It's the most wonderful time of the year

Halloween.  It is nearly upon us.  I adore Halloween with an unrelenting zeal.  I have even dedicated my left arm to a tattoo sleeve of Halloween stuffs including a jack-o-lantern and some kids trick or treating.  I make costumes as well.

This year has been a slower one for costuming.  The economy is not faring very well and fabric prices keep going up here in Canada which means i have to charge more to make costumes.  I also tend to only make costumes for my family or custom orders  i REALLY want to make, like this Reptar costume i made for my daughter when she was little.

Or the costume of Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc.

I have a few costume ideas that i have yearned to make for quite some time.  This year, i got to make one of those... Oogie Boogie from Nightmare before Christmas!

You can't tell from this picture but his right hand stitches are "unraveling" and there is an open flap revealing glow in the dark and hand-painted bugs.

Here is a cute little giraffe costume i made this year.

I also made one Angry Birds costume... green boomerang bird.  I have 3 more Angry Birds to make for my family this year... and our pug Stella will be a green pig.

Is it Lupus? Heck, i'll just sew.

Many of my friends know that i have had some serious health issues for the past 3 years or so.  I have been dealing with massive fatigue, all over body pain and many other odd symptoms.  I have seen my family doctor and a specialist.  I have had so much blood drawn for tests that they might be able to make a new me in a lab somewhere.  Doctors say Fibromyalgia... or at least they did for awhile.  Now my doctor is suggesting it's Lupus or some other auto-immune condition.  I tend to agree.

An interesting phenomenon has been occurring for the past three months.  My son started Kindergarten this year and has been bringing every nasty ick he can find - home, to us.  Before getting "sick" 3 years ago, i would get every cold or flu going around.  Now, for some reason, i seem to have a higher resistance to these colds and flus.  I know that this is not the average for people with immune issues and that many people get sick easier but that's what it's been like for me.  Not only do i not get the colds that are going around as easily, but when i do, i actually feel BETTER than before i got sick with the cold.  Right now for example, i am in the throes of a bad Lupus (?) flare-up and then got the flu.  THE FLU! I still feel BETTER with the flu than i did before.  I am sick, sneezing, icky in the stomach and all of that but lo and behold, my legs are not feeling like i have been beaten with a baseball bat in the middle of the night.  My joints are not heavy and sore like they were before.  The worst symptom of my Lupus/Fibro/whatever the heck it is, is the fatigue.  I am not a human being, i *AM* a human doing, so fatigue is the worst thing in the world to me.  Yet, even while being beaten about the sinuses with a nasty flu bug, i have energy that i have not had in over a week.  How crazy is that?

I have been gearing up for the Christmas season by knitting and sewing gifts for family.  We are trying to keep the holidays simple and stay away from the big box stores as much as possible.  I have been buying fun things on Etsy and even some gently used items that make great gifts, like picture frames.  Our terrifically horrid pink Christmas tree is up and it fills my heart with sweet cupcakey tacky joy.

I have been sewing away on some lovely HUGE knitting needle totes too.  They seem to sell well.  People ask me why the pockets are on the outside but i find this lets me get to all the tools i have quickly without getting my wools tangled with the needles.

 I designed mine because i just couldn't find the size of bag that i wanted.  Here is a custom order in progress.

These take me about 4 hours to make from the cutting to the finishing work and require about 3 meters of various fabrics.  I make next to nothing on them but i just love making them... knowing that other knitters out there will have the ultimate huge bag to carry a sweater or blanket or a huge stash of yarn around with them.  They even have room for your Kobo.  I have recently started making them for crocheters too.

Doing all this sewing and the various knitting projects i have helps me deal with the pain.  If i can feel productive, then i don't feel so guilty for the time i spend lying on the couch in my snuggie while watching bad daytime judge shows or repeats of CSI.  Oh the shame. ; )

Dang... i borked my old blog

So i had a blog on here, http://squarejane.blogspot.com/ and i haven't checked in there for quite some time.  I got sore, tired and busy... and slacked off in the blogging.  When i went to log back in, i had also changed isp and no longer had access to my email account that i had set up the account with.  Foolish me, i had also forgotten the password.  The long and short of it is that i cannot access it and thus, i must re-start a blog.  Oh those poor 11 people or so who were following me!

Anyway.  I digress.  Those who know me personally, know that is rather a common trait of mine. *blush*.  Since i last posted, i have found out that i most likely am suffering from an auto-immune condition called Lupus.

It's slowed me down quite a bit and many days are extremely painful.  The days that aren't quite so pain filled... (or the days i have more spoons) i do my best to keep busy by crafting.

As i blogged previously on my old now lost blog, i make costumes.  Halloween is my favorite time of year with Christmas as a close second.  This year for Halloween, my kids wanted to be their own Irken characters.  Irkens are the race of aliens that Zim of Invader Zim cartoon fame is.  My 13 year old daughter created and drew up their Irkens and i created costumes for them based on her cool designs.

I also made quite a slew of costumes this year for other people.  I worked on a little girl hotdog,

a slew of sock monkeys,

 there were a few penguins,

and a Cthulhu.

Then i made a bunch of fun animal hats...

 

and then i worked on some knitting.  I love knitting because when i am super sore and useless, i feel a little less useless as i can still make stuffs.

I also made a couple of little, labor intensive top hats.  These aren't made on a pre-formed felt shape but created layer by layer.

Lastly, i have been making HUGE knitting and crochet bags.  I knit a lot and i found that no bags out there were big enough, cool enough or held all of my needles in place.  The bags i make are 1 inch shy of being 2 ft across and are 1 1/2 feet tall.  Massive.

I have to make stuff.  I go a little crazy when i don't make stuff.