Halloween 2022: May The Force Be With Me...

Spring 2022 - Ian acquires a very cool light saber with money he has saved from gardening for his grandmother.

Monday- 7 days before Halloween...

Ian: Mom! I want to be a Jedi Knight for Halloween! All in black! 

Me: OK. What do you need?

Ian: Any black karate Gi or bathrobe, whatever. I just want to be all black.

Me: Let's go thrift store shopping tomorrow.

(This does not happen)

Thursday - 4 days before Halloween...

Me: Ian, look for a costume online to order because time is really short to make you a costume.

Ian: Here's what I want on Amazon, but in black. Oh, bummer, delivery is Nov 4th. Can't you just make something really quick?!?

Me: Well...maybe I can. It's kind of a busy weekend. Let's print out a picture and I can go shopping tomorrow when you're at school. I'll see what I can find.

Friday - 3 days before Halloween...

I go to one thrift store and find it's pretty picked through for possible black clothes. I decide to make the costume. I have skills and an old bathrobe pattern. I think to myself, oh, this will be easy. Then I go to the fabric store. I find three black pieces of fabric that I think will look cool. Luckily Ian has black pants already.

Saturday - 2 days before Halloween...

Me: Ian, this is the fabric I got. Tell me how you want to use them in the costume.

We spend an hour discussing design. Then I throw the the fabric into the washer. I hate sewing on fabric that hasn't been washed. The day gets busy with life stuff after that. 

Sunday - 1 day before Halloween...

We're at a rowing regatta ALL day.

Monday - Halloween Day

7:45am - Ian goes to school. 

8:00am - I discover I have to redraft the pattern because Ian is no longer kid size.

10:00am - I start cutting. There are 5 major pieces that make up the costume.

12:30pm - I stop for lunch because I'm starving, having fasted since dinner the night before. Life stuff comes up.

2:00pm - I start sewing. Mad dash sewing. With lots of shortcuts. But not as many I could have taken, because, as a past professional costumer and seamstress, it's difficult for me to take too many shortcuts. 

I love Original Star Wars. Even though this costume is a later version of Jedi Knight clothing, I am having fun making something cool for my son. I couldn't stop to take in-process pictures.

The only thing I wished for was an industrial sewing machine for all the straight seams. My home machine is really slow when I need to perform mad dash sewing.

4:30pm - Ian comes home from school, sees me sewing, gives me happy hug, then runs off to get a snack.

5:30pm - I finish the costume except for a fitting. We stop to eat dinner. 

6:00pm - A quick fitting. I have to shorten the sleeves and add more velcro to the belt so it won't fall off. The robe is bulkier than anticipated.

6:30pm - a Round of impatient (on Ian's part) picture taking for Tony and I.

6:45pm - Ian goes to his first Halloween party with friends since moving to Portland (moving = no friends, Covid = no friends, 2022 back to in-person school = friends!). He left wearing rain coat and galoshes because it's Portland and it was pouring rain outside.

10:00pm - Ian comes home super happy. He LOVED his costume. His light saber made it back home in one piece too.

11:00pm - I'm passed out asleep in bed...

Mat or Rug?

I've been making little mats since the Summer of 2020 with Liz Gipson's Summer Weave-Along: Mini Rugs. I highly recommend her classes. I used my 10" Cricket Rigid Heddle loom and a cotton warp for the first batch. All the rugs are about 8"x10". Cotton warp, various stash wool weft.

This is one of my favorites. All plain weave.

Then I put a linen warp on the loom and had lots of tension problems. Once linen gets stretched out it does not bounce back. The RH loom only moves half the warp ends up and down to create the shed for the weft. I decided to save the cross and transfer the warp to a multi harness loom where all the warp ends get moved. I had much better success. 

Linen warp sett at 6 ends per inch. Bulky Noro weft. Plain weave on a Macomber loom. 8"x10".

I've been asked what it's for. It could be used under a vase. It could be a place to throw your keys. It could be a table center decoration. Anything you want really! The rugs are fun to weave and make great gifts.

Sunrise or Sunset? This little mat or mini rug looks like one or the other depending on how you look at it.