Halloween Costume Sleeve Fix

My friend Michele found the perfect Halloween costume for her daughter Abby.  Abby is a petite 7-year-old girl, and Michele ordered her costume in size 8-10.  They were so excited when it arrived.  Until Abby tried it on and discovered that the sleeves were too tight.  Really?!  Why is this the story with basically all Halloween costumes?  The sizing is terrible.

This is Abby's costume.  It's a Nom Nom.

One of my favorite things about being able to sew is that I can fix things.  So Abby's costume came to stay with me for a bit.

I had to give it some thought but here's what I came up with for the fix.

I carefully used my seam ripper to remove the stitching from the seam under the sleeve (running from the armpit to the sleeve band).

I cut strips from some scraps of interfacing, and ironed them onto the sleeve fabric on either side of the seam I just opened up.  This step may not have been necessary, but I could see that the costume fabric was very cheap and would rip easily.  So I just wanted to reinforce it.

I pressed each edge under (toward the inside of the sleeve).

I cut a piece of elastic from scraps I had on hand.  I didn't measure.  I just eyeballed it on one sleeve and cut the other piece of elastic to match.

I sewed along each side of the sleeve opening, attaching the elastic as I sewed.  I tried to line up the elastic with the sleeve band.

I did the same thing with her other sleeve.  Her costume has one blue sleeve and one pink sleeve.

I was going to call it done, but then I remembered that I am the proud owner of a wheel of Sharpies.

I colored the elastic on each sleeve.  It's not amazing but will hopefully blend better with the costume.

Done!

Jessica

Halloween 2013

We have had a fun Halloween, despite some crummy weather.

We had "Trick or Trunking" at church Sunday night, and both boys had a Halloween parade today followed by parties in their classes.  I was in charge of organizing Nolan's class party, so I am relieved that it's over and went well!  Nora had her Halloween parade yesterday morning at TLC.

Here are the kids right before we went out trick-or-treating in our {new!} neighborhood tonight:

Nora wanted to be a ballerina, so I bought a black leotard and black tights that she can actually use for ballet class.  I was going to make her a tutu, but we found this one at a garage sale for $3.  Nora loved it, and I couldn't have made one for cheaper than $3.

Griffin wanted to be a pumpkin or jack-o-lantern.  A friend gave us a pumpkin costume, but it was too short/small for Griffin.  I was all prepared to make him a costume, but he was perfectly satisfied with this men's t-shirt from Target.  He didn't even want me to add stuffing or anything.  Nolan let Griffin borrow his orange hooded sweatshirt to wear under his costume shirt.

Nolan wanted to be Hulk, and I found his costume online for $20.  I bought a size up so he can continue to wear it at home for play (and he could wear clothes under it at school and to stay warm).  Nolan loves the costumes with the muscles sewn in.  We already had the Hulk hands in our toy box.

I was much more laid back this year.  I didn't do any major work for anyone's costumes, and all the kids loved what they wore.  Everyone was happy.

I snapped a few pictures as we walked our new neighborhood in the nasty rain this evening.  They're just pictures from my phone, so I make no guarantees about the quality.

Nora shared her umbrella with Nolan.

We had to manage costumes, candy bags, and umbrellas.  The kids did amazingly well.  This moment cracked me up because Jared was trying to cover Nolan with his umbrella (since Nolan was wearing Hulk hands), and he covered himself with Nora's umbrella.  Nora was nestled under my umbrella with me, and Griffin is that Thomas the Train umbrella blur.

We were SOAKED by the time we got back home!  Nora's hair got a little curlier with each house we passed (thanks to the rain).

Seriously, her curls make me happy!

Now we are all slumping into a sugar coma (I may have confiscated all Twix from the candy bags).  I hope your Halloween was fun--and dry!

Jessica

More Easter Costumes

I just finished this year's batch of costumes for my church's Passion Play (Easter Play).  You may remember when I made three costumes last year that turned out to be the most difficult sewing project I had tackled.  You can read about those here:

• Current Project:  Easter Genie
• In With the Gold, Out With the Blue
• Window Into Sewing World
• The Golden Girl
• Two Down
• The Finish Line

This year's assignment was much easier.  The director gave me some costumes that were made with fabrics that she didn't think were accurate for Biblical times.  She gave me a few bolts of solid fabrics so I could remake the costumes.  I only took on two costumes this year.

The original costumes:

I had to take apart a few of the seams so I could use the old costumes as my pattern for the new ones.  I also had to make head coverings for both costumes and new belts and ties for the head coverings.  It took me a few weeks to complete them, but I'm finally finished!

This costume replaces the blue one above.  It includes an ivory head covering, green head covering tie, and brown belt.

For the head covering and ties, I had to press the edges under twice and topstitch to give a nice finished edge.

I didn't have brown thread for my serger, so I had to use black on the insides of the brown vest.  I hope it doesn't show on stage!

This tunic has a rounded neckline with a slit in the back and a hook-and-eye closure.

I had to make bias tape to finish the neckline edge.

I used my serger whenever possible for the construction of the garment, and I pressed under and topstitched for the hem.

And the other costume:

This one replaces the lavender costume.  It includes two different sizes of head coverings, a green head covering tie, and a tan belt.

This tunic has a boat neck.  I serged the edges before pressing them inside the garment and stitching them in place.

I serged the bottom edge before hemming the tunic.

For the ties, I had to press under twice and topstitch the edges.  Hours at the ironing board = b-o-r-i-n-g!

It feels so good to finally erase "Make Passion Play costumes" off my to-do list white board!  It's nice to be able to find a way to use my sewing skills to help out at church.  I'm just glad this year's assignment was so much easier than last year's!

With the costumes finished, my "free time" has been spent taking care of sick children, telling myself I don't have Strep Throat (turns out I do), gaining weight despite killing myself with P90X, and cleaning my house.  I think I'd rather make more costumes!

Jessica

Just Do Something

Many of you who have been reading my blog for a while will remember last spring when I made costumes for my church's Easter play.  If you missed those, you can click here to read those posts (scroll past the Halloween costume posts).

Those costumes were definitely the most challenging sewing project I have ever tackled.  They were challenging for so many reasons.  I worked on them for multiple hours per day, everyday, from mid-February until the very end of March.  I would have been quite challenged to just make one of those costumes.  But I had to make three.  With difficult fabrics, patterns that weren't the right size, a billion trims and details, and sewing techniques I had never done before.

Every single day, I looked at the pile (room full...) of costume supplies and thought, "There's no way I can do this."

It was true.  There was no way I could complete those costumes that day.  But I could do the next step on the current costume that day.

So every single day I went through the process of being overwhelmed, taking a breath, and just pressing forward on the very next step.  I just focused on the single next step on the instructions for the current costume.  That's how I made three of the most challenging projects in the allotted time.

I had to just do something each day.

At the same time that I was working on the costumes, I was also trying to lose weight.  Bleh.  I'm even tired of the word weight.  Such a life-long struggle for me.  And last year I found myself at my heaviest weight ever.  I was fresh off of several failed attempts to jump start my weight loss as well.

I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that I needed to lose about 50 pounds.  How could anyone lose 50 pounds?

So every single day I went through the process of being overwhelmed, taking a breath, and just working on what I could do for that day.  Each day, I could meet my Spark People goals for my food intake and meet my exercise goals for the day.  I didn't have to lose all the weight in one day. 

I just had to do something each day.

This principle applies to whatever you're working on right now.  If you're trying to be more organized, clean one thing today.  Your silverware drawer, your bills stack, one dresser drawer, your car, etc.  Just pick something and do it.  Every time you enjoy that new organized/clean nook, you'll be motivated to do one more tiny space.  And pretty soon, all your little (and big) spaces will be organized.

If you're trying to cook more, choose one new recipe to make for dinner today.  Tomorrow you can work on planning one week's worth of meals.

If you want to lose weight, log onto Spark People's website or download their app (or find a similar one), and figure out your goals.  Tomorrow you can start logging food.  The next day you can start finding ways to burn your calories for the day.  You get a sense of accomplishment each day as you look at your daily goals and see that you've landed within your range.

I think you get the idea.  Sometimes it helps to back up and look at the big picture.  Sometimes you have to focus at the immediate task at hand and ignore the enormity of the big picture.  When it comes to reaching big goals, I'm a task-focused kind of girl.

Now it's your turn.  What can you do TODAY to get you one tiny step closer to your goal?

Jessica

Sonic the Hedgehog Halloween Costume

This year Griffin wanted to be Sonic the Hedgehog for Halloween.  I started looking at costumes about a month ago, but they all seemed too expensive.  As I said before, I'm happy to purchase my kids' costumes if the price is right.  But I'm also willing to make them if I can do it somewhat cheaply.

I used a bit of a hybrid approach for Griffin's costume.

I bought a Sonic hat from Amazon for $16.95 since I didn't want to try to make that.

I ordered the hat and a Christmas gift for my nephew so I could take advantage of free Super Saver Shipping.

For the actual costume, I started by looking at pictures of Sonic from Google images as well as pictures of available Sonic costumes like this:

Kids' Sonic Costume

I realized that I really just needed a pattern for any full-body zip-up costume.  I bought this one at Walmart for $0.97:

I found fabric at Walmart in the exact shade of blue that I needed, and it was a polyester.  That means it's stretchy enough for Griffin to move around easily.  I even found a zipper in the exact shade of blue, and the exact length I needed, in the clearance section at Walmart for just $1.

Additional materials I used included 1/4 yard of red fleece, 1/4 yard of red cotton lining fabric, scraps of white fabric, scraps of golden yellow felt, elastic, a bit of double fold bias tape, 1/3 yard tan cotton fabric, and Wonder Under.

I used the pattern to cut out the costume, making a slight change where the tail was supposed to go and omitting the feet, gloves, and head pieces.

I didn't take any photos of the rest of the process of making the costume.  I followed the pattern directions to make the blue costume.

Then I added a tan oval over the belly.  I had already installed the zipper in the blue costume.  The tan fabric was thin, so I used Wonder Under to adhere two layers of tan fabric together.  I also used Wonder Under to adhere the doubled-up tan oval to the costume.  I ironed it directly over the completed blue costume.  Then I carefully cut the tan fabric right along the zipper.  I did accidentally snip the blue fabric at one part, so I just put Fray Check on that spot to keep it from unraveling.

I chose to leave the sleeves unfinished.  They were the exact right length, and the fabric doesn't fray or unravel at all.  You can't even tell that it's not finished.

You may notice that the costumes available for purchase have tan sleeves.  I bought enough tan fabric to make Griffin's sleeves tan as well.  However, as I started working on the costume, I noticed that this pattern has baseball style sleeves, meaning the seam goes diagonal from the armpit to the neck instead of straight up to the shoulder.  It would have looked weird if he had tan fabric going up to his neck, so I just chose to make it all blue.  I guarantee you he doesn't know the difference, and no one else will notice.

The other Sonic costumes also had red shoes.  This pattern makes dinosaur feet, so I just used those pattern pieces (minus the spiky toes) to make Griffin's shoes.  The outside is made of red fleece, and they are lined with some red cotton fabric I had on hand.  The fabric "shoes" (they're actually covers for Griffin's shoes) are attached to the legs of the costume, and I followed the instructions to add elastic where the legs and shoes meet.  I also put elastic under the shoe covers to hold them on Griffin's actual shoes.  

Once I finished the basic costume, I added a few details to the shoes.  I used scraps of white fabric to mimic the straps on the expensive costume's shoes (I sewed these onto the red shoe covers).  I also made "buckles" out of yellow felt and adhered them using fabric glue.

Once I completed the costume, I asked Griffin to model it for a few pictures.  He was slightly cooperative and mostly goofy.

Two notes:  the costume is not as bunchy as it appears in the photo from behind (he was wearing jeans and also moving a lot).  Also, he was very irritated with the part of the hat that's supposed to come down on his forehead.  We just tucked it up under the hat so it wasn't on his face.

So, there you have it.  I know there aren't many details or steps for how to make this costume.  If you have stumbled upon this post looking for ideas to make a similar costume, please feel free to leave your questions in the comments section or contact me directly for more information.

Happy almost Halloween!

Jessica

Homemade Turtle Costume

I have NO problem purchasing Halloween costumes for my kids (as opposed to making them).  I do have a problem paying an arm and a leg for a costume if I think I can make it for less money than the purchase price.  This year I found a fantastic costume for Nolan (much cooler than anything I could make) for $20.  Sold.  But I couldn't find what the other two kids wanted for cheap enough so I had to get creative. 

Nora likes a lot of girly things.  Disney Princesses, Doc McStuffins, even Dora.  But when we were choosing Halloween costumes, we were pretty sure what Nora would like to be.

For about five or six months now, she has been crawling to me saying, "I'm the baby turtle and you're the mommy turtle and I need my turtle food."  To be accurate, you have to read that in the highest pitch voice possible.

So it was settled:  Nora was ecstatic to be a baby turtle for Halloween.  She asked to be a pink turtle, but I convinced her to be a regular green turtle with a pink bow in her hair.

I searched the internet for turtle costumes, but the few I found were seriously overpriced.  So I decided to make it up.  I bought a green shirt from Walmart and green pants at Kmart.  The pants were free because I had $6 in Shop Your Way Rewards and the pants cost $5.99!

I went to Hobby Lobby and bought 1 yard of green felt (although I would have been fine with 1/2 yard), 1.5 yards of green webbing (used for straps), and Polyfil stuffing.  I found lighter green felt sheets at JoAnn Fabrics (I bought four).

I started with an empty diaper box.

I opened it up.

I sketched an oval on the cardboard.  It was very difficult for a perfectionist like me to simply draw an oval.  I desperately wanted to print one, but I needed it to be bigger than printer paper.

I cut out the oval, traced it onto another part of the box, and cut out a second cardboard oval.

I traced the oval onto the green felt and cut it out.

Then I traced the oval again onto the felt.  I drew dots 3 inches away from the original oval line.  Then I cut out the larger oval on the dotted line.

I machine basted around the edge of the larger oval (with the stitch length as long as possible).

I pulled on one of the threads carefully to gather the edge of the oval.

I crammed as much stuffing in that shell as I possibly could.  I placed the doubled-up cardboard ovals over the stuffing and began hot gluing the felt to the cardboard.  When I had about 3/4 of the felt glued to the cardboard, I shoved more stuffing in and tried to distribute it all to make it look like a dome.

Here's a side view at this point:

Next I cut the webbing to the appropriate length for the straps (using Nora to help me get them right) and hot glued the straps onto the cardboard.

Then I glued the original green felt oval over the cardboard.  I had to cut slits in the felt oval to help it go over the straps.

Then I couldn't get to it for a few days, and Nora started wearing it around the house.  About every five minutes she would ask me, "Mom, when will you be done with my costume?" 

I struggled with some paralyzing perfectionism when it came to adding the details on the shell.  I looked at lots of Google images of turtle shells.  I just couldn't push through and start cutting out felt shapes for the shell.

Finally, I used printer paper to cut approximate shapes of what I had seen on turtle shell images. 

I laid them out on the felt shell and figured they were about right.  Then I cut the shapes out of lighter green felt.  I wished that the felt wasn't quite so light/bright, but I chose to use what I had.

I adhered the light green shapes to the shell using fabric glue.  My fabric glue is old and very thick, so I squeezed some onto a paper plate and used a toothpick to apply it to the backs of my shapes.  I only put glue around the edges.

Once the main pieces were all adhered, I trimmed the edges to be 1.5 inches from the edge of the shell.  (I had not glued down the shape edges nearest the shell edge...did that even make sense?)

I cut up the leftover light green felt into one-inch squares.

I glued the felt squares around the edge of the shell.  Once the glue was dry, the costume was finished!

I really don't like the squares.  I had a major mental battle over those when the shell was complete.  It went a little something like this:

Perfectionist Me:  Those squares look like tiles.
Rational Me:  Yeah, I guess I should have done those differently.
Perfectionist Me:  No seriously.  Those look stupid.
Rational Me:  What can I do about it now?  They're all glued on.
Perfectionist Me:  You can't let Nora wear that shell with those weird tile felt squares.  And you certainly shouldn't tell the whole internet that you made that.
Rational Me:  Nora is 2.  She doesn't care what the shell looks like.  She is happy to have a baby turtle shell.  I'm calling this a success since I saved money and made my daughter happy.

I'm sure you didn't necessarily want that window into my crazy mind.  Just thought you should know that I know the green squares look weird.  Since I made the whole thing up and only one part went wrong, I'm pretty happy.

Nora was quite happy to model the finished turtle shell for me.  She came up with the poses all on her own.

 
Now just imagine her with all green clothes.  And, of course, a pink bow.  Every baby turtle needs a pink bow.

Jessica