#knittedhalloweencostumes

[timeslostart]

April 18th, 2021

TWENTY-ONE DAYS OF PATTERNS

Day 21 - Halloween costumes

Bad Little Kitty Cat Costume

It's Halloween night and you're in for a fright!  Handmade costumes never go out of style and this little kitty cat costume is designed specifically to fit over top of your little one's winter jacket so they can stay toasty warm all evening long while they get up to some tricks and get some treats.  Knitted partially in the round and partially with straight needles, this pattern is ideal for the beginner knitter if this is your first attempt at a sweater.  This pattern uses stockinette as well as garter stitch and a basic 1 x 1 rib.  This is a two piece costume, a toque and a sleeveless pullover.

This knitting pattern is designed to fit a 2 to 3 year old child. It is a digital download in a PDF format.

Available on TLA's official website

www.timeslostart.com

Gabrielle Vansteelandt

Times Lost Art

[timeslostart]

April 17th, 2021

TWENTY-ONE DAYS OF PATTERNS

Day 20 - Halloween costumes

Little Boo Ghost Costume

Goblins, witches and ghosts OH MY!  The Little Boo Ghost Costume is a perfect beginner pattern for the introduction of intarsia knitting.  With easy to follow instructions and chart your little trick-or-treater will be ready to scare the neighbours in no time.  This pattern consists of a boo face poncho and matching toque, knit almost completely in stockinette stitch, that will fit easily over even the bulkiest of winter jackets. 

This is a knitting pattern designed to fit a 2 to 3 year old child. It is a digital download in a PDF format.

Available on TLA's official website

www.timeslostart.com

Gabrielle Vansteelandt

Times Lost Art

[timeslostart]

October 31st, 2020

ALL HALLOW'S EVE DOTH APPROACH 

Apparently rainbow kitties are a thing...

In previous posts I have often mentioned my son, my little "Gremlin".  He was the reason I started all of this in the first place.  He has always been an integral part of TLA and in truth he is the heart of it.  Thank goodness for him, he has a mommy that can make almost anything out of yarn.

Throughout the course of the year my son has wanted to be a zombie, a witch, a zombie again, a skeleton and a zombie yet again for Halloween.  Have I mentioned that he is three?  Well he finally settled on being a ghost for Halloween at the end of September.  I thought to myself that this is wonderful!  He can just wear the ghost costume that I made for him last year.  Oh the whims of a child...  It's like playing pinball and having the one flapper that keeps sticking.  We've all been there, it's frustrating.

The beginning of October rolls around and my son tells me that he wants to be a black cat for Halloween.  Here I am sitting on my front step just gawking at him.  My mind starts whirring, it's like a little whirlwind in there when my creativity takes over.  I start calculating... okay there are three weeks until Halloween, I need to make a body, tail and ears.  Check, check, check... doable.

Three weeks before Halloween attempt number one begins.  As you've probably guessed it doesn't go well.  My first design ends up almost being too small and barely fits over my son's head.  I've just lost a week.  I go back to the drawing board, recalculate my measurements and increase my needle size so I can get it done faster.  Twelve days before Halloween I start Cat Costume 2.0. (It took me almost a year to design and make his Little Boo Ghost Costume, just to give this some perspective) It's at this point my son tells me he wants to be a rainbow kitty for Halloween instead of a black one because rainbow is his favourite colour you know.  After some intense negotiations we settle on a compromise of having rainbow cat ears and a rainbow bow on his tail.  The results aren't too shabby.

The Bad Little Kitty Cat Costume knitting pattern will be available for purchase at www.timeslostart.com in the coming weeks.

Happy Halloween!

Gabrielle Vansteelandt

Times Lost Art 

[timeslostart]

December 23rd, 2019

FROM THE GROUND UP 

Building a brand...

Creativity, like most things in life, can ebb and flow. Sometimes it can spill out of you as if a floodgate has been opened, other times it can be nothing more than a trickle. 

When it comes to my designs there really is no method to my madness. I wish there was, it would make things a lot easier. Sometimes I can come up with four new designs in the span of an afternoon and other times I can come up with one new design in the span of four months. The perfect example is my son's Halloween costume this year. I knitted a little ghost costume that consisted of a toque and a poncho. It took me a whole year to design and make. YES! You read that right. A WHOLE YEAR! I started it last November.

Now having the right inspiration to create a design is only half the battle, the other half is branding. Not only do you have to have a good quality product but you have to know how to market it and the best way to do that is to develop a strong brand. Branding is something quite new to me. There has been a lot of trial and error on my part such as developing a memorable logo and deciding what I want to sell and why I want to sell it.

Times Lost Art has evolved as I have evolved. I really had to think about TLA and what that name meant to me. As my life changed, my thoughts on TLA changed as well.

In the beginning Times Lost Art was about embroidery. I wanted to bring recognition to it as I felt it was never given as much credit as it was due. As I got older and had my son, however, I realized that Times Lost Art was more than that. It was about all those grandmothers and great grandmothers, aunts and great aunts, that stayed up late into the night sewing, knitting or embroidering those none too favourite holiday gifts that their young grandchildren or nieces or nephews opened on Christmas morning eagerly expecting toys and receiving socks instead. Handmade socks, mind you, but socks all the same. I'm sure many of us have had a similar experience at some point in our youth. I look back on it now as an adult and I have a new appreciation for those gifts. I never understood the time, effort or love that went into them as a child. I needed to have my business reflect that somehow. How could I build a brand that was modern, stylish and trendy while at the same time paying respect to the sentimentality and skill of these arts?

STEP 1 was learning how to design for a larger audience, not just what would look best on my son (although that does impact a lot of my baby and toddler designs). You can't build a successful business off of the cuteness factor of a single toddler however... much as I'd like to.

STEP 2 was learning how to ask for advice and take criticism. No single person can do everything alone, sometimes you have to call in reinforcements or, in my case, run into a like-minded person on my way to the bathroom at a craft show. You can find friends in the oddest of places and if you let them, they can inspire you to do things you never thought you were capable of. Designs and logos are good things to have when you are building a business but the best way to build a brand is to network. Networking is key.

Gabrielle Vansteelandt

Times Lost Art