Olive's First Halloween: Olive Joins the Golden Wave (in spirit)

Unless we decide to take more pictures for Homecoming (first time DH hasn't been, in almost a decade) Olive is finished with her role as the Furriest Member of the Golden Wave! (Fluffiest? Certainly not Hairiest... and I've seen babies dressed up so not Smallest either).


Thanks to Superstorm Sandy and certain chains being historically biased towards costumes bought at their stores we only made it out to one actual event with Ms Squishface. And she, of course, blew everyone away with her terrific behavior (seriously, except for a snapping at a certain fluffy Corgi for going at her face, she didn't take a toe out of line) and her costume.

The plume was a nightmare.  Whatever. I think it's adorable.

Best part of the one competition we made it to? Scoring 29 out of 30, winning first and getting to pick a bag of our-choice food* as a prize!

The next day we evacuated since we were likely to lose power and DH needs power for work (really he needs internet but for all intents and purposes they go together). So we packed up the car and drove up to my parents (fun fact, I can drive between Baltimore and my parents' without directions, that is *amazing* for someone who has no sense of direction on roads). Because of this we missed the opportunity to win a hotel stay for the May-I'm-Not-Really-Home-At-All, once the eye was passed us (went pretty much over the house but I slept through it) I took the opportunity to use the pretty leaves to get better pictures of the Furriest BUGWBer (still not right, that's a newletter).

Olive is a bit afraid of leaves (they're not dead and still on the trees until spring! Egads!) so there were a number of outtakes (and DH was holding the lead so that was another factor since she wants to be near me and one can have only so many nose pictures). And the gold crepe lame (evil stuff) is pretty washed out. You can use the store photo for color references. 

Now if I can only get her to stand like that for her PAL photos

The epaulets unbutton so you can remove and/or flip the cape to the Homecoming side (which I never finished). I need to weight the other side of the cape since it has significantly less fabric weight so twists a bit. Olive is ridiculously tolerant of it all. Conditioning to accept it with cookies worked wonderfully. I need to find a new training treat source since the store near us doesn't carry a wheat-free treat that is less than 5-10 calories a piece and I don't feel like driving 20 minutes to get them.

We called this look "Blue Steel"- I hated that movie but it totally fits
Also, that's her new, smaller name tag.****

Proportion wise, it's not quite accurate. She's not wearing pants, or sleeves but otherwise it's very close to the uniform I wore for my first three years. I didn't need to make spats since she has sock markings which was a nice blessing. The jacket has the green side panel with gold "piping" (bias tape top stitched on because I wasn't thinking when I used french seams, but the inside is so clean, its ridiculous) which continues around the generous armholes. The appliques were cut out of the same poplin as the uniform, then using an embroidery stitch (57 on my Babylock Audry, I think, maybe 56, set on medium length and width) around to secure the edges, in place of more bias tape and were either zig-zag'd or straight stitched to the jacket/cape (the cape is a little worse off since it was first). Same for the medallion on the shako- the original was a plastic 3D medallion but I thought finding one of those would be overkill. The shako itself is buckram covered in poplin. It was sewn flat and the brim attached last using a an overlock stitch on the edges since I didn't have enough seam allowance to fold under. The overlock stitch also allowed to avoid a chain. The brim was more buckram covered in popin and edged in lame bias tape. The Plume is a hacked boa (folded in half for fullness) and floral wire wrapped around and then fed into the shako and run around the brim to give it support. The elastic is barely snug. She definitely yawn, so we know it gives her enough room.

 

It was at best low 50s and DH still wears sandals...

There are couple ideas floating around about Olive's costume next year (I don't like recycling costumes, it doesn't seem fair): Serenity (more on a tie-in to this soon!), or Sherlock Holmes with a Deerstalker and Iverness. I jokenly threatened to make her a Powergirl costume (DH and I are more Marvel people, though I do like certain Vertigo titles so DC has that going for it) but I don't DH found it that funny. Mostly because of the "window". But I have a couple costumes in between (that event I alluded to in the TARDIS post, and early in this post) that I need to work on.

*High Quality, Medium-high protein** with an novelty protein source (Lamb) for Stinker's sensitive tummy.***
** Some Sheltie breeders are finding the breed has trouble with high protein, this may be tied to how they are prone to Hyperthyrodism but no studies have been done/are conclusive.
*** She can't digest certain foods, but she can digest the leather wristlet I bought in Guate (it just takes a week)
**** I love the new tag and lead. You'll notice the info is blurred out but even taken from half dozen feet away I could clearly see the info. Yay clear info! I know it's overkill since she's microchipped, has the rescue tag (the orange vaguely Texas shaped one) and the city registration tag on her, but I like being safe.