MPB Halloween Sew-Along -- Save the Date!

Readers, exciting news!

Many of us will be sewing for Halloween -- costumes for ourselves, for our spouses, and/or for our kids.  

This year, however, we'll have the opportunity to prepare for the most fun holiday of the year together.  Beginning Wednesday, October 10th, I will be leading the first-ever MPB Halloween Sew-Along!
Of course, we'll be sewing many different patterns, but that's OK.  We're going to help each other through the rough spots as well as provide support and inspiration. We'll finish with a virtual Halloween parade and even vote for our favorites!

The MPB Halloween Sew-Along will run from October 10 to October 31.  We'll focus initially on the challenges of creating my costume (more about that below), but we'll also address any difficulties you might be experiencing creating yours.  We'll also have guest posters discussing their projects!  (Let me know if you'd like to be one.)

As in the past, I'll be creating a Flickr group for participants to join -- more about that in the days ahead.  Right now, you have roughly three weeks to choose your costume pattern and assemble the necessary fabric, notions, etc.  Fun!

I'm pretty sure what I'll be sewing, just to give you a heads up.  Cathy has been bugging me for months to make her a harem girl outfit (based on McCalls 9559, see pic), so I've decided to turn mine into a tribute to forgotten film starlet Adele Jergens (that's Adele up top, as well as below, with horn). 





And guess who Michael is going to be!



Adele Jergens's heyday was the 1940s, but for some reason her big break never came.  She could act, she could dance, and she was beautiful.  But she had the misfortune of working at cheapie Columbia Studios during the reign of Rita Hayworth, who got the plum musical roles, and then, at age 26 in Ladies of the Chorus (1948), was given the thankless job of playing Marilyn Monroe's mother.   The nerve!



Adele also appeared in the technicolor musical that inspired my Halloween costume project, A Thousand and One Nights (1945), as well as such unforgettable films as Girls in Prison (1956), and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951).

 



In the Rita Hayworth musical Down to Earth (1947), Adele actually gets a chance to sing -- well, lip sync, to a voice I'd swear is Kay Starr -- and dance, but she's the one who gets shoved aside when actual goddess Terpsichore (Hayworth -- you have to see the movie) shows up during the rehearsals for the big Broadway show.  Poor Adele!

Rita (just left of blonde Adele) on the verge of stealing the spotlight

But let's back to Halloween costumes and what's in store.

I do hope you'll join us for this very special sew-along.  Even if you don't have Halloween plans, this is your chance to create something fun -- perhaps a cosplay creation, a costume for your local Renaissance Festival, even an over-the-top outfit for a romantic evening (we won't ask for photos).

I can't wait to get started!


Adele Jergens (who shows up at 7:02) dances in Down to Earth, only to get upstaged by Rita Hayworth.  Watch as Adele calls Rita a "cheap, chiseling. little hip swinger!" and threatens to knock her teeth out.