Cowboy Cac-tie

Cactus ties to wear to the concert of our favorite singing cowboys, The Riders in the Sky.

Too Slim, the bassist, is the inspiration for the cac-tie.

You might think you don't know this cowboy band, but I think you'd recognize some of their music:

Here are the boys waiting for the concert to begin, wearing their Too Slim cac-ties. Yes, that is a snail in Lincoln's hand. Boys will be boys!

Here we are after the concert:



The Riders signed the backs of the boys' ties. What a fun keepsake! (BTW, does Alexander's shirt look familiar?)

The ties were simple to make and hardly took any time at all. I could have made them more complicated, but why? I used a single layer of felt for most of it and stitched around the edges to keep it in shape. I used a tie we already had for getting the basic tie shape, and just free-handed the cactus "arms."

I did put an extra layer of felt on the backs of the cactus "arms" so they would reach skyward. Don't forget to add a couple blooms!

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I had never actually tied a tie before. A YouTube tutorial remedied my inexperience. It wasn't hard at all! Why do we use clip-on ties, anyway? They're so tricky to make, and the clips can be pricey. I love the authenticity of a real tie. I plan to make some real real ties too (i.e. not clip-on and not cactus-shaped).

You can purchase an authentic Riders in the Sky Cac-tie on their website, here:
http://ridersinthesky.com/index.htm?inc=80&prod_id=3692&sid=17419

Cowboy Quilt in the Works

Let me introduce you to an unfinished project that's been hanging around my house for almost a year. It's a cowboy quilt that my oldest son and I have been making. It has large squares embroidered with my his cowboy drawings (that he did last year) that will be sprinkled amongst the smaller squares. I do love all the various cowboy fabric.



Here's Monkey One laying out the triangle pieces that will eventually go around the edge of the diamonds.



The embroidered muslin squares are my favorite part of the quilt. I love the drawings my little artist made. (I still need to clean and iron these, in case you were wondering)



I did most of the embroidery, but as you can see I had some help! The areas he did are so sweet and special to me. I'm glad his stitches are not as uniform as mine because they will always be recognizable as his.



Here are the embroidery portraits of my little cowboys. There will be another one of my husband and me, but it's still in the embroidery hoop right now.



I originally intended the quilt to be queen size, but I'm considering splitting it into two smaller quilts. That way there will be one for each of my boys and I won't have to try to quilt such a large area. How on earth do people quilt a queen size blanket, anyway?

Cowboy (Girl) Shirt

I made this little shirt for my cousin's daughter's 2nd birthday last week. She's a horse lover, so I'm hoping she'll love the fabric too. It's from a cowboy print Nick and Nora sheet from Target. This is the fourth or fifth thing I've made from that sheet set, and I have no intention of stopping soon. I'm hoping to make myself a shirt out of it, actually. Anyway, back to the shirt... I made the whole shirt in an afternoon. Everything was running smoothly, despite my lack of a female model, until I accidentally tacked the flower to the wrong side. But there was no taking it off without some serious damage to the fabric, so the shirt is backwards. Including the collar. But I told my cousin to bring the shirt back and I'll reattach the color the right way. That'll also help with the slightly small neck hole.


I had so much fun with the ruffly sleeves and hem. My boys don't wear ruffles. The hem of the shirt lined up great with the double-stitched hem of the sheet. So I just threaded the elastic between the two seams.

This was supposed to have been the front.


Cute flower/bow, don't you think? But that little thread is driving me crazy. I just want to pull it out! The jeans button in the center added a cute touch, and was super easy to attach.

Here's the cutie wearing her new shirt. She was a good sport to pose for me.

A Cowboy Needs A Costume

I made these costumes for the cowboy section of our "Wild Wild West" homeschool year theme. These costumes started with vests, and evolved from there over the course of a couple months. I decided to post all the parts of the costumes together in one big post instead of doing several small ones.


1. Monkey One's cowboy vest. Corduroy, lined with cute cowboy quilting fabric (which will also be making an appearance in the cowboy quilt we're making right now. More on that later)


2. Monkey Two's cowboy vest in denim, lined with a more cutesie cowboy fabric. I decided to add the pockets afterwards. And look! I never got around to putting the buttons on. Oops. He's been wearing it just the same.


3. Chaps


3a. Monkey One's "woolly" chaps made from faux fur. He helped make these:


Cutting


Sewing


3b. Monkey Two's chaps made from a cowprint velboa.


4. Did you notice the belt buckle on Monkey Two? Here are both of them together. We painted them onto wooden disks from the craft store, then pinned them onto their chaps belts.


4a. Monkey One paints the finish onto his belt buckle. He chose the design he wanted after we looked at some samples. Then he painted the gray background before I painted on the design.


5. Spurs
Made from vinyl, kids craft foam covered with some shiny silver fabric (though next time I would leave the shiny fabric out), paper crafting brads, hot glue, thread, and jingle bells to give it some "jingle jangle jingle."

This was before we got cowboy boots. I wish I could say the spurs are nice and sturdy, but they fall apart a lot and I just glue them back together. I never have much luck with hot glue!

Monkey One cuts out a spur


6. Cowboy boots for Monkey Two
I got the idea for these from some cute little furry lined infant slippers that Target used to carry. These are made from thin vinyl with a soft backing. They have fringe along the back, some fun stitching, and there is a jingle bell sewed on where spurs might go. They close with Velcro behind the fringe. I'm quite proud of these, except that they don't stay on very well. I think they need some sort of cinching around the ankle. But for an infant with limited mobility they work fine. And they're darn cute, if you ask me.

I actually made some similar ones for my first little monkey when he was two. I had the same problem with them coming off. I wish I could find them so I could post a picture.





There you have it! My cute boys with their cowboy costumes. The nice thing about these costumes is that they can wear them with whatever shirt and pants happen to be clean at the time. A hat and bandanna helps, too.

The following is a little embarrassing, but it's about the costumes and it's really fun. So I'll share. We made up an additional verse to the Disney 1950's A Cowboy Needs A Horse short. Our new verse lists a shirt, vest, belt, chaps, bandanna and adventure log (Monkey One's school journal). We made our own fun video of the whole song, which you can see here, if you like. But I warn you, I'm not much of a singer. Be sure to watch after the credits for a smashbang finish of an outtake.

A Cowboy Needs A Horse Movie