Payback
On my last Trick-or-Treating Halloween, the year I was twelve, I asked my mom to make me a costume based on a Madame Alexander doll. Yep, I took my sister's Heidi doll to her, showed her exactly how I wanted the embroidered dress to look, and then flitted off to other pre-teen 80s stuff, like showering myself with Love's Baby Soft or writing in my Princess diary with my Smurf-topped pen. Like magic, the costume appeared in my bedroom on the morning of Halloween, perfect in every way. Why I wanted to be Heidi that year, I'll never know - it was just some random idea that popped into my head on the way to school one day early in October. Lots of thoughts popped into my head in those days, but I can guarantee you that not one of those thoughts involved how much time my mother spent trying to figure out how to create a costume from a doll's dress, much less actually making it. I'm not so sure that I wouldn't have told myself to take a long walk off of a very short, slippery pier if I had been my mother, but I played some pity card about it being "My last Halloween to trick or treat EVER, EVER and I really want a special costume." I hope I at least said thank you to her, but I was twelve and still living in that adolescent world of complete self-involvement, so the odds are against it. I'm sure my mom was thinking when she was up in the wee hours of the morning finishing the cosutme, "Ha! One day, that girl is going to have kids of her own, and I hope they do her exactly the same way."
So, this year, was at least a little bit of my payback. Gracie asked this year to be Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. Don't ask why - she was just as likely to have asked to be David from David and Goliath or Kokoum from Pocahontas, so actually I consider myself lucky. But, you try finding a pioneer costume, complete with apron and bonnet, in the Disney Princess/Brittney Spears/Dora world of today. Not gonna happen, my friends, not gonna happen...So, off to the store Gracie and I went to pick out material and a pattern. Now, to my daughter's credit, she started talking about wanting to be Laura early in September, so theoretically, I had plenty of time. But, along with inheriting my mother's ability to sew, I also inherited her uncanny ability to procrastinate. Trunk or Treat at the local church is tonight at 5:00. Last night, at 9:00 p.m., Gracie's costume was nothing but a bolt of material and a few sheets of pattern pieces. I had picked out two patterns to make the costume - one for the dress and one for the pinafore. Yeah, I know, it's a 3-year-old's Halloween costume, not an entry into America's Next Costume Designer - the Reality Show. But, still....
This is the first pattern - the one I planned to make the dress from:
Now, let me tell you, if want to learn how to sew, this may be the pattern to do it with. Short of putting a zipper in, by the time you make this getup, you'll have learned all kinds of sewing stuff, including making your own elastic from ribbon, putting in more buttonholes than you can count, gathering 15 million seams and turning innumerable tiny little sashes.
And there was this pattern which I was going to use for the pinafore (I wasn't going to patchwork it though, just make it solid white):
This pattern might just have enticed me to jump off a very tall building, if we lived near one. Now, you might think that it's a cool thing to have a mother/daughter pattern all in one. Let me tell you, it's not. Simply trying to cut the thing out is a nightmare of ginormous proportions, namely, the mother pattern is ginormous and the kiddo one isn't, and trying to find the tiny kiddo pieces amidst the ginormous ones isn't fun. But, I had a plan. I had originally decided to make the dress from the Mccall's pattern and the pinafore from the Simplicity one and the bonnet from whichever one looked easier. That was my plan when I bought the material (which by the way was supposed to be enough to make Abigail a matching Carrie Ingalls dress). My original plan was dreamed up in the 95+ degree heat of September and sitting in the cool room last night, I decided to make the dress from the Simplicity pattern, too, since it had long sleeves. What it also has is a ruffle that is 97,000 feet long. Now, a 97,000 foot long ruffle takes a lot of material, a thought that evidently didn't cross my mind until I'd hacked up almost all of my material into 48 inch by 10 inch strips. Once I finally got the dress cut out, I realized that I didn't have enough material left for the bonnet! And the bonnet was the one thing that Gracie kept asking for again and again, "Please, please, when can I wear my Little House bonnet?" Yikes!! What to do? Well, Abbie's dress was forfeited to the cause (never fear, she's going to wear the Snow White costume I made for Gracie's first Halloween) and I reverted back to making the skirt from the Mccall's pattern with the bodice of the Simplicity one. I had to make a few extra seams, since none of my material pieces were large enough for the bonnet back. You know what they say, "Haste makes waste." But, I did feel like a pioneer woman, making things work with the material at hand. Although, I did have a midnight run to Wal-mart as a back up plan, which I'm sure wasn't in the works for most of the women in Laura Ingalls' day....
Finally, about midnight I had the dress and bonnet cut out. By 3:30 a.m. the dress was made (minus the hem and the buttons) and I passed out for a couple of hours of sleep. By 9:00 this morning, the apron (the pinafore thing went the way of Abbie's dress - too much trouble!) was made, and by noon, the long-awaited bonnet was lacking only a finishing press. In between sewing, I refereed at least two brawls between the girls and worked my part-time job as a short-order cook, serving up waffles, pop-tarts, rice krispies, juice, water, milk, and Apple Cinnamon cheerios to my two tapeworm-infected munchkins. At 1:00 p.m., the whole thing was done, ready for Gracie to try on. Now, you might wonder why in the world I would put myself through this. Well, Gracie took one look at her Laura Ingalls ensemble and said "This is the greatest ever!" And every tired bone in my body welled up with pride. And, besides that, just look at her:
So, this year, was at least a little bit of my payback. Gracie asked this year to be Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. Don't ask why - she was just as likely to have asked to be David from David and Goliath or Kokoum from Pocahontas, so actually I consider myself lucky. But, you try finding a pioneer costume, complete with apron and bonnet, in the Disney Princess/Brittney Spears/Dora world of today. Not gonna happen, my friends, not gonna happen...So, off to the store Gracie and I went to pick out material and a pattern. Now, to my daughter's credit, she started talking about wanting to be Laura early in September, so theoretically, I had plenty of time. But, along with inheriting my mother's ability to sew, I also inherited her uncanny ability to procrastinate. Trunk or Treat at the local church is tonight at 5:00. Last night, at 9:00 p.m., Gracie's costume was nothing but a bolt of material and a few sheets of pattern pieces. I had picked out two patterns to make the costume - one for the dress and one for the pinafore. Yeah, I know, it's a 3-year-old's Halloween costume, not an entry into America's Next Costume Designer - the Reality Show. But, still....
This is the first pattern - the one I planned to make the dress from:
Now, let me tell you, if want to learn how to sew, this may be the pattern to do it with. Short of putting a zipper in, by the time you make this getup, you'll have learned all kinds of sewing stuff, including making your own elastic from ribbon, putting in more buttonholes than you can count, gathering 15 million seams and turning innumerable tiny little sashes.
And there was this pattern which I was going to use for the pinafore (I wasn't going to patchwork it though, just make it solid white):
This pattern might just have enticed me to jump off a very tall building, if we lived near one. Now, you might think that it's a cool thing to have a mother/daughter pattern all in one. Let me tell you, it's not. Simply trying to cut the thing out is a nightmare of ginormous proportions, namely, the mother pattern is ginormous and the kiddo one isn't, and trying to find the tiny kiddo pieces amidst the ginormous ones isn't fun. But, I had a plan. I had originally decided to make the dress from the Mccall's pattern and the pinafore from the Simplicity one and the bonnet from whichever one looked easier. That was my plan when I bought the material (which by the way was supposed to be enough to make Abigail a matching Carrie Ingalls dress). My original plan was dreamed up in the 95+ degree heat of September and sitting in the cool room last night, I decided to make the dress from the Simplicity pattern, too, since it had long sleeves. What it also has is a ruffle that is 97,000 feet long. Now, a 97,000 foot long ruffle takes a lot of material, a thought that evidently didn't cross my mind until I'd hacked up almost all of my material into 48 inch by 10 inch strips. Once I finally got the dress cut out, I realized that I didn't have enough material left for the bonnet! And the bonnet was the one thing that Gracie kept asking for again and again, "Please, please, when can I wear my Little House bonnet?" Yikes!! What to do? Well, Abbie's dress was forfeited to the cause (never fear, she's going to wear the Snow White costume I made for Gracie's first Halloween) and I reverted back to making the skirt from the Mccall's pattern with the bodice of the Simplicity one. I had to make a few extra seams, since none of my material pieces were large enough for the bonnet back. You know what they say, "Haste makes waste." But, I did feel like a pioneer woman, making things work with the material at hand. Although, I did have a midnight run to Wal-mart as a back up plan, which I'm sure wasn't in the works for most of the women in Laura Ingalls' day....
Finally, about midnight I had the dress and bonnet cut out. By 3:30 a.m. the dress was made (minus the hem and the buttons) and I passed out for a couple of hours of sleep. By 9:00 this morning, the apron (the pinafore thing went the way of Abbie's dress - too much trouble!) was made, and by noon, the long-awaited bonnet was lacking only a finishing press. In between sewing, I refereed at least two brawls between the girls and worked my part-time job as a short-order cook, serving up waffles, pop-tarts, rice krispies, juice, water, milk, and Apple Cinnamon cheerios to my two tapeworm-infected munchkins. At 1:00 p.m., the whole thing was done, ready for Gracie to try on. Now, you might wonder why in the world I would put myself through this. Well, Gracie took one look at her Laura Ingalls ensemble and said "This is the greatest ever!" And every tired bone in my body welled up with pride. And, besides that, just look at her:
She is gorgeous, just as you and your sister were in all those costumes long ago. Now you know why I stayed up nights making costumes, doll clothes, formals bridesmaid dresses etc. There is nothing like the feeling when your daughter is so proud and happy and you can say "I did it. I made her feel this way because I love her so much" This is what she will remember and not the times I fuse at her or lose my temper. And yes I did say many times I hope she will one day have a little girl and then she will understand. I love you.
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Ah yes! that look made it all worthwhile. Reading this brought back memories from when my son was a child. It makes you feel some pride in both self and your child. That look says it all. You did well, Mom and yes that is what she will remember..the love.
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