All My Little Saints

  The kids had two opportunities to wear their saint costumes, once at the parish Carnival for Life and once at our annual homeschool All Saints party.  I have to confess failure of getting good pictures of my sweeties this year because it seems we were always going to be late if I stopped to try to get a picture of them all. Let me introduce my little saints first.

Genevieve was Saint Anne, mother of Mary. 

This is before I made her cape to go with it.

Isaac was Blessed Jose Sanchez.  He chose this because of the Holy Heros Glory Stories we have, but you may know him from the movie For Greater Glory.  He was the young boy who was martyred.

I put the Cristeros' flag on his poncho and hat so people would know he was no ordinary cowboy.

Drewy was St. Juan Diego for one of the festivities, at least.  On the way to the All Saint's party Drew got carsick all over his costume.  I can't tell you how much that hurt since I thought his costume was the coolest.

Hannah, as always, picked an obscure saint.  She was St. Melangell.  She carries a rabbit because in the story Hannah read about her she saves a rabbit from some hunters.  This is somewhat ironic since her brother, Isaac, wants so desperately to be a hunter and fisher.

 I made these costumes mostly from scratch.  St. Anne's costume was made with a simple tunic, a basic cape, and a doll sling that helped to carry her baby, Mary.  She also borrowed a shawl for her head covering from my closet.  Blessed Jose Sanchez's costume was a collared shirt and pants, with a poncho made from one of dad's old shirts, a cowboy hat and stick horse.  I made the flag with felt pieces and printed pictures of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the other part that is normally on the Mexican flag sewed on with plastic over it.  St. Juan Diego's costume was a made by reverse applique of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  To make the applique, I used a transfer pencil to trace the outline of Our Lady of Guadalupe onto white fabric.  Then I used fabric markers to color it in as close to the original as possible.  I added some flowers to the bottom.  For St. Melangell's costume was a simple tunic with a pocket for the rabbit and a short head covering sewn from a piece of white fabric.

Then I had the extreme privilege of making some pieces for costumes for some dear friends of ours.  I made Elizabeth Anne Seton's bonnet and cape from black felt so that it wouldn't flop down too much and to eliminate hemming.  The bonnet was made from a circle of fabric that I cut using a winter hat to gauge the size.  To make the cape meet in the middle I cut it twice as long as Genna's cape and gathered it a ton after sewing a running stitch and pulling it.  Then I made St. Kateri's Indian headband with black braids.  We had the headband from an old Thanksgiving project.  I sewed a piece of felt to make a cap inside of it since this cutie has lost her hair to chemo.  Then the girls helped me cut a ton of yarn to make the braids from.  I sewed them inside the headband.

Genna tried on the costume for me so I could trim it up.

Here's the real Elizabeth Anne Seton with St. Melangell.

I love this picture.  She is a dead ringer for St. Elizabeth Anne Seton, right?

Here's St. Kateri.  I can't tell you how happy it made me to give her braids.  She has blessed do many including our family, and I was happy to return the favor even if just a tiny bit.

I also made the shield accessory for their oldest brother, although it wasn't originally for the Saint costume.  It was part of the boys' birthday gifts.  I made this shield and a Spartan shield.

Funny thing, St. Kateri won one of the costume contests.  The other winners were St. Clare of Assisi and St. Kateri's brother, Blessed Emil Kapaun.

 And now you may see why it took me so long to get this up on the blog.  Lots of pictures and details!

All the saints after Mass and the procession of saints.  Then they were off to eat pizza and gather candy at the saint stations where they learn prayers of the great saints.