![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Best Birthday Present Ever Plot
Feb. 19th, 2010 08:39 pmI want to be there when he opens it. I think I'm going to fly home at the end of March so I can. (I also need to have a cool un-birthday present for Nick on basic general principle, along with the offer to make him a costume of his choosing.)
Per my sister, Brian "is very excited and keeps talking about it. He wanted to call you this morning but I told him it was 4 am where you are." (This is the child that won't talk to me on the phone at holidays, preferring to yell hello from the other side of the room!) She confirmed sizing for me and agreed it would be cool if I could come out for his birthday. (Seven. I cannot believe he's going to be seven.)
Buttons have been ordered. I comparison shopped a bunch of sutlers. They're all charging the same price ($1.85 apiece), shipping costs are more or less the same, so I went with the one that sold me my tent. Some of the state buttons are pretty - and more importantly do not bear the politically loaded letters CSA. Maryland has the state seal. Louisiana's got a pelican in piety on it. (These links go to extant buttons, not repros, BTW.)
I found fabric at the San Leandro Helmart. For $2.50 I purchased one 60" wide yard of sturdy grey poly-cotton twill. Say $1.49 for a package of black piping. Thread I have. The buttons are the most expensive part. The buttons would still be the most expensive part if I'd bought the equivalent yardage in 100% coat weight wool, plus a yard of cotton to line it with. I'd still come in well under the price of this Halloween costume. (I also picked up a long-sleeved Lego Star Wars tee on clearance in his size - I can use it to mock up a pattern and he can have the shirt as well. )
I should do real buttonholes and forget the velcro, really. I mean, I went for the authentic buttons with potential show-in-tell at school in mind. I may write him up a card about the Type I Richmond Depot jackets worn by the Marylanders early in the war. I don't have a buttonhole feature on my old machine though and I suck at hand-buttonholes.....
I'm dying to find out how he got interested in all this in the first place.
Per my sister, Brian "is very excited and keeps talking about it. He wanted to call you this morning but I told him it was 4 am where you are." (This is the child that won't talk to me on the phone at holidays, preferring to yell hello from the other side of the room!) She confirmed sizing for me and agreed it would be cool if I could come out for his birthday. (Seven. I cannot believe he's going to be seven.)
Buttons have been ordered. I comparison shopped a bunch of sutlers. They're all charging the same price ($1.85 apiece), shipping costs are more or less the same, so I went with the one that sold me my tent. Some of the state buttons are pretty - and more importantly do not bear the politically loaded letters CSA. Maryland has the state seal. Louisiana's got a pelican in piety on it. (These links go to extant buttons, not repros, BTW.)
I found fabric at the San Leandro Helmart. For $2.50 I purchased one 60" wide yard of sturdy grey poly-cotton twill. Say $1.49 for a package of black piping. Thread I have. The buttons are the most expensive part. The buttons would still be the most expensive part if I'd bought the equivalent yardage in 100% coat weight wool, plus a yard of cotton to line it with. I'd still come in well under the price of this Halloween costume. (I also picked up a long-sleeved Lego Star Wars tee on clearance in his size - I can use it to mock up a pattern and he can have the shirt as well. )
I should do real buttonholes and forget the velcro, really. I mean, I went for the authentic buttons with potential show-in-tell at school in mind. I may write him up a card about the Type I Richmond Depot jackets worn by the Marylanders early in the war. I don't have a buttonhole feature on my old machine though and I suck at hand-buttonholes.....
I'm dying to find out how he got interested in all this in the first place.
