Happy Halloween, last week...

I haven't gone trick-or-treating since about 10 years ago. Between hockey, game night, and growing up, I've not gone in a while. Well, this year I went! I didn't actually get candy, but I got dressed up with the family and we all walked around while Nikki and her friend got candy. It was great fun and I'm really glad we all did it.

Shannon and I were in Wichita for the weekend, Jayme played with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra (cool!). Shannon, Mom, Sandra, Charles, Nikki, and I went on Saturday night. Rhonda watched Keagan at Mom's house while we went. It was pretty good. I haven't been to a show like that before. I'm glad I got to go, and even glader that my little sister played in it.

For Halloween, Mom broke out her boxes of costumes from over the last 15+ years. She's still got so much! My mutant Rainbow Brite costume is there (I made in 1996), the hood from the radioactive green squirrel (I made in 1998), and dance costumes, and more! Mom wore her renaissance dress, Jayme dressed as a witch.


Shannon, Keagan, and I wore pirate gear.


Charles dressed as an out of work fairy. He wore random parts we found (zombie shirt, silver pants, and fairy wings).


Nikki was Clifford the big red dog. Jayme made her a cute costume and painted her face. It was fun to walk around.


One of Mom's neighbors goes all out for Halloween. Music, lights, decorations, the works. It's pretty cool.

Ren Fest 2010

This past weekend Shannon, Keagan, and I visited Jenette, Chris, Cassidy, and Michelle in Manhattan. Rhonda came up too. It was a fun time on Saturday. We went to Cox! They used to be the best bbq in Manhattan, their BBQ nachos were my favorite!


They left a few years back (looks like in 2005). And this summer they returned! So I was excited to go. It wasn't bad. I got bbq nachos again. They are basically as I remember them. Which is good.


But Billy Simms on Peoria her in Tulsa is still better. Their meats are amazing!

After that we traveled to Wamego for an hour of K-State Tap Ensemble, of which Michelle is a member.


It was an outdoor show.


The main attraction last weekend though, was the KC Ren Fest. We left Sunday and spent just about all day there. Mom and Maria joined us, too. Mom had been looking at houses with Maria in KC the day before. She's looking to buy! How fun.

So here are some pictures of our day.

Jenette and Chris got a tandem stroller for 15$ at a rummage sale. Sweet. So, they decorated it up to be a pirate ship for Cassidy and Keagan. It worked really well and got compliments. :)


Maria brought Hendrix with. He was pretty good. People like him, so even though he's still all pull-y on his leash, it was ok.

Here's our clan split in 2, minus Chris for some reason.



The grandma's and the granddaughters.



Chris and Shannon look Cassidy and Keagan to the petting zoo. Both babies just chewed on their costume the entire time in there.


Just a funny picture.


The two of them got along pretty well. There was some times when they just burped at each other.

Crafty Weekend

It wasn't incredibly crafty, but I did to some crafting this weekend. Namely, I cut/grinded almost all of the pieces for my current stained glass project. Now, I have to do the background and then fine tune it so all the pieces fit nicely together. Then, it's off to black-backed foil tape and my solder. This will be my first patina project. So, I'm thinking it best to do a trial run before I do the real thing. We'll show picks of the tests.



I also stitched a little. I decided to make me some pants. Those are coming along OK. I need to fix the waistband so it doesn't look like I have lumpy hips, because I don't (or at least not as lumpy as the pants make me look). I also worked on Rhonda's dress and Jayme's dress.

Good times. I even got around to bruising my knee at hockey yesterday, taking a 3 hour nap, eating sushi, working on syllabus and the such.

"OH, working on syllabus?" you say. Yes. I am going to be a part time instructor at Tulsa Community College. I'm teaching 2 statistics courses. :)

Happy Halloween!!

Don't you wish you had a dog that you could dress up as half-eaten by a giant lizard?


Or perhaps as the brave and reliable steed of a questing knight?


A lion?


Or a freaky spider?


I noticed that Julia and her puppy dressed up too!

Poor Poodle

And I won't say that often.

Opah!

This past weekend we saw a lot of our friends and family. We ate dinner with Andy, Rusty, Mom, Jayme, Charles, and Nikki at Firkin Bull on Friday evening. Then we drove through to Manhattan. There we saw Rhonda, Michelle, Jenette, and Chris. Shannon and Chris got to go to the K-State game Saturday night with Michelle while Jenette and I stayed behind. We sewed and Rhonda made us a good steak dinner!


Then Sunday Shannon, Rhonda, Michelle, Chris, Jenette and I dressed up and got in Rhonda's new van, drove to Bonner Springs and spent the day in the 16th century.





We met up with Newgen and Andrea. Mom, Jayme, Charles, Maria, and Nikki came a little after that. It was great fun. We went to the tea again. The gypsy son's danced on the table for us. That was fabulous, in an awkward way.

Shannon went as a pirate, as did Maria. She wore Jenette's costume. Rhonda, Jenette, Jayme, and I went as girls in dresses....or ladies of the court. Michelle and Mom were gypsies. Chris was a steam mechanic. Charles wore Shannon's alchemist costume, and Nikki was a fairy. Jayme made her cute costume.

After, we got out of our costumes and ate a satisfying meal at Johnny Carino's with all 13 of us.

I must say these pics are not taken by Shann and I. Our camera died. These are all from Rhonda and Jenette. Thanks!

Bear Family

I stumbled upon this picture while looking at places that made custom wedding dresses. The company is Sew Original. If anyone knows why this family would do this, please share.

Toys Arrr Us

With Mom being up, Jayme and Nicole were up as well! On Sunday we all (including Mom, Jay, and Nicole) dressed up and went off the the Renaissance Festival again! Good times. I'll post some more pictures of everyone when I'm not at school. Just know, a good time was had.

Costumes Part II

My costume was for a medieval seamstress. The sleeves for the under-dress were very tight. So I cut them off and made them removable. They kept falling off, the I will have to change the way they attach if I wear it again, but it was fine. I made the pattern for the overdress (not really all that complicated of a design). I also made my belt, you may remember. It turned out fine.


While there I bought some yarn so I can felt me another bag for the costume. The one leather pouch wasn't really enough.

Michelle started out as vampirate. But after some discussion as to why a vampirate would be in the same traveling group as a vampire hunter (Chris), we decided she should change titles. So, she became a dhampress (the female version of a dhampir).


I made the bodice based on the pattern that Jenette and Rhonda used. I just made it longer and lace up in the front only. Michelle and I planned and made her cape. It came out pretty good and matched her hair really well. The last thing I made for her was that hat. She had looked in some thrift stores and a costume store, but found nothing good for a good price. So, I remembered that I bought a pattern for 1$ and had fabric from Shannon's pirate coat. So, I made the hat. It turned out ok. The feather she bought really helped.

Shannon's costume turned out pretty good too. He went as an alchemist. He did a lot of research on alchemy and wrote just about all of it in those books he's got attached to his costume. In the bottles on the right are some things a real alchemist may have carried around.

I made the robe first for his costume. He found some really neat fabric and helped to design where the different colors would go. I then sewed it up. We slowly added the doublet, then the shirt, then the pants. It came out pretty good. Although, he said it was kind of uncomfortable because the books were very heavy to carry around. If there's a next time, we'll attach them differently.

Costumes Part I

Rhonda made her own outfit. She was a lady of the court. As the rest of us, she's worked on it since this summer. We bought the patterns and fabric at JoAnn's pretty early (they were having a sweet sale 1$ McCall's patterns).


The coolest thing is all the work Rhonda put into her costume. She sewed on a lot of detail by hand. Check out the pearl beads on the skirt and bodice, the border of the bodice, the hair piece. Even her sleeves have some beaded goodness. I helped her hem the dress, but every thing else she did. :)


Chris also made his own costume. As far as I know, he made it all himself too. He was a vampire hunter.


He also has a cape to go with the costume. But his picture shows off his detail work (of which there is a lot). There was a lot of leather work that he did. He got pretty good at it too. He made some really neat things for not only himself, but Jenette as well.

I don't have a very good picture of Jenette's costume. Maybe after I look at their pics I will :). She went as fairy and tried to make it a pretty realistic one. As with Chris' costume, Jenette had a lot of detail .


She had fairy dust, cicada wing earring (made by herself), butterfly wing chain on her belt (made by herself), a light up fairy in a jar (made by Chris), and a plethora of other good things! For her wings, they decided to use boning to keep them stiff, but not sticking out. She found some really neat glittery-woody fabric to use. They were attached to her wrist bands so when she moved her arms, they moved too.

These three guys had really neat costumes. They put a lot of work into them and worked on them for a really long time. They came out really cool.

Renaissance Funstival

Sunday we headed out to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. We included Shannon, Rhonda, Michelle, Jenette, Chris, and I. We arrived around 12:30 and stayed until close. It was a good time.

The ladies had tea with the queen. It turned into quite the gypsy party, but that was great fun too. The gypsy boys belly danced in the aisles and on the tables! We ate cream puffs, chocolate covered strawberries, cookies, fruit, cheese, and so much other tasties. It was well worth the 10$ for the ticket to the tea.


Last year when we went, they had an elephant and camels that you could ride. No one did. But this year, ah, this year. Michelle and I both rode the elephant this year. It. Was. Awesome. It wasn't a long ride, or even a fast ride, but it was a ride on an elephant! Sweet.

Other things happened too. We walked around and looked at a great deal of shops. I got some handspun wool yarn to felt me a bag with. Shannon and I also purchased 2 cd's from a band called Tartanic. They are a bagpipe rock band. They are really good. We sat and listened to their show, bought their cd, and then were pleased to see they provided the music for the post festival dance "outside the gates."


I'll post about our costumes later. Just know that I think each of us received a complement (independent of each other) on our costumes. Oh and Mom and Jayme, you really should come with us in a few weeks!

The lettuce in review.

I've been working on various parts of the Renaissance Faire costumes for Shannon and I. I have looked for a good leather belt to use for my own, but I don't wanna spend 35+ dollars on one. So, I made myself a more humble belt. I took 4 strips of fabric that match my costume and wove a belt for myself.

I learned how to braid with four stands from Luis Ortega. Once I got started, it was very simple. The belt is long, when tied around my waist both ends are about 5" above the ground.

Arrgh!

I never told you. We dressed up and went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End in May. It's too bad that it was in May, not later in the summer. It's also too bad that it was at 8:00 not 12:00. But whadda ya gonna do? We went, had fun, and look forward to Pirates 4. :)