The last few dragging on days of Summer...

Day 106

Ok so my photographer daughter did not take as many pictures of the adorable dog in his costume as I would like BUT oh my gosh did it look cute and sparkly.

We had a few minor tweaks such as cutting the holes in the hat for the ears because it did not ride behind the ears like I planned (and forgetting to hem the holes after I did so SIGH because I was so excited to see him in the costume) but we also added an elastic piece so that the dragon tail stays on his tail.

Other than that even the wings fit in great and the body suit part was tight enough but loose enough to fit over him and fit nearly perfect.

So the hole on his back is where the pockets are to stick the wings in

You can see the wings here and then the second pair of wings and the last ones on his tail fit nearly at the back of the tail...he seriously looks like a cutie dragon and is sure to win the costume contest for most adorable. I nearly keeled over from the cuteness when he turned and walked away with it on and the sparkles were glittering, his dragon tail fanned out and the ridges down his back looked so cute and dragony.

It is still bloody hot here so we let the girls have a sprinkler party in the 'pound o rain' sprinkler head--yep they got soaked.

This week is the birthday of my oldest as well as my hub so we will be busy with all the stuff going on school, swim meets, Fall festivals, rehearsals....on and on. I am finishing up the second Halloween embroidery today and will show it off when I get home later. So what are you going to create today?

Toothless the Dragon Dog Costume

Day 105

Well my sewing machine is full of blue glitter and I will suck it out tomorrow with the Kirby. I swear I have glitter embedded in my skin permanently but its all good cause this is the cutest thing ever and if this dog does not win the costume contest I will be sad, sad, sad lol, just kidding but he will get lots of 'oh he is soooo adorable' squealing comments and I hope the owner takes a picture of him in it for me.

This entire costume was made from a beautiful sparkly blue stretchy material evening gown type dress. Going green, yea that's right....the whole costume was completely designed by myself, no pattern--can I hear a 'whoop whoop?' oh yea

Tomorrow he is coming over (with his owner) to try it on. Here is the sketch and G1's toy that I borrowed for the week for inspiration.

Hat with the cute little Toothless ears...you can't see the straps but they were the straps cuts off from the neckline strap of the dress ...I cut them in half and put a velcro on the bottom.

Love my elephant model but he could only partially model cause I couldn't fit it over his body.

Here is the dragon view from the back....he has 3 sets of wings and these are the tail ones. We supported the veins of the wings with clipped pieces of wire from clothing hangers.

The ridges down the back were formed by a strip of fabric sewn into 'v's' and turned inside out and they don't go all the way down they start behind the wings and go to the bottom of the tail. These are also the middle set of wings.

The mid section between the mid and back wings on the tail showing the ridges.

The first main wings could not be as big as I wanted because I did not have enough fabric to make bigger but they work well on a coat hanger wire shaped frame. I sewed little pockets so they can be taken in and out but I might end up sewing them on if they don't stay on when he has the costume on.

The wings are about 12" long and I thank my hub for shaping them so nicely.

The wings set into the pockets.

Can you tell this is a dragon? Oh so deliciously cute!!

...And this is all that is leftover from the beautiful dress....

Starting on the 2nd Halloween stitchery today since this took longer than expected so should have that done in the AM. What did you create today?

The Woodland Friends contest project is in the mail as I type...

Day 93

Well the whole thing is finally over. It was sent off in the mail yesterday and what a joy and relief.

I think it has been one of the most rewarding creating experiences for me in a long time. I was able to see this project through from an idea in my head to an actual physical thing in my hands.

It was not without it's trials and mistakes and learning experiences. Of course that is why I take on different challenges so that I can learn new techniques or new ways of doing stuff. And some of the parts of this took longer than I planned like the sequins, the hand stitched mouths and little birdy legs, the piecing, the tabs that had to be unstitched remeasured and resewn after I realized I sewed them on backwards (yea there was much cursing when I noticed this, the best laid plans and all ya know)

Almost everything turned out exactly how I intended except for the borders-because I wanted the edges to look a certain way I ended up allowing it to be an almost primitive not so perfect style and allowed some of the green background fabric to peek through in some places. You can sort of see it in this terrible night time picture because I almost forgot to take pictures of the entire project hanging up SIGH...and this is pre-ironing, almost forgot to iron too lol

...quite honestly I hope that it does not take away from the judging of my project because it does end of making the whole thing look sort of unfinished BUT then again this is the way I wanted it to look so I am cool with the way it turned out in the end! And yes I did 'bling' out my mushroom with different colored sequins thank you very much.

The feathers on the baby owl turned out EXACTLY how I imagined and they were H-A-R-D to piece just so....can you see the whites of his eyes? EVERY part of this project was from the fabric I was given and his eyes are cut from the tiny trees in the design!

Even the whites of the bear and moose (and some of the mushroom dots) are from the fabric turned right side down

AHHHHH <---contented sigh because it is finished and out of my hands. I know that I did it so whatever the end result is (whether I win or not) I LOVE LOVE this project.

Basting finally done--ready for stitching!

Day 92

The title says it all....the basting was completed during a late night session last night after a long day at a big swim meet that my oldest is in this weekend. And I really wanted to attend the meet today as well but my hub made me 'do my homework' AKA finish the next stage in my creating before he would let me go lol lol....everyone at the meet yesterday thought this was hilarious so they bugged me on Facebook to get it done.

So I got it done and I am headed off to the meet today --tonight I will get through the sewing of the body......see what scheduling has done for me, especially helps for the boring mundane parts of sewing projects.

As I run out the door I leave you with a cool pic I snapped in my backyard. I have not a clue what this wildflower is but the stamen(?) tips are SILVER, shiny SILVER dots so very sparkly...and I did not see the bee until I got close so that was a bonus extra. The flowers themselves are about as large as the small pansies so not big but the silver makes them extra noticeable. I would love to know what they are because I have never seen silver on a flower in nature.

I did not know I was capable of cute...

Day 89

...seriously I just didn't know. It is turning out cuter every day.

I placed the cut pieces onto the green background and they blended in a little too much so...cute but not ultimate cuteness yet right?!

As I pondered what to do my husband came in and said I should use some scraps to do a border/outline around each of the animals to make them stand out. He really does have great ideas, he even picked out which color would look best with each one.

See almost finished cuteness (the tissue paper piece is from where I am still working on the Moose's eye to to get it just right.)

Get this, my hub is getting so into helping me with my art that he wanted to know why Clothworks did not add a blue color to this line lol lol I LOVE it!

So we slept on it to see if we still liked it this morning and once we placed the borders around it --the ultimate cuteness popped out....oh so adorable....will get it stitched up in the next couple of days....can't wait to see it finished!

Random backyard flower picture....don't these lilies look like birds? Ok well maybe it is just me but I just liked the way they looked in the early morning light.

A Sunday...

Day 87

Today we just hung out and did stuff....not big stuff just little bits of life stuff, like weeding, dusting, running the vacuum ya know boring stuff like that.

I also worked on my collage for the contest. Turning out a lot cuter than anticipated.

The girls competed in a day long Monopoly marathon...I tell ya for sibling relations a board game has nothing on video games--there were squabbles, various accusations of cheating, laughing and hands being rubbed in glee usually all within 5 minutes.

There was also lots of lounging--who am I kidding this is what they do all day anyway

and more Monopoly, from what I hear one child became an evil real estate conglomerate and the other went bankrupt....I am just lucky everyone came out unscathed

ahhhh nothing like a good Sunday--oh yea and that game of futball was on, I hear Spain won, good for them--EH really I do not care as those horns were seriously affecting my hearing and sanity. I am thinking the only purpose in life for those buzzing 'instruments' of horror would be in one of Dante's circles of Hell.

Ahem ok back to calm--I am calm--calm like a cat getting an ear rub--no more horns--ooooommmmmm Hope your Sunday was a good one as well!

Sketching out the design for Woodland Friends II contest

Day 87

Along with some little sample projects for upcoming craft nights my major goal today was to enlarge the sketch from the design in book to actual size. Lucky for me I get the ginormous scrap map paper from the edges or mistakes from my hubby's work so I was able to sketch this out to see what it will look like.

Next I will sketch the pieces onto tissue paper and then fabric and then put it all together like a collage puzzle!

I freehand drew the animals after eyeballing the original sketch and tomorrow I will darken the lines to see it better.

Sigh...of course I had a helper who added a few holes, tears and fur to the paper as he was wrestling it to the ground from the bottom up.

Let the work for the contest begin!!

Day 85

The fabric arrived in the mail yesterday from Clothworks and I have the pattern all tested for the Woodland Friends II Contest I am a finalist in.....

....and yes it is due by the end of July but that is ok I work well under pressure! I am surprised at how vibrant the fabric is compared to what it looks like online but a good surprised as in I LOVE the bright colors!

I can totally see this fabric collage I am making hanging in a room of the under-kindergarten set but then again my girls who are nearly 12 and nearly 10 both love it and want it in their room so go figure.

I will be cracking that bull whip tomorrow.....humming Rawhide theme song although I prefer the one done by the Blues Brothers Ah those were the days when TV and movies were actually funny course it could have been all the drugs they were doing at the time--- "hut hut hut hut"

P.S. If you have time be sure to browse through the Clothworks 'What's New' Section for their upcoming collections....so many possibilities so little space to store it all lol...especially love that Farmgirl's Collection and Le Jardin de Papillons