R2D2 shirt

I got fan mail! Sort of. I got a lovely comment last year about an R2D2 costume I made for my son Asher, but I didn't realize it until like May because I had somehow inactivated "notify me of comments" or whatever that is called.

I would have loved to have made a similar costume for the woman's son, but various things are keeping me from that. In any case, I present the simplest thing EVER: The R2D2 shirt. Made from a plain white T (thank you, Michaels -- or is it Michael's?) and fabric markers.

My boys both want one now. Damn it! I need to hide these things better!

Ewok village

PVC pipe for tree trunks, Sculpey for the hut door frames, craft foam for leaves, a sheet of platic Corroplast for the platform, and lots and lots of primer and paint.


I got some hunter-y sweatshirt-type fabric to use as a mat to simulate a forest floor.

There's also an elevator, but it doesn't work very well yet.

X-wing fighter pilot shirt

It was a lot of fleece, some fabric paint, a black shoe string, and a couple feet of gray strap.

Star Wars pajamas

The boys are growing freakishly fast. Asher of course has Tom's hand-me-downs, but if I make Tom Star Wars pajamas, then Asher will want some, too. So here we go. I was having trouble with the sleeves (I'm 35! I should be able to manage a damn sleeve!). So I came up with this: Use a T-shirt, and just sew "extensions" at the seam. It worked so well, I can hardly believe it.

It looks kind of dorky with their names down the leg, but I have a hard time keeping their clothes straight, and I wasn't going to make a size tag to sew into the waistband. We had these iron-on letters left over from when my ex made a project. Ugly, yes, but already on-hand, and free! :-)

Here's Asher brushing his teeth. Well, shaking his toothbrush.

Star Wars stenciling!

When we planned our trip to the Science Museum's Star Wars exhibit, the boys decided they needed new shirts for the occasion.

Tiny Jabba with special guests

Just another day at Jabba's palace:




Then Boushh the bounty hunter arrives.


But Jabba sees right through her little ruse!

I made this as a going-away gift for a friend of mine. I got a small metal box from a craft store, and I sewed in some magnets on the bottom side of Jabba. That way he won't roll off. Leia and Boushh each have a magnet on their base, too. I made the figures from Sculpey. I cut a few layers of this random foam I had to make the box lining so they wouldn't bang around in there.

Pocket Jabba

I made this for my friend Karen, and then forgot to take any photos. Fortunately, she posted it on her own blog (adventuresofcancergirl.blogspot.com).

Twisted
friends

WCK and I hosted our playgroup last week, and everyone once again got a
good laugh at our Mr. Potato Head in the Darth Vader costume. (His official name
is Darth Tater, by the way). I explained that this was a gift from my sister
before WCK was born, and somebody pointed out that I must have some really
twisted friends and family: Every time the playgroup comes over, they find
something bizarre around here that was a gift from someone else.

This is true. I do have twisted friends. Today I opened the mailbox to find
that my friend DeAnna in Minneapolis had hand-crocheted me a little tiny Jabba
the Hutt. I must add that this was a gift for ME, not for WCK. I'm not a Star
Wars fanatic the way Jay is, but I do enjoy Jabba. I wish I could spend my life
lying around, laughing at people, and eating frogs. You don't find a tiny Jabba
in your mailbox every day, so it was a very special afternoon. DeAnna's note
pointed out that his nostrils somewhat resemble Clark Gable's moustache. You'll
have to judge for yourself:

He's so tiny that it was hard to get a decent photo of him, so I posed him
in a variety of locales. Here he is shopping for groceries:

Lounging at the Emerald City:

Hangin' with his good friend Thomas:

"Aloha," says Jabba. "I'm off to Hawaii!"

Finally, attacked by a T-Rex. Fight back, Jabba! Fight back!




You know how I'm always complaining that I never have the time to, say, clean out
our closets or read as many books as I want to, or prepare a fancy meal, or
write the Great American Novel? This is why.

Jabba the Hutt

This took a while to finish! But not because it's all that big -- I just couldn't settle on how to make it. First I thought the way to go was with two strands of yarn and a larger hook, but all that did was consume vast quantities of yarn. Then I started over using a G and Sugar 'n Cream sage worsted weight. Then I tried to make him as all one continuous piece, starting at the end of the tail, so that I didn't have seams, but his head area never looked right. So then finally I realized a seam wouldn't look bad if I sort of hid it under his lumpy torso. (Heck, that's why you can't see seams on MY body, either. They are hidden under my girth.) It ended up looking a little "gathered" as I stitched it all together, but I can live with that.The other end -- the end opposite his tail -- wouldn't snug up very well, so sometimes there's that bump. Argh. Makes it look like Jabba has contracted some sort of abdominal goiter.

For scale:

Darth Vader amigurumi

The latest addition to my Star Wars Crochet family.

A bit closer on his chestplate and belt:

I'm holding him for size perspective, but putting him next to a ruler probably would have been more effective.

Overall, I'm pleased with how he turned out. The chestplate and belt details were a lot harder to embroider than I expected, and eventually I just gave up and settled for this. But the helmet turned out well, and I'm happy enough with the face. I kept notes this time, so I could do another one a little bit better if I want to. For example, the head ought to be another round or two taller, because the helmet needs to sit a bit higher off the shoulders. And I'm pleased with the cape, too.

R2D2 costume

Tom wanted to be Darth Vader and Anakin this Halloween, so we (I) decided Asher would be R2D2. Asher actually loved the idea, once he understood what I was talking about. We got the Darth Vader costume on sale at TJMaxx, and Tom's Nana provided the Anakin costume (which is actually what inspired Tom to be Anakin ... she'd bought it just as a dress-up thing).

But no way was I going to spend $30 for a toddler R2D2 costume.

First I needed a torso. I used his winter coat to make a sort of tank-top pattern, figuring that it would have to be able to fit over the coat in case we encountered a typical Minnesota Halloween. I made the torso out of white fleece.

The arms were also white fleece. I measured from the top of his shoulder to his wrist for height, then measured around his upper bicep and around his wrist for width. The photo below is sideways -- imagine his shoulder at the right, and his wrist at the left. It needs that funny two-humped curve for the shoulder. I fitted that middle section together and sewed it to create a curve to fit up and around the top of the shoulder.

A Velcro tab held the top of the arm to the torso at the shoulder, and some elastic held the forearm together with a toggle (I could never get Asher to hold still for a fitting, so I really had no idea how much elastic to use). You can see it fairly well below:

The hat was some stretchy silver stuff with a white fleece lining. By the time I got to the head, though, I was all out of wine and it was about midnight. So I just hot-glued on the details.

Tom's birthday cake

Karyn's cake kicked ass!

$1.79 Stormtrooper mask

Tom really wanted a stormtrooper mask. Can't find them anywhere ... at least, not for under $40. Maybe when it gets closer to Halloween, but not in August, which is when we made this.

I found a photo of a stormtrooper helmet, then printed it out the size I wanted it. I used white foam (that Foamies stuff -- you get a big sheet of it for $.79 -- it's 2 or 3 mm thick) to make the background piece, then cut another to make the detail at the bottom and the forehead part. I used scrap black foam that I happened to have to make the black details. For the eyes, Tom and I went to a dollar store and got a pair of sunglasses. I trimmed one lens, to make it fit the pattern. If I had to do it over, I would have gotten the sunglasses first, then made the eye part of the pattern to accommodate the lenses. It's all hot-glued together.

There are two slits in the black nose piece because Tom specifically requested "breathing holes."

Then the back was just a scrap of elastic and two toggles. I reinforced the slot with another little square of foam, because this stuff isn't all that durable by itself.

The toggles let it be adjustable (it's got to be a bit more snug for Asher to have a turn). Plus, it's hard as hell to size an elastic headband on an active kid, so I didn't want to have to sew it.

Star Wars birthday party

Tom is turning four next week. When he was two, he was obsessed with trains, so we decided on a train party for him. When he was three, he liked race cars, but then a musician friend was able to come, so we had a music party. Now that he's four, we figure he can start being part of the decision-making process. Last month I asked Tom what kind of party he'd like.

He said, "A Star Wars party."

I didn't influence this in any way -- I swear to GOD.

The Star Wars stuff at the party store (and online) is mostly crap. Or expensive. I demand cheap crap! T-shirts were on sale at Michaels ($2 each), so I made another freezer paper stencil. Each guest gets a T-shirt.

The first stencil lasted for five shirts, which was just fantastic. Several of the smaller holes were closed up by all the paint, so I made a second stencil for the last two shirts. But it totally ripped to shreds while trying to iron it to the second one (I was in a hurry and not paying attention to how wet the paint still was). I didn't really want to make another stencil, so I fished the first one out of the recycling, and it agreed to one more shirt. I'm glad I didn't have to cut another one!

We're going to play games with lightsabers, so we needed, well, lightsabers. I used paper towel cardboard tubes, silver paint (which kept rubbing off, so I put a clear coat on top), and self-adhesive foam.

The blades are going to be those really long 2" balloons you can use to make animals with (which we had). This way they can pick out what color of blade they want, too. (Tom knows which character has which color -- a little spooky and totally makes me well up.) The balloons snug into these tubes perfectly. I know we'll have several pop over the course of the morning, but I've got a whole bag, so we should be okay.

Karyn is still deciding about cake. I'll post that when she's done.

X-wing fighter shoes

My son needed new tennis shoes. He really wanted some with Star Wars on them. But they haven't made those in years, and eBay has been really hit and miss (mostly miss) for me.

So I got these $6 shoes and made a freezer paper stencil, and this is what I ended up with.

I've only made a freezer paper stencil once before (for, um, an interesting T-shirt experiment), so I was pleased that careful cutting really did pay off here. The biggest problem is that it was difficult to center the stencil on the shoes; if I divided the stencil where I had originally wanted to, I would have created many unattached bits that would have been a nightmare to realign. Overall, though, it was pretty cool.

Tom's response: "Do they have lights?"