what i did on my summer vacation day six: afloat!

on saturday we were threatened with rain, so decided to try to get as much done as possible on the raft before the deluge, and then go in to the fair in the late afternoon after the skies cleared.

there was a lot of hammering to do...

but fortunately i had help! my strong kid is pretty proficient with a hammer.

one of the things on the list for this day was to buy chain for the anchors. i had looked at chain on previous shopping trips, but wondered - how much to get? prices ranged from 69¢ to $2.29 a foot, so if i bought 100 feet of chain, that could add up to a lot of money. so, i measured out 50 feet of rope, brought a ball of yarn with a sinker tied on one end, and swam out to see how deep it was.

holding on to the length of rope (to measure distance) and ball of yarn (to measure depth) was a bit futzy, and i instinctively reached for the ground with my foot.

guess what? i touched bottom.

lake depth 50 feet from shore: about five feet. i don't know why in the world i thought it might be deep enough to require a hundred feet of chain, but i am very glad i measured before buying! i ended up getting two 10-foot lengths - one to connect the anchors, one to loop through it and connect to opposite sides of the raft. this way, the chains stay well under the raft, so no worries about banging one's feet in the water.

then it was off to the fenelon fair to see how we had done, eat mini doughnuts, and send the kid on some rides.

there were ribbons!

the ghostbusters costume won a $25 fabricland gift certficate! just in time for me to start this year's hallowe'en costume!

and, who'da thunk? my sorry little cukes took first place!

helps that no one else entered pickling cucumbers. whew.

we topped the evening off with a final open-fire dinner (sausage and corn), and a trip to the demolition derby. not my usual fare, but we had loads of fun - and the fair at night feels much more exciting!

what i did on my summer vacation day five: fair entry day

friday morning is always the busiest of our cottage week - getting entries ready for the fair!

i didn't have quite as many as usual, but didn't have time to spend finishing any needlework at the cottage with a raft to build. also i was sad to see that my squirrel pattern did not include any instructions at all for the tail! that's the second time that's happened to me with cottage knitting, grr.

anyway, i did have a fairly hefty bag of stuff to take in: a ghostbusters costume, my scissors shirt (yay len's mill for giving me another snippet of the fabric!) maple leaf forever cardigan, linen middy pullover, double-leaf saroyan scarf, end of year leaf cloth, pyjamas...

and some cookies, and brownies, and (not great) jams, and really awful cucumbers:

(those aren't the world's worst cucumbers; i left the world's worst cucumbers on the vine, because they looked more like avocados.)

then it was back for lunch. having a big roast chicken for dinner on the first night was a very strategic decision; the rest of the week, lunch was salad with various leftover veg (peas and beets, here) and then topped with chicken breast. lots of protein and nutrients for the carpenter.

speaking of, frame all done! all that's left is to flip it upright into the water, nail on the top boards, and then float it out 50 feet where we'll anchor it.

ghostbusters costume: done!

just realised i never posted pics of the completed ghostbusters costume! it nearly killed me, but the kid was thrilled, yay. he asked his teacher to call him peter venkman at school.

ghostbusters costume: the proton pack

i never thought i'd get it done!

actually, i didn't entirely get it done. the proton pack is not yet a functional backpack; it did however work as a prop last night.

recovering from surgery meant i was too tired and dopey to work on this for the better part of two weeks! yikes. so i had a bit of a race to the finish line yesterday, which left me pooped. was in bed at 8 o'clock! but the kid was happy, and that's the point.

i wasn't able to get the led lights i wanted, so i had to find another way. i also needed some sort of interfacing stuff to give it a bit of body and a bit of padding. and, i had initially imagined knitting i-cord for the various tubes, but there was no time (and i didn't like the idea of soggy wool in the rain) so i thought coloured shoelaces might work as an alternative. so i went to the dollar store in search of inspiration.

lo and behold!

the silver thing? is a windshield sunshade to keep your car cool. just the right sort of lightweight foam to use as padding, and shiny enough to make the reflective red things on the circle part at the bottom of the proton pack (pardon the high-tech language). the skipping rope was a sub for shoelaces - i got three so i could cut a variety of coloured sections out. it was pretty easy to remove the handles at the end at take out the filling to make it easier to work with, and more "tube-like."

then i cut out the four circles from the silver stuff - slightly smaller than the black cover circles - and painted them with red nail polish.

the "danger" label is embroidered felt.

here are a bunch of the bits all assembled together:

and finally stitched up!

for the gun part, which was a little sad-looking as i ran out of time, i took a vaccuum hose my brother-in-law found on garbage night, spray-painted it black, and pulled it through the bottom between the layers of fabric. i had to loop it around to take up the extra length (seemed easier than trying to cut it) and whip stitched it in place.

voila!

ghostbusters costume: elbow pads and belt

well i got all these pots ready and scheduled over the weekend, but this one was unfinished. i figured i'd have had time to finish the items & photogrpah them by now.

but!

instead, i was in hospital for a few days with appendicitis. booo.

i did manage to finish the elbow pads in the er waiting room, actually, but haven't photographed them (and am not entirely sure where they are... trunk of the car maybe?)

anyway my starting point was a size massive polo shirt in a shade of grey i thought would work:

i cut the pieces out from the back of the shirt and sleeves. amazing how much shirt is left! i even used some of it for stuffing the elbow pads.

the good news is, the saturday morning event that kiddo was going to wear it to? cancelled. and sunday morning is probably cancelled, too, only because i can't drive while looped. so, the deadline has returned to hallowe'en proper.

three cheers for extra time!

ghostbusters costume: proton pack! part 1

step one is the plans. i started by looking at a lot of pictures of proton packs, as well as some plans from gbfans. i printed out one of their pdfs, and scribbled a few notes on it for clarity (because i am not accustomed to looking at proton pack plans, and i couldn't tell what was what).

then i said to myself, how can i make this a functional backpack? what's crucial? what can be changed, but still leave it looking like a proton pack?

and then i drew up some more plans.

it's basically a sewing pattern at this point. or, an idea for one.

next, i took my basic pattern and traced/sketched on what it might look like if i "decorated" it like a proton pack, basically adding the remaining elements as appliques.

the heavy outline shows "structural" seams. the lighter outlines indicate embellishments.

then, i got my materials. i had bought a metre of black poly twill for this, but in my closet i had the piece de resistance: a broken backpack.

the thing about kids and backpacks is, kids are small. backpacks are big. i've seen kids who practically need to walk tiptoe to keep their backpacks off the ground. so when the kiddo was starting jk, tg got him an appropriately kid-sized backpack.

except, you couldn't fit much of anything inside. it was stuffed to the gills and beyond, and it wasn't long before it was torn and all the zippers broken. unusable.

but, the straps will work for me nicely. lots of usable stuff here. the inner pocket for example; will be easy to transfer that straight over.

so, i dismantled it.

there are lots of useful bits and bobs on this thing, including the main fabric itself - it's sort of rubberized, i guess to make it waterproofish, but the rubbery side is kind of neat. i decided to use both sides of the fabric in the embellishments, just to have a variety of textures.

then the fun part.

using my sketches as a guide, i started placing and cutting shapes and stuff, moving bits around to get a feel for how it all will look.

i think it's gonna look awesome.

i've got some ideas in store for the cables and whatnot, too. i just wish the led spoke lights i planned to use for the back round thing weren't sold out! major sighs.

ghostbusters costume: the hose connector thing

after much futzing about and rooting through old stuff (i have too much stuff!) i came across a couple of pieces of "elephant skin" lino for doing linocut prints. i bought this stuff ten years ago or possibly more. maybe someday, i will do the linocuts. meanwhile, it's a great colour and carvable. so, i decided to see what i could do to fashion a hose connector thing out of it.

that's one of these, the bit that connects the hose to the left thigh of the flightsuit.

i had some aquarium hose, and a thing that it fit onto, to use as a starting point.

i cut the thing-it-fit-onto - some sort of aquarium filter piece thing (again, we have too much stuff!) down to size, leaving the "flare" so i could securely attach it into the hose connector thing.

since the lino is not terribly thick, i had to glue bits together to get tomething close to what i wanted. the leg hose connector itself is made of stacked rings, glued together with some all-purpose adhesive i found in my toolbox.

i glued together the two large base pieces and the two smaller nozzle pieces separately, so i could mess around with the fit of everything, and also to make it easier to sand the edges, which were pretty uneven.

i clamped the whole lot together while the glue dried.

then, slip the hose through, and voila! ready to be sewn onto the leg of the flightsuit.

ghostbusters costume: the "no ghost" badge

i need to tidy this up a bit, but for now i'm done. it's late.

first i went to gb fans for pics of the original badge. i adjusted it to be the size i wanted, and then i used the dumb "autoshapes" function in ms word to make the outline of the red circle, then i roughly traced the ghost in place, adjusting for the fabric wrinkles and whatnot.

looks all right, doesn't he?

i traced him onto a scrap of fabric left over from some curtains (i thought it had enough heft) using a red fabric marker i happened to have on hand. why do i happen to have all of this stuff on hand? i really need to declutter. anyway.

then, i went to town with my old elna supermatic. i've never done machine embroidery before, have no idea how to do it properly, and no special attachments. but it's not terrible? i feel i could do better, but it's also for a 6-year-old who isn't such a stickler for that kind of detail, so i think it'll do.

and now i'm going to sleep!

ghostbusters costume: flight suit done!

the flight suit is done!

well, almost. i have to put some velcro on the sleeve tabs, and of course the "no ghost" badge. but otherwise, it's done! with all seven zippers and everything. tried it on, and it fits. woohoo! very excited about this. kiddo is, too. as in, is already planning on wearing it to school. heh.

and yep, seven zippers, not kidding. six zippered pocket and the big zip to get in and out. all from my endless stash. which is awful, because it's just encouraging my hoarding tendencies. oh well. here's a zipper shot:

and the leg pockets and ankle zips:

every single zipper required shortening, too! gah. but i am so pleased with how good it looks.

ghostbusters costume: the zipper-shortening tutorial

i was updating my progress on this costume yesterday when i realised i hadn't taken any pictures of the zipper-shortening process - and figured this might be useful information for someone.

so here it is: how to shorten a zipper.

"why would you even want to do that, it looks fiddly," i hear you cry. well, when you have a dozen old zippers you bought for cheap somewheres a million years ago, and you find yourself needing a half-dozen zips of varying lengths in order to make a set of coveralls for a ghostbusters hallowe'en costume, you gotta do what you gotta do.

i used a nail file and a pair of pliers to do it.

the thing that stops most zippers from opening at the wrong end - and thus determines their length - is a little piece of metal that clamps the two sides together. it kind of looks like this:

with the flat top part showing on the front of the zipper, and the teeth at either end going through the fabric and bending over the teeth of the zipper. here's a look at the back view:

see the teeth? they're pretty well camouflaged. what you want to do is open up those teeth on one side so you can take the bracket off. i used a nail file to pry them up.

once you've got one side loosened, you can push back on the fabric of the zipper to pull them out. here's a look at the front, you can see the teeth pulling out:

then, grab the bracket with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, and pull it gently away from the fabric.

here it is. you can see the teeth on one side (the side pried open with the nail file) are kind of straight, but the teeth on the other side are still bent.

use the broad part of your pliers to straighten out the teeth.

now the bracket is ready to be re-inserted into the zipper in the new location. push the teeth through the fabric on the right side so they poke through on the wrong side.

then, use the pliers to clamp the teeth closed over the zipper so they're nice and flat.

that's when my batteries died, but it's basically done. just cut off the excess fabric, leaving about 5/8" below the bracket for stability.