As Promised

Promises are important...especially the ones you keep.  I try not to make promises.  I do this because I understand the importance of keeping my word and I value that.  Here's a little story with regards to this:

I have two nephews: Bubba and BooBoo.  BooBoo is VERY literal.  We used to live in the same town and I got to see them all the time and do tons of fun things like color Easter eggs, go to the pumpkin patch, take them to the fair, etc.  Although there were many meltdowns, as those of you with kids know, I was able to experience all the fun and joy of having kids without some of the day-to-day messiness.

Mommy (Nana to the boys) and I loved taking the boys whenever we could, which was most of the time, and making things for them.  BooBoo loved, no loves, to dress up.  He is an all-American boy.  He also loves history, asking questions and winning.  When he was little he would proclaim "I'm the winner!" whether he was or not and sometimes he wasn't even a player in the game.   And as a side note BooBoo's daddy is a good ol' Southern pride rebel boy and that makes this story even better in my eyes.

BooBoo became fascinated with the Civil War and wanted to be able to play dress up as a soldier...a Union soldier.  His dad tried to change that but to no avail.  BooBoo was a Union soldier because they won.  I encouraged it so much so that I told BooBoo that I would make him some items for dress up if he wanted.  A couple of months later I moved away.

Fast forward a couple more months and it's October.  One afternoon I receive a call from Mommy and she tells me that she had the boys over after school and they were talking about Halloween costumes and what they wanted to be.  Bubba didn't know and BooBoo said that he was going to be a Union Soldier.  Mommy asked if he already had a costume and he told her, "No, Aunt Missy's making me one."  She pressed further about it and about a possible back up plan in case I didn't do it.  BooBoo was adamant, "No, Aunt Missy said she was going to make me one and she will." 

I was shocked, I knew that I would do it (although I didn't know it would be for Halloween) but that he had so much faith in me (especially because he didn't have that faith in others) was amazing.  Let's just say that was the kick I needed to get me going.  I pulled out my sewing machine and went to work.

  I covered a baseball cap to make the kepi and remade the jacket, belt and belt buckle.  One of these days I may go into more detail because I was a good girl and took lots of pictures of the process. 

I think my parents also got a picture of BooBoo dressed up along with Bubba the viking.  I'll have to look for that and see if I can't get it posted as well.

I purchased a white dress shirt at a local thrift store and changed to collar to make it look more like shirt from that time.

There was lots of cutting and re-doing.  Can I just tell you how difficult it is to make an outfit without having the person there to try things on...it also doesn't help that I couldn't get measurements out of anyone for him...so I went to one of my sewing books and looked up average sizes and went off of that, luckily it worked and he was adorable and pleased.

It was a lot of fun to do and a big hit.  It was also a great lesson.

I could just keep on writing but it's difficult to type single-handed.  More on that at a later date.

Hope you day was a good one!