Costume Pictures and Spring Fun!

So, I received a few requests to post pictures of the costumes. For those of you who have never seen Lord of the Rings you will probably not recognize these characters. Adelle is Eowyn. I made her costume. It took me a few weeks. This is the second sewing project I have completed. I used two different patterns to make this dress. The belt I designed by watching the movie and trying to copy it. I was able to find some really wonderful buttons to use on the front of the belt and a lot of gold trim. Adelle loves the dress and has declared that she is going to be Eowyn for Halloween. At the Fantasy Festival she enjoyed spinning herself on the ground. I kept thinking "isn't it great it is a WHITE dress". Kids will be kids.

Wes made Lydia's Arwen Costume. It is almost identical to my Arwen Dress that he made about 2 years ago except it isn't made of leather. He used moleskin (fabric not really from a mole) to make hers. It made her costume a lot lighter than mine. She looks so grown up in it. I can't believe my little girl is becoming a young lady! Wes stitched the arm pattern with just a regular sewing machine (not an embroidery machine). The collar is also stitched with a cobweb like pattern.


Wes's Aragorn costume turned out fabulous. This is the costume that took first place in the costume contest. He probably worked on the costume for a year. Granted he was also working part-time as well as studying. He made the boots, the overcoat, the jerkin, the undershirt and the armbands. The only things he didn't make where the belt and the sword. He received the sword as a Christmas present a few years ago. Almost everything is leather. I wonder how many cows died in the making of the costume. No... he didn't kill the cows himself. There is a wonderful store called Tandy Leather that sells hides. Most of his costume was financed through gift cards that he had received for Graduation and for his birthday last year. He hand dyed all of the leather. The red undershirt he dyed as well. My nice, white, kitchen sink still has traces or red dye. I have kindly asked him to NEVER dye anything in the kitchen sink again. The armbands, which are my favorite, were hand tooled and the pattern is very detailed. A lot of the stitching on the overcoat was hand done. The machine stitching was done on just a regular, old Singer sewing machine from Wal Mart. Yes, you can sew on leather with a regular sewing machine. You just need to have leather needles. Oh, and for Wes's costume and Lydia's costume Wes didn't use a pattern at all. Can you believe that! He just looked at the movies and designed the costumes from there.

I think Wes is not quite sure what to do with his time now that the costumes are done. He has put out resumes for a job as an attorney and even has an interview set up. We will have to see how it goes. I think his new hobby may be learning how to program computers. He is sitting on the floor with computer programming books all around him. He really is too smart for his own good.

So Monday night was warmer than usual and the girls just begged to get out their bikes. Adelle rode her bike for the very first time and would get nervous once she started moving. Wes or I had to hold on to her and the bike the whole time. Lydia has really gotten a handle on riding a bike and just loved being allowed to ride her bike around the park on her own. She was just zipping everywhere. She claims that a bee flew almost flew into her eye (she told us dramatically of course). She seems to be doing just fine though.






So on another note, I have decided not to Audition for 12 Dancing Princesses on Saturday at Off Broadway Theater. We have discussed it as a family and with the commute to downtown Salt Lake City, it would really would be a LOT of time away from my family. Perhaps we will audition for Suessical the Musical at the Empress in a couple of months. "If at first you don't succeed try, try again!". The nice thing about doing shows at the Empress is that it is so close and that we are usually able to be involved in the shows as a family. Does anyone know much about Suessical? I have never seen it on the stage before.

Well, everyone take care. I will have to post again soon!

Liz