Someday when my daughter is very much older, and thinks that maybe I don’t like her and never want her to have nice things, I hope she finds this post and gives me some credit.
I decided to make her Halloween costume myself about a month ago, after being disappointed with those available on the internet. I had planned on buying a sewing machine this month, but didn’t commit to a specific model and source until it was too late. In the meantime, I had started by cutting out all the pieces, pinning them, fitting them, deciding that the top parts weren’t right, changing patterns, etc. I probably started too late with actual sewing. I spent several nights hand sewing together the basic pieces and the lining, but there was so much finishing!
The East coast is expecting a HUGE storm system as part of Hurricane Sandy that is going to dump rain and high winds on us all week, including Wednesday, Halloween, the night I’d planned that we go trick-or-treating. Yesterday, I looked up other activities this weekend in case Wednesday gets rained out. I couldn’t find anything appropriate for little kid, my husband finally found something downtown that was supposed to be today (Saturday). So last night (Friday), I decided to attempt the nearly impossible mission of finishing the costume so she could wear it to that party. I stayed up ALL night and at 6am, my daughter started waking up and refusing to go back to sleep (too early for her to be up, however).
I finally went to bed around 7:30am because my eyes were going wobbly, my hands hurt, I kept poking myself, and I was starting to think crazy thoughts about how the fabric was growing as I sewed it so there was always more to go. I meant to sleep only a couple hours and get up to work on the last few pieces, but I slept too much. When I got up, there was only 2 hours of the party left and I rushed to try and finish the costume so we could go, but the work that was left ended up taking almost 4 more hours. So, even if I had gotten up earlier, I still don’t think I could have finished. I should have never gone to bed at all. Things would have gone a lot faster if I had a machine, but maybe it’s nicer because it’s all hand done? There were certainly parts that I couldn’t do on a machine, but many others… I need a sewing machine.
I hope that we can still go trick-or-treating on Wednesday. The costume is all done, I think it looks nice. I just hope she gets to wear it out! I’ll post pictures, either way. Stay tuned. And to my grown-up girl, I love you!
