Presenting the Sushi Chef

I am proud to introduce Eleanor, Sushi Chef Extraordinaire!

I really wanted to sew Eleanor's Halloween costume this year. I have many fond memories of costumes that my mom sewed for me and my sisters over the years. It was a million times better than getting a store-bought costume and looking like everyone else (except for those few middle school years, when all I wanted was to be exactly like everyone else). We would go to the fabric store and look through the pattern books to find the perfect costume. Then I could pick whatever colors and fabrics my little heart desired. After we got home, I watched the costume turn from weird, unreadable patterns and bolts of fabric into the finished product, just as I'd imagined it, through my mother's skillful hands.

I've always wished to be better at reading patterns and sewing, and now I want Eleanor to have the same wonderful, personal experience I had with my mother. So I picked out a chef pattern and roped my mom into being my sewing mentor. One Saturday my Mom, Eleanor, and I all went to the fabric store and chose various fabrics, notions, accessories for the costume. The best part was picking out a fun pattern for the pants. Obviously, it would be something food related. But what?

As soon as I saw the sushi pattern, I fell in love. We got orange accents for the jacket to match the splashes of orange on the pants, and stuck with the traditional white jacket and black buttons, otherwise.

I have to confess: My mother did most of the sewing. We worked together for an entire day, cutting and sewing. She was teaching me a lot about reading patterns and using the sewing machine, but we just ran out of time. We had only finished the pants and part of the collar before we had to quit for the day. She finished all the rest of the sewing, and I just added the black buttons on the jacket and ironed the collar.

Hopefully next year I can do more of the work, and my mom can be more of a supervisor. I was halfway tempted to go to the fabric store today and see if I could get a pattern on super-duper post-Halloween sale. But then I remembered that, next Halloween, Eleanor will be over 2 years old. Maybe by that point she'll have an opinion on her costume!