Hogwarts House Robes

Growing Up

     

          

Growing up as a kid I used to love dressing up for Halloween. I think I enjoyed dressing up more than the candy, maybe not much more but then the candy. It can be really fun to dress up and pretend to really let your imagination carry you away. I remember the day when I was a kid and it became uncool to still be pretending and using my imagination.  Then again when I was older I remember the Halloween when many people asked me “Aren’t you too old to be trick or treating” (I was 12)   Again at other times having more and more opportunities for expressing my imagination being unacceptable socially as I continued to get older.

As I have watched my own children now discuss for a couple of months what they wanted to be for Halloween I have started to wonder, at what age will society start repressing their imagination? Is it a good thing for society to tell a person when they have to set aside their imagination?? When does a person really need to start growing up? Do you really need to stop pretending, imagining, and playing to be a grown up?

How do you define what it means to be an adult? Is being an adult how many years you have been alive? Is it how many things you have accomplished? For example: a college degree, owning a home, having a credit card, having children, having a head full of grey hair and bones that ache when the weather is going to be bad? Or is being grown up more about how a person chooses to spend their time? When you have spent most of your day doing things you really don’t want to do because they have to be done, is that when you’re an adult?  My Grandma Mary once said to me “being old is a state of mind” then she jokingly talked about not being able to get her body to get in line with her mind.

Regardless of how a person decides to define what makes a person a grown up. I don’t think that a person has to give up playing, imagining or pretending. Here is why I say that. Our “Future Author” plays really hard on her recesses and then works really hard in class from what her teachers have told me.  No “Future Author” is not an adult by age or actions yet.

However, the day after Halloween she was talking about how this Halloween was the best day ever and one of the best days of her life. Using this kind of exaggeration, as some might call it, is pretty normal for a kid her age. Her comments and attitude got me thinking about why she says these kinds of things.  Then it hit me that she says that because she lets herself enjoy her life. If something remotely good, or fun is going on she is going to let herself not only enjoy it but make the most of it. 

I think that what many of us “adults” are missing is this attitude of gratitude for the fun, silly, imagination possibilities in our lives.  I can sometime confuse setting aside childish things and child-like things. For example, I can be so focused on my never ending list of things that need to be done that I don’t take the time to enjoy that cloud that looks like a turtle I am driving by. I am not saying you should not watch the road when driving, look at it on a red light. Or taking the time to laugh at a video of chickens clucking that made one of my kids laugh so hard last night that she fell on the ground laughing.

I think Halloween can be a very fun holiday for the whole family. It’s a chance to set aside being so serious all the time and just play and pretend with my kids.

       

This year our family went as Hogwarts students and professors.  It was really fun to watch our kids pretend to shoot spells at each other and for my husband and I to award house points to them depending on what they did.

Here is how we made the cloaks for each kid.

Step# 1

Measured across the shoulders then added 2 inches to that length. This measurement was used to create how wide to make the shoulders.

Step#2

Then we took the distance from shoulder to shoulder +2 inches and * it by 2 for the length across of the bottom of the cloaks.

Step#3

We then measured from the top of their shoulders to their feet and added 2 inches. For how long to make the cloaks.

Step#4

 

We then took the length for what would be the bottom of the cloak and the length that would be the height of the cloak and made a rectangle this size on newspaper.

Step#5

We cut out this rectangle.

Step#6

We then folded the newspaper pattern in half. The fold was so that it made an even narrower rectangle.

Step#7

I then marked where the middle of the folded news paper was in red pen.

Step#8

("Spiderman Jr. took these. He was very helpful)

I then took the measurement for across the shoulders and divided that number in half. From the red mark I measured out the divided number in both directions. Then marked where these measurements ended with red pen.

Step#9

From the measured out shoulder distance on the pattern I took one of that kids sweaters and folded the sleeve so that I could copy the curve of the armpit hole. I then traced the armpit holes onto the paper on both sides of the drawn shoulders.

Step#10

From the bottom of each of the armpit holes I drew with a ruler a line to the nearest bottom outside edge of the back of the cloak.

Step#11

I then cut the back of the cloak pattern we had created out.

Step#12

I took the same sweater and a new piece of newspaper and traced the armpit holes on the paper.

Step#13

I then measure the distance from the edge of my kid’s shoulders to the tips of their fingers.  With this measurement I drew a straight line with a red pen from the top of the armpit hole till I had reached the length I had measured for the arm.

Step#14

Next I started from the bottom of the armpit hole and drew a line with red pen that was sloped down. I did this so that the sleeve would have a larger opening.

Step#15

I then drew a line connecting the two ends of the lines I had drawn for the arm length.

Step#16

I then cut out the pattern I had just made for the sleeves. I planned to cut the fabric with one side on a fold.

Step#17

("Spiderman Jr. took this one)

I then took the back of the cloak pattern I had made and pinned it to the lining fabric which I had folded over so that I would be cutting two of the back from the lining material.

Step#18

("Spiderman Jr. took this one)

I cut out the back of the cloak.

Step#19

I then took the pattern for the back and folded it in half length wise again.

Step#20

I took 1 of the cloak backs I had just cut and folded it in half length wise as well.

Step#21

I pinned the pattern to the 1 cloak back I had folded in half. Then I folded over at the top the inside edge of the pattern, people do when they doggy ear a page in a book and pinned this down.  The triangle was acute in its angles.

Step#22

("Spiderman Jr. took this one)

I then cut along the lining fabric where I had created this acute triangle then continued to cut along the folded edge of the cloak back lining.  Now changing this 1 piece of lining from a back piece into the 2 front lining pieces of the cloak.

Step#23

Next I pinned the sleeve pattern to the folded lining material making sure that what would become the top of the sleeve was along a fold when pinning.

Step#24

I then cut out the sleeves. Making sure to leave the top of the sleeve that was on the fold uncut.

Step#25

 

I repeated steps 17-24 for the top fabric I was using.

Step#26 

I surged all the fabric i had cut.

Step#26

I pinned together the right sides of the lining only at the top where the tops of the shoulders would go for the front and back of the cloak lining.  Then stitched these together.

Step#27

I then opened up the sleeves I had cut out and I opened up the front and back of the cloak I had just sewn together.

Step#28

I then took on the sleeve where the armpit would be located and matched it up to where the armpit would be located on the cloak. I then pinned the right sides together. I did this for both sleeves.

Step#29

I then sewed the sleeves onto the cloak. After this the cloak was still able to lay flat and open.

Step#30

I then took the sleeves and matched up the sleeves for pinning and continued pinning all the way down the sides of the cloak.

Step#31

I then sewed the sleeves and along the sides of the cloak in one long line. I repeated this for the other side.

Step#32- The hood

To make the hood I measured how the length from the highest point of my kids head to the lowest part of their necks.  This measurement determined the height for the pieces that would make the hood.                                          I then took my measuring tape and measured the distance from the bottom of the acute triangle I had cut on the front side of the lining then continuing up the slope and around where the neck would be and still continuing to the other side stopping when I had reached the bottom of the other acute triangle on the other side of the front lining.  I took this measurement and divided it in half then I added 2 inches for seam allowance. I then created a rectangle with the two measurements for the pattern for the hood on newspaper and cut it out.

Step#33

Next I pinned the hood pattern to the lining fabric that I had placed with the two right sides together.

Step#34

I cut out the two hood pieces for the lining.

Step#35

I pinned the two lining pieces together only along two edges.  

Step#36

I then sewed these two sides together.

Step#37

I then opened up what is the inside lining of the hood

Step#38

I then grabbed the lining that was now the main body of the cloak. I folded the main body of the cloak material in half at the neck.  I placed the corresponding middle spot on the hood together with the lining of the cloak. Then pinned the two right sides together. Now I sewed the hood onto the cloak body.

Step#39

I repeated steps 17-38 for the top fabric.

Step#40

I matched the right sides of the lining cloak with the top fabric and then pinned them together along the edges that are the opening for the front of the cloak and along the hood but NOT along the bottom of the cloak or at the ends of the sleeves.

Step#41

I then sewed all the way along this line.

Step#42

Then I flipped everything out so that I could put the lining inside of the top fabric.

Step#43

I tucked and pinned the sleeves and bottom of the cloak so that the seams were hidden and closed up.

Step#44

I hand sewed the ends of the sleeves and the bottom of the cloak with a hidden seams.

Step#45

 

     

I repeated Steps 1-44 for our other three children.

Materials           Cost

Black fabric-donated by Grandma ”C” 0.00

Yellow cotton lining fabric-

left over from another project       0.00

Blue Satin –from the thrift store     7.00

Green cotton- from the thrift store   4.00

Red velvet- donated to us years ago  0.00

Red thread-already had              0.00

Green thread-already had             0.00

Blue thread-already had              0.00

Yellow thread-already had            0.00

Black thread-already had             0.00

Total Cost

               For all four cloaks   11.00