at the scene of the accident, my back started flaring up driving away and has been flaring off and on ever since.  (I have had chronic back pain for 3.5 years that had been SO much better before the accident.) I am now back in the care of my chiropractor (who I had not seen since May) and will visit my acupuncturist (who I have not seen since December) this week.  My massage therapist has also been helpful with pain relief. The pain was pretty bad last Tues and Wed and I was frustrated, but Thurs it was better (I think due to my massage therapist's work on Wed), then Friday is was bad again. :(

Anyway, I wore the dress on Tuesday and it was comfortable to wear, and it didn't wrinkle as much as I thought it would, which was a big plus.

So, I thought I would start work on New Look 6103 today before leaving to visit my parents for their birthdays.  It's a SuedeSays Studio pattern.


I love pencil skirts, and this one has a fantastic detail--the fanned kickpleat.

Here I'm trying to figure out what size to cut, basing it off my Simplicity 2157 pencil skirt. I think I'll go for the 14 and grade where necessary as it seems to span various sizes...

Also this morning I harvested my first pumpkin! This one is pumpkin C and is 31 days old.
Here I just cut it out of my pumpkin patch.

I gave it to my mom, wrapped up, and she was *shocked* that I wasn't keeping them all.

She likes to decorate mini pumpkins with ribbon and draw faces on them. I just put a ribbon on it, then wrapped it in tissue paper.

It weighed in at 3.2 ounces!

And it's about 8 inches in circumference.

And here it is in the kitchen window of my parents house.

I took even more pix of it, which are at the end of the pumpkin album.
I think some people take similar amounts of pictures of their newborn children. :)

Anyway, there was a lot of celebration today, as my dad's birthday is today and mom's is the 17th.
Here I am with my mom in my childhood home!

Here are my parents in the front yard:

Here I am with my dad at the Circus Drive In:

And here are my parents:

Mom and I went to Point Pleasant Beach. It was a FANTASTIC day to go--weather was great.  I hadn't been back since 2009 so it was a real treat! We love the claw machines even though they are really rigged these days.

Here's what we came away with (minus a ball that mom gave away to an appreciative child):

Hope you all had great weekends and are pain free!!!
Be well!!!

Did you hear?

It's mah birthday!


Oh yes, it also snowed all over including NJ!!  It's the first time it ever snowed on my birthday.

Do you see my pumpkin there in the snow? (oh, and my pumpkin growing experiment was a big FAIL. So that's a store-bought pumpkin)

My neighbor's tree couldn't take it; it looks like it collapsed under the weight:

And here are three trees in various stages of de-leafing:

So I had a nice lunch down the shore with my parents, then drove back to "beat the snow" but got caught in it instead. Once I got back to my house I took a nice 2 hour nap, ahhhh....

OH! So thanks for all the comments about the straight hair. It was SO much fun to have it straight for a few days and I got a lot of interesting comments on it at work and the gym and here on the blog. To answer your questions, it was flat ironed (not the keratin treatment) and done by my hairdresser. I had never had it straightened before. I'm not planning on flat ironing it myself, but I will have it done from time to time by my hairdresser. It seemed kind of weird the first two days and then I was really loving it.
So, it's back to curly, at least for today. ;)

Here's what I worked on tonight, New Look 6071, in progress. I picked up this pattern at the ASE.

It's not done yet, but you get the idea:


It's a pretty cool looking dress and the construction is pretty awesome, very simple in a way but it looks pretty cool. That v-neck is way low though and I'll have to figure out a way to make it more work-friendly.  It is actually a brown double knit though the picture color looks weird.

Funny that I chose a snowy day to make a summer dress but it's my birthday and I can do what I want. I might wear it in Austin for PR Day next month.


Be well and good night!

All sorts of good things

Thanks y'all for your many recommendations on how to fix the hump my NL 6000 created in the upper back zipper.  I worked a bit last night on the fix, but am not satisfied with it and will continue to work on it some more.  Details will be later. If I find some energy after work one night I will try it out otherwise it will have to wait for next weekend.    I am thankful for your helpful suggestions and support!

Today I visited my parents to celebrate their birthdays. They are a year and 8 days apart in age.
We went to the Circus Drive-In for lunch. It's a Wall, NJ icon.
Here's almost all the possible permutations of us with the sign:

Dad hasn't been sewing lately but feels he will get back to it when the weather is cooler. Here he is with the Mood bag Antoinette scored for me during our June NYC shopping trip (I brought home some dresses to show my parents). I love that bag and use it a lot for toting things to and from work.
And you can see the cute little yellow house I grew up in.
And yesterday I received a surprise package in the mail from Antoinette; how sweet is this good stuff?  The book is totally adorable and full of things like my grandmother made.  Plus more underwear elastic!  Sweet sweet sweet stuff.


Farmer's Mkt flowers this week:

Hope you are all well and healthy healthy healthy!
I'm trying to get back on track with my sleeping.  Have to keep reminding myself sleep is a gift I can give myself!
Good night!
(I'm using blogger's new interface....where is the post button?  where's the tagger?  oh....)

Does the equivalent of Pattern Review exist for cookbook receipes?

I didn't do any sewing this weekend, but I did some sewing related things...
...cut out vogue 8534 in navy fabric (the bow shirt), this time in size 16. I can always take it in...

I think the navy color will give it that nice sailor vibe.

Bought a longer lipped ruler with Christmas money.   The 18" one got tons of use but is too short. This 24" one should do the trick.   Lipped rulers are great because they "hook on" to your cutting mat and don't move while you cut with your rotary cutter.


I also bought the revised edition of the Singer Photo Guide to Sewing. This one seems much more expanded compared to the version I already own.  The lapped zipper instructions and pix are exactly the same as the edition I own, but it looks like instructions for lots of other things I'm interested in have been added.  Yeah!

I haven't reviewed 2010 goals nor written my 2011 sewing goals, but one goal is to do less sewing so I can devote more time to improving my health to get rid of my back pain. Along those lines, a goal is to cook once a week (to those of you who read this blog and cook tirelessly for your families every day, this idea of cooking once a week is probably giving you a nice laugh!  Cooking for one does last for days though.) I don't know how long I will keep up this part of the resolution, but, we'll see. Here's last week's dish, cheddar potato soup. This is a TNT recipe that I used to make quite a lot a few years ago.  It's from a book I got for college graduation called "Help!  My Apartment Has a Kitchen!"  It's vegetarian.


This week, I took out a cookbook from the library called "Skinny B*tch" and I thought it was adorable and cute and whatnot. The recipe I tried is corn chowder. Here's the result:

It doesn't look anything like corn chowder to me. While I'm a novice at these things, I think there's a mistake in the recipe. It calls for 4 cups of vegetable broth, and I think it meant 2. (Also funny was the conversion to metric: it listed 4 cups as 960 liters instead of milliliters!)      As it stands, this has way too much liquid.  Tomorrow night I plan on straining it to get the potatoes, corn, and celery out, then throw a little of the liquid on top.  Also, this dish is vegan!  Antoinette, my first vegan dish!  It uses almond milk instead of real milk.

The huge amt of liquid got me wondering--is there a site out there like sewing pattern review, for cookbook recipes?   I would definitely use it if such a thing exists. (I googled and found allrecipes.com, but it didn't seem to cover cookbook recipes?  Just recipes members contribute, and then everyone else reviews them?) Also, while many recipes in the book had pix, this one did not.  It's the equivalent of a pattern only having drawings and not a real photo. 

Oh, and it snowed again, but not much accumulation:


and Elvis turned 76. Did you wish him a happy birthday? Sure you did!  This photo is from 2005, with Ron Short, my favorite Elvis impersonator.  He is so nice!


My great-aunt Iris turned 95 on New Year's Day. Here's me, my Dad, and Iris at her surprise party:


Good night!