Creepy Crafts

Just a few more days and Cins and I should FINALLY be able to get episode five out! I hope everyone is still sticking with us, and would like to mention that this hiatus is ENTIRELY my fault.

This is the time of year where I start to get dreamy, and find myself thoughts drifting of their own accord to my favorite time of year which is, of course, Halloween. According to one of my favorite websites, Halloween is Here, spooky times are only 123 days away as of this posting. Hell, by the end of next month we'll be seeing Trick or Treat candy in stores! And personally, I LOVE it.

So this seemed like the ideal time to share the accidental Halloween craft I ended up doing for a loved one. One of my nephews is still very small, and he has developed a deep and profound love affair with his two Care Bears, Harmony Bear and Funshine Bear. While at my house he was rooting through my eBay stuff, and stumbled across some Care Bear accoutrements I had forgotten I possessed. He found a dress for the same-sized CBs he has, as well as a sleeping bag and a pillow, also the perfect size. He immediately claimed them as his own, and I gave them to him, wondering how hard his dad was going to let me have it when he discovered I'd given his son a dress to play with. (As it turns out, my brother took it all in stride, and just rolls his eyes when he sees it.)

After discovering that these items were several years old and therefore unlikely to be found at our local Fred Meyer's (Kroger's to all on the East coast), I was press-ganged into making him a duplicate of each item. How this became a Halloween craft lays in my cloth inventory: almost all of my fabric stash is Halloween themed because a: I'm planning on making myself an All Hallow's quilt, and b: I just really fucking like Halloween.

The Tiny Terror picked the fabric he liked which I immediately nay-sayed; he picked purple fabric for a purple bear. He got black instead. I will sew for him, I will not offend my own aesthetics for him! Plus he was fine with the black.

Here are the pleats pinned into place. I stabbed the shit out of myself several times doing this, and two of my nephews kept taking off with my pin cushion; apparently that was the coolest fake tomato-and-strawberry combo that ever was.

Anyone who has ever had to hand stitch pleats will understand my frustration. Normally with a machine you pin your pleats and then zip a line as fast as fucking possible, but my machine has apparently been watching The Exorcist a lot and getting ideas; at the moment it just turns into a hell-mouth and bites at me whenever I try to use it.

Here the pleats and hem have been poorly sewn. He's six, he doesn't give a crap.

I was SO glad to be finished with those pleats. Small hands kept trying to "help" and subsequently the pins would slip. I may have flipped off the skirt after I had it all sewn. Hard. Like, the ligaments in my finger hurt afterward.

Waistband attached. Not sure why a bear with no waist needs one, but hey, I'm just the seamstress.

This part was fairly easy once I got everything folded and pinned. I am fortunate in that I have nimble fingers, and also that I have about a bajillion pins and would gleefully pin shit into submission, then taunt it.

This looks so flirty, especially for a Care Bear.

Here the straps that will become the sleeves are attached the the apron front. The other dress has little ruffled cap sleeves attached to the straps, but I was suddenly struck with the notion that I would have to hem on a curve and then pleat AGAIN, then attach, and I decided it was now more of a sundress. Harmony Bear needed some vitamin D. "D" for "Don't do that to yourself".

TA-DAAA!

And there's the finished product. I have to admit that it was gratifying to succeed in this; I have never taken a proper sewing class, and did this dress by eyeballing it, as patterns both frustrate and intimidate me (I don't know how to do darts). Fortunately, I'm very good at taking things apart in my head, so I just reduced the simple design of the dress down to shapes and ended up with my own variation. To date I still need to attach a pocket, but over all, I consider it done. The Tiny Terror loves the dress, and really, that's all that matters, right? Plus, I have to be honest: little boys playing with Care Bears is adorable, and there's not a damn thing wrong with it.

So there's my post on how I made a creepy dress for a Care Bear! Aren't you glad you read that? Do you feel like a better, stronger person? Do you feel that YOU TOO could make dresses for small relations, regardless of gender? Then POST PICTURES, fool!