My Years As A Frustrated Academy Award Wanting Costumer

Long before I had my needlepoint obsession I was doing crafty things with fabric, yarn and needles. When Carter was born I found that Halloween was the perfect excuse to craft up something new and original that usually made me unpopular with mothers of more than one child. Hey, I wanted more children. Don’t blame me that I only had one tiny girl to occupy my time.

Carter was just under one for her first Halloween and since we called her bug I made her a Dragon Fly costume complete with silver wings. Yes I could have much more easily bought her a ladybug costume, which were plentiful and very cute, but not unique and did not satisfy a crafting need I had.

For Carter’s second Halloween I remember exactly where I was when I thought up that year’s costume. Russ and I were enjoying a date night dinner on the porch of Four Square. I know that Russ did not follow my line of thought when I suddenly blurted out, “A garden, I’ll make her a garden.” I think it was the best costume ever; A little soft sculpture brown plot of land with a row of fabric 3-d carrots, tomatoes and lettuce and on her back another brown plot of land with the tips of the carrots coming out. On her head she wore a hat shaped like the sun and she carried a watering can.

Halloween number three I made her into a scrapbook by putting fabric photocopies on a life sized fabric book. It even had multiple pages that turned. It was creative, but it was no comparison to the garden, which was my best work of art in the costume department.

Her fourth year Carter was very into the Magic Tree House books so I left the fabric world in favor of paper crafting and made her a one of her favorite books. But after that she revolted and wanted a store bought costume like the rest of the world.

Sadness descended over me. No long was I the idea generator as well as the production department. I was relegated to being the driver and the payer. The beginning of the end of decision making for me.

Now I don’t even see a costume before she is out the door. I am just the pizza picker upper and soon that too will be over. It goes by in the blink of an eye. I can still remember the bored look on Russ’ face as I thought out loud about my garden design in fabric.

My time with dressing up a little girl is over, but maybe I could turn my attention to making costumes for Russ. I can’t imagine anything he would hate more.