Easy Elsa Cape or Adventures of the Reckless Seamstress

B, my youngest, wearing the first cape I made.

So a friend of mine messaged me with a request that was something of a leap of faith.  Her daughter, like a large portion of America, including my daughters, is quite taken with Elsa from Frozen.  She loves the gorgeous flowing train of her fabulous sparkling Ice Queen gown.  So my friend, after seeking a cape with a train and not finding anything in a reasonable price range, asked if I might be able to make one.
I have already admitted that I am no seamstress, but I do have enough bravado to try things if I think for a minute I might be able to figure it out.  This request though, concerned me.  I told her I'd have to think on it.
My youngest daughter has a beautiful Elsa dress she got for Christmas from her grandparents.  It fits her perfectly and is made with higher quality fabric than you often find with these costumes.  The flowing, sheer train part is totally sewn into her dress, not unlike Elsa's actual dress in the film.  There was no way I had the skills to replicate that.
Fortunately, my daughters also have an Elsa 12" doll and a tiny 3.5" Elsa mini princess doll, both of which have capes rather than a singly constructed dress.  Aha!  Inspiration!
Then a stop at Hancock's Fabrics and Hobby Lobby and I was in business and around $80 poorer.  Not knowing what I was doing, the buying of fabric and notions was pretty much a swag--I went a little overboard on notions.  Fortunately, it worked out that I had enough fabric to make two very lovely capes and some fabric that will work very nicely for the Elsa room in the castle I'm building (another story for another time).  I selected two fabrics for the dress, one sparkling, semi-opaque turquoise blue and the other a shimmery, sheer fabric--thank goodness it was prom season.  Because it was the end of the bolt, I got almost two yards of the turquoise and a yard of the shimmer.  They were pretty wide.  I'd purchased two yards of another shimmery fabric at Hobby Lobby but once I saw the turquoise with the tiny sparkly stars, my plans changed.  Plus the Hobby Lobby bolt was much narrower than the Hancock's bolts.  My new plan was to layer the sheer over the turquoise, somehow.
I used wrapping paper to make a pattern.  After measuring my eldest daughters shoulders and clavicle, I determined what the neckline/collar measurements needed to be.  I folded the wrapping paper in half, used a ruler to draw a line of half the width of her shoulders.  Then I angled the ruler down a bit and drew the length of where I wanted the front of the cape to clasp.  After that I freehand drew out half a cape--a long cape.  The last step in the pattern build was to cut out arm holes.  I made a long triangle with about 2/3 the base under the back shoulder line and a 1/3 under the front of the cape line.  I had my daughter try it on.  I cut the triangle a little wider toward the front, retried the paper cape and was satisfied I had a pattern.

The pictures that follow are from the making of the second cape.

The white is the wrapping paper pattern folded in half, the other two are the fabrics, also in half.  I don't know why the pattern looks longer, it wasn't.  It could have something to do with my not even trying to iron the fabrics.  

Paper pattern folded.  Fabrics opened and layered on top of each other.

It's almost a perfect fit.  Fortunately, perfection isn't totally required.
After cutting comes the annoying, but not difficult work.

I used a wash-away wonder tape, instead of pinning to keep two slippery fabrics together.  It takes a little less time than pinning and it doesn't have to be removed.  YAY!  I "taped" the fabrics together with the right side of both fabrics facing up.  I only taped the neck and sleeve areas.  The sides of the cape are left open.

Then on the top of the sheer fabric, I put wonder tap around the sleeves.

Then I added the silver bias tape to the inside of the sleeves.  This is where the wonder tape is really wonderful.  To make the corners neater, I added tiny pieces of bias tape across the corner.  That makes it look nicer and it strengthens the corners of the delicate fabric.

Along the edge of the sleeve facing the front of the cape, I also added a fancy trim piece, tucking the edges of the trim under those corner covers.  Lots of wonder tape was used.  I did get two capes out of one roll of wonder tape, with a smidgen left over.  Then, using silver tape, I ran it through my sewing machine.  I don't have a serger so I just used a zigzag stitch, pretty tightly set and ran over both the inside and outside of the bias tape.

Next, again using wonder tape, I tacked down a wider version of the silver bias tape along the neck, leaving about 2 extra inches of bias tape on either side of the neck.  Then I stitched up both the inside and outside along the neck.

I added another bit of fancy silver trim to the neck--stitching up both sides.

Next, I tucked under the ends of the collar, hand stitched them down neatly and added the hook clasp.  All done with the silver thread.  Warning, the follow steps will possibly disturb serious seamstresses.  I'm sorry.

After testing the fabric to make sure it would survive, I used silver hot glue to seal the edges.  I don't have a serger or patience.  This did the trick and will endure being dragged on the floor better than sewing.  Plus, it looks kind of cool.  

With the top, sheer layer, I intentionally brought the glue line in about a half inch or so from the originally cut edge.  I wasn't particularly neat with the glue, though I tried to keep the inside edge of the glue straight and the thickness consistent.  I glued all the way around the unfinished edge of the cape, keeping paper underneath the fabric and continually moving the fabric to keep it from sticking to the paper.  I also was careful not to glue it to the turquoise fabric.

After gluing all the way around from collar to collar.  I trimmed the fabric to the glue line, neatening up any sloppy areas of the glue and leaving a cool, durable edge.  I did the same thing with the bottom layer of fabric, except this time I kept the glue very close to the originally cut edge.  Trimmed it clean and VIOLA!

Finished cape.  You can see there is a slight reveal of the bottom layer.  Below is my older daughter, with her new cape on over a different snow queen's costume.  

The cost, amount of fabric and notions will vary based on fabric and trim choices.  One spool of silver thread got me through both capes (I bought 4 spools of silver plus two more of turquoise thread--I hope they take it back).  One package of the wide bias tape did both capes with plenty left over but I needed two packages of the thinner bias tape.  Both were double folded.  If you make your pattern first, you'll have a much better idea of how much stuff you'll need.  I bought too much trim, but I will end up using it in some other random project, so no big deal.  

Guardian Angel? Karma? or People Are Really Basically Good

Anyone who knows me well knows I have a severe dingaling streak.  I come by it very naturally--my exceptionally intelligent parents both contributed this trait to my genetic make up.
So, it will probably not be terribly surprising to learn that I have left my wallet in the grocery cart at the Decatur Kroger at least a half-dozen times (probably more but I don't like to keep track) in the seven years I've lived here.  Miraculously, EVERY SINGLE TIME, I have found my wallet, still sitting in the cart, in the parking lot, untouched.  That is until tonight.  Tonight, someone saw it and turned it in to the customer service desk.
My husband, who finds my dingaling streak to be very low on the list of things he loves about me, says I was "very lucky."  Naturally, the only appropriate response is, "Yes, I know."
However, I wouldn't actually describe myself as lucky--fortunate, yes.  Lucky?  Not so much.  I have another theory, at least for this particular type of good fortune--the lost-wallet-retrieved-quickly-and-intact variety.  I think it might by my mom.  I know that sounds crazy, and it is.  But anyone who has lost a loved one can tell you that there are times when you feel their influence very strongly.  For me, this is one of them.  It goes beyond the leaving the wallet at the Kroger problem I, clearly, have.  In my many years of traveling for work, I have lost many things--some never to be seen again.  However, on the few occasions when I have done something foolish like left my purse on the door of restroom stall or left my kindle under the seat in front of me and not realized it until I got to my gate or home (after midnight), I either returned to restroom and found my purse hanging there or received a call from the airline letting me know they had my kindle and the sweater I left with it.  And when these things are "miraculously" retrieved, I say prayers of gratitude and it crosses my mind and heart, that my mom just might be looking after me.
Interestingly, my sister, who periodically shows she's inherited the same dingaling streak, has had similar experience and similar feelings of "mom intervention."
When I got home from the store this evening and realized I'd left the wallet, I got the girls out of the car and raced back to the Kroger and called their customer service to ask if someone would please go out and see it the wallet was there and hold on it for me.  When they told me it had been turned in, the relief was huge!  I just returned from a work trip so it had all my trip receipts in it, travel card and passport--the hassle factor would have been ridiculous.  I quickly called my husband to let him know.  I thanked God and my mother.  And tears in my eyes, I called my sister to talk to her about my theory.
It is good to have someone with whom you share a little bit of same sort of "crazy," because they can listen well and understand with a lot less explaining and a lot more working through.  We both share the same idea that mom is a big part of our uncanny good fortune in recovering our wallets/purses after total flake outs.  My sister suggested that even if it wasn't a guardian angel version of our mom, it could be the goodness she inspired in her life is continuing to influence people to do the right thing and we have been beneficiaries of that goodness.  That's reasonable and even a little sane sounding.
Even more "sane" possibility, one that supports another belief of mine, is that most people are basically good and do the right thing.  So perhaps it's not all that remarkable that people haven't felt like it was okay to take a wallet that someone had clearly lost.  It's just a refreshing reminder that we live in a place with honest people.
Or it is really my mom keeping a helpful eye out for me and good karma and most people are basically good.

Fabulous at any age

It is a tradition almost as old as time for people, especially women, to fib about their age.

When young, people often want to present themselves as older.  I recall, my sister telling people she was almost 5, days after turning 4.  And I remember how delighted I was, when at 13 and 5'7", people frequently assumed I was at least 16, if not 18.  And let's not even talk about all reasons people might wish to procure fake IDs.

I was twenty-four when I started my current career path, a position that includes advising university and college administrators on solutions that will support and/or advance their business.  I was told my that, regardless of my expertise and knowledge, my youth would be held against me (it was), so I should wear more make up and dress more conservatively (read--less flatteringly), to disguise my youth and gain credibility .  Fortunately, after 21 years with my company and almost 19 in my current area, I don't have to worry about credibility based on perceived age or experience.

I am currently in that other time of life, the time when people start to fib in the other direction.  Somehow, around 30 or 40 we start wanting people to perceive us as younger than we really are.  People frequently, miraculously, stay at 29 or 39, whichever seems remotely plausible for years, even decades.  Media floods us with ideas about how those are really the most desirable ages and after that, as long as you look those ages, it's perfectly fine to claim them.

I've never quite cottoned to the need hide my age.  I liked being thought of as mature or wise for my age when I was younger and enjoy instant the instant credibility my age gives me now that I'm older.  This point of view has, apparently, been subtly presented to my daughters.

The other night, the subject of age came up at dinner for one reason or another and my husband joked to my daughter that "Mommy is only 29."  To which, my eldest daughter responded, with crinkled nose and raised eyebrow, "no, she's not, she's 42."  My husband laughed, "your mommy is 39."  Again, brow furrowed, E replied, " NO, Mommy is 42," and looked at me for explanation to this nonsense.

I told her "some people think that being older makes them less beautiful, so they tell people they are younger than they are."

I truly wish I had been video taping the conversation so I could have caught and shared the look on her face.  Her expression said without a doubt that was the most absurdly, unbelievable thing she had ever heard in her life--this utter disbelief from a child who is in full belief of fairies and magic and Santa.  I lauded her greatly for her priceless and beautiful expression, telling her that hers was the exact right response.  "That is exactly right, baby, it's total silliness.  Mommy believes she, and most everyone else, gets more fabulous with age, not less."  She nodded, her expression reading, very clearly, "well, DUH."

May she always, always feel that way--may all our daughters feel this way.  May we all.

13 months later

Last year, I made something of a big deal about starting a running program and being serious about it.  I posted about my first 5k that I actually ran and subsequent events.  Exercise programs are always very exciting at the start.  The trick is figuring out how to stick with it.  

13 months later, here I am.  I would like to say that I so totally love running and it's a vital part of my every day and I'm in the best shape of my life and am ready for my next 10k.  But that would be a big ol' fib.  

After the excitement of the few races I did in the Spring, I struggled with keeping my regular, every other day schedule of running 3+ miles.  I live in Alabama.  It's freakishly hot and humid.  You cannot get up earlier than humidity.  That said, I still managed to run 2-3 times a week, most weeks--sometimes more walk than run but I got out there.  Sometimes I got out there with my daughters (who pretty much complained of the heat the whole time--even the kid in the stroller).  At the end of summer, the girls and I did a Color Run 5K together.  Pretty cool (literally--it rained the whole race).

Since then, my training has ebbed and flowed--some weeks I've managed to get in 3 or 4 runs and some only 1 or 2, some, even zero (let's don't talk about the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas).  But in the end, thirteen months later, I am still running.  Last weekend I made a fun return to racing with the Hot Chocolate 5K.  Not my best run time ever but race was gorgeous and fun (separate post to come about that) and even though my pace wasn't impressive, it was in the top 3 of my division and gender and in the top half over all.  So I am calling it a win.  

In the end, the truth is, I don't run because I love running.  I run for these primary reasons:

1-It's really good for me physically and mentally.

2-I love the way I feel about myself when I finish running, especially when my pace is good and the hills are plentiful.

3-I would rather my daughters see me running and hear me talk about running than for them to see me dieting or hear me talking about dieting.  

I'm register for more races already, including another run I'll run with E.  I'm excited.

Infiltrating the PTA or It's always "no" unless you ask

Some of my friends and family have heard me bemoan about the non-working parent friendly hours of my daughter’s school’s PTA.  The PTA meetings, at least since my daughter has attended her school, have always been held during the school day, often in the morning.  I learned this after signing up for the PTA last school year and I was pretty dang hot about it.  I might have ranted on Facebook a time or two.

This was not what my vision of how PTAs were supposed to work.  When I was in school, all PTA meetings took place in the evening and unless my father was out of town, both my parents attended and participated in the meetings.  My mother chaired committees, volunteered anywhere there was a need and both parents made things needed for whatever reason. 

Still, I refused to let myself be excluded from involvement in my daughter’s school.  I managed to participate, reasonably well, in the family related activities at La Petite.  I certainly wasn’t going to back off once E started elementary school.  My philosophy was to not let anyone keep me from being involved with the school, whether the PTA really wanted me to or not. 

By volunteering to help even if though I couldn’t attend the meetings, I was able to meet many of the parents (mostly mothers).  They did need the help and were grateful and friendly.  My husband and I tried to make sure at least one of us was there for all family welcome events.  I even came and had lunch with E, just because.  I baked, made, sewed, responded to emails and did whatever I could to support my daughter’s teachers, school and PTA. 

It has been time well spent.  E is still at the age when it’s exciting to see a parent at school, helping out.  This won’t last forever, so I’m working it for as long as I can. 

Still, in a year and a half, between travel, meetings and work that needed to be done, I had not been able to attend a PTA meeting, until today.  I did not have a call, meeting, prep, travel or anything else that absolutely required me to be at my desk this morning, so I made the choice to take an hour and attend the 8am meeting this morning. 

TOTALLY WORTH IT. 

At first, I was a little disappointed, if not surprised by the very low number in attendance (10 tops, including me and the principal).  Also, not surprisingly, it was all women.  But it was a useful meeting.  There were discussions of how money has been spent and plans related to support of other activities and tossing around of ideas. 

As a regular attender of all sorts of meetings, I found it a little odd there was not an introduction portion.  But half-way through the school year and with such a small group, I suppose they all already knew each other well.  Through prior volunteer activities I had meet all but one of the ladies, so even I wasn’t at a significant disadvantage. 

The size of the group and my familiarity with the folks there let me release my extrovert side and I didn’t hesitate to speak up and actively participate in the discussion.  In fact, I seized the opportunity to make a few suggestions. 

One brazen suggestion, but I HAD to ask, was that they consider, for the sake of working parents—including me, holding at least some of the meetings, maybe even just once a quarter, in the evenings.  I pointed to myself as evidence that busy, working parents were still very interested in participating.  I mentioned it was my sheer bullheadedness kept me from being deterred from volunteering, though I felt rather excluded by the during work day meeting times.  And I suggested, having heard as much from other parents in my situation, always having the meetings when working parents could not attend gave them the impression that their involvement was not welcome or needed.  I was prepared for push back.  I did not get it.  I got nods and got people thinking about when and logistics for security and basically got a commitment to try that out—maybe even for the very next meeting.

I don’t know if everyone else left the meeting thinking I was a snot-nosed interloper, but they surely did not make me feel that way when I was there, so this is going down as time well spent.  With a little luck, more parents will able and inclined to participate—taking on more planning roles to help keep the regular volunteers/participants from burning out. 

All this was penned to make three points. 

First, it’s easy to just complain about the status quo, but it will not change by complaining.  Only by getting involved and committing yourself can you affect the changes you wish to see.   Letting fear, pride or frustration get in the way of the positive impact you wish to make is silliness.   

Second, the answer is always “no” unless you ask.  So ask.   They could say “no.”  They could even look at you like you have three heads.  Or they could smile and say, “we can probably make that happen.”  Totally worth the risk. 

And third, probably most important, the PTA can use and does need your help.  There is always something you can do.  Even if you cannot get to the school during the day, ever, there are things you can do to help.  If you’ve got connections to suppliers (food, paper goods, art supplies, landscaping) with a generous side, those connections can be invaluable.  If you have technical skills, craftman or artistic skills, those can be put to use outside of school hours.  And hour a month, can pay dividends.  We are all busy.  But if you have something to offer and want to positively impact your child’s school, let the PTA know.   You can even tell them what it is you’d like to do—I told them I could help with keeping the website up to date, if they had content but didn’t have the time to get it posted.  It’s something I can do whether I’m home or traveling.  They were thrilled.  They hadn’t even thought to ask for that help but were SO glad to have it offered.  

Finally, I can love Tangled as much as I wanted to...whew.

Ever since I first saw Tangled, I've struggled with liking it as much as I've wanted to. The horse, Maximus, alone is enough reason to love the film. He's awesome. And I very much like that the relationship between heroine and hero grows instead of happens at first sight. But the "I love you most" and "mother knows best" exchanges left me feeling icky. How, as a mother, am I supposed to help my daughters differentiate between a mother who really is doing her best to do what's right to protect and care for her children and a creepy, horrible user who uses some of the same loving words?
Finally, while watching it again today, I figured out how to use the film to support an important lesson to protect my girls. I focused them on how the King and Queen never stopped loving, never stopped looking and never stopped hoping that they would find their baby girl--I told them that would be how their mommy and daddy would be. And I talked about how there were, sadly, some really terrible people out there who actually took children and while they weren't witches, they would tell terrible lies to the children--they could say things like "mommy and daddy are dead" or "mommy doesn't love you anymore." I explained how, if something happened to us, there were lots of people who the girls actually knew who love them and would come take care of them and that there would NEVER be a time we didn't love them, EVER. So anyone who told them that was lying and could not be trusted. 
It's a harsh reality that there are terrible people out there, and it's even harder trying to impart that to your children without making the world too scary. So, now, I can watch the movie with less stress and more enjoyment and have an important, yet gentle conversation starter. 
#whyIloveDisney

The Science of Beauty aka Unhelpful Areas of Research

While I am a huge fan of science and appreciate the benefits of scientific research and discovery, I find the line of research regarding what makes a person physically attractive to be unnecessary at best and seriously damaging at worst.  What set me to write this little rant are stories that, ironically, both came from HuffingtonPost.

The first article and others like it on the "science of beauty" are exactly the things that lead to people ending up feeling they are not pretty enough (touched on in the second link), a much more serious and destructive issue than, I think, some people realize.

Short video on the science of beauty (just one of far too many available on the subject)

Other HuffingtonPost 'article', this one on how "outrageous" it is that someone would tell another person they are not pretty enough

So how about this, big "thinkers" and researchers, instead of trying to track down and limit by strict definition how we process and define beauty, why don't you work on how to expand the horizons of people's definitions of beauty.  I'm really tired of reading about how this feature or measurement is ideal and this is not.  It's not a healthy barometer.  Let's do more research on what makes some people have a much broader spectrum of perceived beauty and how to help others expand theirs.  If you start now, by the time my daughters are old enough to read/listen to this type of research there will be things on the topic of beauty worth reading and hearing.

And in the meantime, I will work on teaching my daughters that human value and real beauty cannot actually be measured by a ruler or color chart.

Jen Tress's website. Read the shared stories and see how damaging these superficial measurements can be. And how strong people can be.