A finished mummy mask.

The hardest part of this entire costume was the mask.  Luckily Carolyn had today off from school for teacher conferences – I needed her to model this pretty frequently.  This time, instead of only sewing strips from the bottom up, I also sewed them from the neck, over the top of the head, and back down – like you would if you were wrapping your head with bandages.  This was kind of tricky and I’m not 100% thrilled with how it came out, but I think overall it’s a reasonable facsimile of a mummy mask.

The thumb hole and hand wrappings.

Finally, I had Carolyn try on the shirt so I could figure out the end of sleeves/hands part.  I cut a slit between the cuff and shirt for her thumb to stick out, then wrapped strips around the cuff and hand-stitched them down.  It takes up the excess sleeve material and acts almost like gloves – hopefully I won’t have a chilly mummy for Halloween!

Hanging bandages on the shirt.

This costume seemed so simple on the surface, but it’s all in the details: I let bits of strips hang down while I sewed them on, and shredded the ends so there weren’t finished selvedge edges of the fabric showing.

Finished mummy pants!

I also took a rather big tuck in the back of the pants – the downside of buying pants a couple of sizes to big is that they have a tendency to fall off as the mummy walks!

Mummy, er, "sitting" on the bench.

With all the details done, it’s time for a “beauty” shot.  That’s one good-looking mummy costume!  Total, I spent $26.  I probably could have spent a little less on one of the awful store-bought costumes we saw, but this is much, much better.  Carolyn is super happy with how it turned out, too!

Not so scary yet!

This is going to be a mummy mask when it grows up: a super cheap hat ($1) from Target!  I had to go out and buy another yard of muslin and tea-dye it.  (I know I don’t need a whole yard more just for the mask, but I’d rather have too much than have to go run back out to the quilt shop again.  They already think I’m crazy there.)

Yes, I cut something knitted. Scary indeed!

The hat was a double layer knit hat, so to make it longer I cut around the inside layer only near where they were sewn together at the crown decreases.  This left a really messy edge that will roll and potentially run, but I intend to neaten that up when I’m finished.

Extra long butchered hat, ready to become a mask!

Next I cut out the area where Carolyn’s eyes and mouth will be.  I purposely made those holes larger than necessary so she has good visibility and doesn’t suffocate!

Are you frightened yet?

Finally I hand-stitched a thin strip across the nose piece (mostly because I was afraid it would unravel while I machine stitched it!)  The rest will have to wait until tomorrow!

Not so many pictures today – it’s too dark and dreary out to get any decent photos – but I (mostly) finished the shirt.  To do the sleeves, I had to pick out the seam with my trusty seam ripper.  Then I sewed the strips on flat, starting near the cuffs.  (I have plans to somehow make the cuffs come down over Carolyn’s hands since the sleeves are so long.  I’ll figure that bit out later.)  I cut a slit in the back neck because even before I started this project I could barely stretch the collar over her head.  And then I sewed strips around the top of the chest and the shoulders, all the way up to the collar.  Finally, I flipped the shirt inside out and sewed up the sleeve seams again.  The shirt is now mostly done.

Mummy pants on the machine.

Now for the harder part.  I thought I would do the pant legs the same as the sleeves, but I couldn’t get the seams open through all the many layers of stitching they must have done.  Luckily, they *just* fit around the machine with the extension table bit taken off.  Bonus: I didn’t have to stretch the fabric as I sewed since it was already stretched as much as it could go!  However, this method only worked for the first few strips, after which there was too much material to push in between the needle and the rest of the machine.  It worked out though, because by that point I was able to turn them around and work from the waistband side.

I didn’t put strips all the way up to the waistband.  The shirt comes far enough that I figured I’d save some material and not cover the bits that don’t show!  I have a mostly finished Mummy costume at this point.  Just a few more details to work out in the next few days.

DIY mummy it is, then.  I drew some inspiration from this most amazing mummy costume tutorial, but I had already started by the time I found it so it’s probably not going to be nearly as awesome as that one is!

Future mummy costume here...just use your imagination!

That’s a set of $10 long underwear (a size or two big to fit over street clothes) and 2 yards of muslin (really nice muslin bought at a quilt shop, so another $10 – a bit of a splurge).  A sheet would have worked as well, but I don’t have any unused white sheets at the moment.

Mmmm....a pot of tea and muslin. That should hit the spot!

I used a dozen tea bags, some hot water, and my spaghetti pot to soak the muslin for a half hour or so.  Can’t have things looking too new, obviously!  Then I squeezed out the fabric, ran it under some water until it ran mostly clear, and dried it for a bit.

A pile of wrinkly bandages. Now the real work begins!

I cut little snips into the fabric all along the selvedge edge, a couple of inches apart.  (I didn’t measure, just tried to make it look about bandage width.)  And then the easy and very satisfying bit: riiiiiiip!

The mummy begins to emerge...

You could probably hot-glue the strips on, but I decided it would be faster to just set my sewing machine to a long-ish stitch length and stitch them on.  The first strip I sewed on had to be picked off – I forgot to stretch the knit a bit so that it would have some give after the muslin was stitched on.  But then I was merrily on my way.  So far, so good!

All that and a bag of chips...er, maple cotton candy, that is.

Let’s see…clockwise-ish from top left:

* Patterns from various vendors.
* A “headache pillow” made from lavender & flax seed from Cherry Hill Quilters.
* Blue/green fiber is 4 oz. of Polworth from Fuzzy Bunny.
* Two skeins of Panda Sock in “Black Cherry” from Spinning Bunny.
* Cinnamon leaf handmade soap from Maggie’s Farm.
* Orange/purple-ish fiber peeking out from the back is 4 oz. of Falkland in “Autumn Sunset” from Spinning Bunny.
* Cute little floral bag is also from Cherry Hill Quilters.
* White fiber with streaks of brown/orange/pink is 8 oz. of Blue Face Leicester/silk blend from High Bid Farm.
* Adorable little white ceramic sheep is from…I can’t remember!
* Pink/brown fiber is 4 oz. of BFL/silk blend in “Chocolate Boxes” from Fiber Fancy.
* Brown curly sheep is from Cherry Hill Quilters.
* Blue-green lace yarn is alpaca/silk laceweight (plus coordinating beads) from Ellen’s 1/2-pint Farm (a kit to make the Starry Starry Night shawl shown in front pattern.)
* Two natural lip balms, Ginger Peach and Berry Plum from Fuzzy Bunny.
* And last, but not least, Chai soap also from Fuzzy Bunny.

So many new goodies!  I can’t wait to finish a few things on the needles & wheel so I can start playing with it all!

Anna's Tulip Sweater...is made for hanging out.

Carolyn's Tulip Sweater...is made for tree climbing!

And they're both perfect for walking on a cool afternoon!

(More details can be found on their respective Ravelry pages: Tulips for Carolyn and Tulips for Anna.)

First, I dug the various varieties of apples out of our fridge:

Ginger gold, summer gold & pink lady

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of summer gold, and based on how incredibly tart they were I suspect the man at the farmer’s market just picked ginger gold apples waaaay too early!  The girls definitely likd the pink lady apple the best, but also enjoyed the other two, despite the fact that they weren’t so sweet.

Chopped up apples in a pot.

Then I peeled and chopped the apples while the girls snuck apple peels to munch on.  We added a couple more ginger gold apples and wound up with about 7 cups of chopped apples.  To this we added a tablespoon of sugar (since the apples were mostly tart), a few drops of lemon juice (to prevent it from browning so much), about 1/2 cup of water, and several shakes of cinnamon.

Is that enough cinnamon...?

While that was cooking (for about 10 minutes?) we sliced an apple around it’s middle and found a star shape made by the seeds!

Look, a star!

So I got out some paint and paper.  However, the apples didn’t really cooperate so much…they just made a paint-y mess.

Er...this worked better in my head.

So then we resorted to finger painting (the templates from our stained glass apples).

Finger painting is more fun, anyway.

Squishy red paint.

We could make apple prints on the apple templates!

Messy, messy jazz hands.

Wait, we're finger painting...not painting fingers!

Finally, the apples were cooked and mushy.  So, after lots and lots of hand-washing, we got out the potato-masher and smashed them…

This looks smashing!

…and ate the resulting delicious applesauce warm.  Mmmm.

So very, very yummy!

Papers, glues and sharp cutting things.

Today’s project was inspired by a couple of different ideas I found on the internet…which I didn’t bookmark.  :(

Paper strips and paper curls.

First, I cut strips of red and green cardstock, about 1/2″ x 4 1/4″.  Then we curled those strips around a pencil to create little curls of paper.  (Carolyn was very good at this part, Anna was more interested in uncurling the curls.)

Future tree trunk growing here.

She drew a very detailed trunk, with intertwining branches!

Gluing the trunk.

Then we drew tree trunks on brown construction paper – Carolyn drew her own and I drew one for Anna – then cut them out and glued them onto a light blue background.

Anna liked this bit a lot!

A cluster of leaves and apples.

Finally, we glued the curls of paper onto the trees to make leaves and apples.  I think the original project ideas I found had you gluing the edges to the paper, but both girls preferred the look of the curls glued on their sides.

Anna's curly apple tree.

Of course, this way they don’t stay especially well-curled, but they’re cute anyway!

Carolyn's curly apple tree.

We glued some green strips to the bottom of the paper for grass, and I have no idea where they were going with the little yellow bits they cut out…?

A (small) curly apple orchard!

If you don't count the glue, this could be delicious!

The kids had fun helping me measure and mix – there was a cloud of cinnamon floating about our heads the entire time.  The kitchen might never smell normal again!

Thick apple cinnamon dough.

We rolled it out and cut it with apple cookie cutters…and other fall shapes.

Roll it...

...and cut it...

...and poke it with a pencil...

The instructions said to leave them someplace to dry for days.  We’re not that patient, so I set the oven to 200F and put the ornaments on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets.  After 10 minutes, I flipped them over and baked them for another 10 minutes.

Oodles of ornaments!

They aren’t quite completely dried out, but they’re pretty close!  And they smell wonderful.  We might paint or otherwise decorate these later this week, but with a pretty ribbon strung through the holes they’d also be lovely and sweet smelling just as they are.