Belated Halloween costume report

This summer, my children became obsessed with "The Wizard of Oz" after my cousin, Cady Lane, sent them a CD of the soundtrack.  I then bought them a DVD of the movie and we proceeded to watch it 19 times.  It was only natural that Charlotte then wanted to be Dorothy for Halloween.

I remembered that Aunt Janet had sewn a Dorothy costume for her granddaughter a few years back, so I asked her if she still had that pattern.  Sweet AJ then bought me my own copy of the pattern (yes, she IS the coolest aunt ever) and I got to work a few weeks before Halloween.

This was the first time I had sewn a garment from a store-bought pattern since the crop tops Mom helped Erin and me sew when we were about 12 years old. This dress was a leeeeeeeeetle more complicated than that, and I was kind of surprised at how vague some of the directions were (probably because I'm not experienced at formal garment sewing).  I got it done though, without any major incidents.  Here is the finished result:

Thank you to my mother-in-law for hunting down the ruby red slippers from Meijer!  Since it's a tad colder in Michigan in October than it is in the Land of Oz, we put a long-sleeved shirt and leggings under the dress.  We also chose to skip the socks under the shoes.

The pattern was very to the movie version of the dress, right down to the ric rac around the neck and sleeves as well as the bias-cut strip around the skirt.  It's awesome, but it is very unfinished on the inside (perhaps because it is just a costume?).  I wasn't thrilled with the color of gingham that I had to use, but I had such a hard time finding any gingham at all (why on earth would Jo-Ann's not carry gingham?!?!?) that I counted my blessings that I was able to procure even this shade of blue.  Charlotte's sleeves were a bit shorter and her skirt was a little longer, but otherwise she was the spitting image of sweet Judy Garland (in terms of the dress, at least).

Peter kept saying he wanted to be Toto for Halloween, but then decided he would rather be Bumblebee (the Transformer -- not the animal).  Here are Dorothy and Bumblebee trying to eat doughnuts on a string at their grandparents' house a few nights before Halloween.

For the school Halloween party, We finally got Charlotte's hair in pigtails and scrounged up a stuffed dog to be Toto.  Here is sweet Dorothy outside her classroom that day.

We saw a couple of other Dorothys at school that day, but their costumes only vaguely resembled the one from the movie.  One of them looked like the sexy stripper fairy version of Dorothy, which was kind of creepy on a first grader.  Isn't this version horrifying?  Gack.

UNFORTUNATELY, it was snowing and sleeting the night of Halloween, so this is what the poor kids looked like all bundled up when they actually went trick or treating:

Too bad they don't make ruby red sparkly rain boots.

Sonia as Princess Leia

Yes, I know Halloween was a month and a half ago, but I have been crocheting like a madwoman (lots of Christmas gifts to make!!!) and have found no time for blogging.  Anyway, here is Sonia's Princess Leia Halloween costume, made by my own two hands!

I free-hand crocheted the wig/hat because I couldn't find a pattern (not free, not to buy!) that I liked.  She wore two versions: one with the buns clipped onto a yarn-covered headband (as shown in the last few pictures), and one with the buns clipped onto the wig/hat.

To sew Princess Sonia-Leia's dress, I used a lovely and easy-to-follow peasant dress tutorial.  Sonia and her neighbor/buddy, Mariana, posed so nicely for me!

Princess Leia and Super Girl also trick-or-treated with the Viking sensation, Enrique. I layered the peasant dress over a white turtleneck from Target and white leggings from Old Navy.

Here are the buns on the headband.  I hadn't made the wig/hat yet when we visited Johansen Farms with our playgroup.  Don't you just love the purple sneakers?  I think Leia would love to wear them if they existed her her galaxy.

Two little princesses.... Val (AKA Sofia the First) told us she didn't know how to make a scary face.

I sewed the belt using this awesome tutorial....  That blogger was the one who pointed me to the peasant dress tutorial!

May the force be with you, Princess Sonia of Alderaan.

My Never Land Pirates

This is only a little over a week late, right?  Here are the costumes I created for my kids with a bit of sewing, a bit of crocheting (from Auntie Erin, of course), and a lot of making it work.

First off, here is Jake (of Jake and the Never Land Pirates, of course) at his preschool Halloween party. I know his head scarf thingy looks a little wonky, but it's tough to keep these things straight on a three-year-old.

I previously posted about the vest here.  The head scarf? wrap? whatever? is just a strip cut from one of Corey's old red t-shirts and tied in the back.  The t-shirt is an old white one handed down from Peter's cousin, Quinn, with the neckline ribbing cut off and some embroidery thread stitched across a v-shaped cut in the front.  Peter was especially in love with the shirt for some reason.

Aaaaaaand here is Peter/Jake dancing to a pirate song he was singing to one of his classmates.  You can see a tiny bit of the gray waistband thingy that I stitched from a gray t-shirt.  The pants are just some black pants he had in his closet, and his boots are just his black cowboy boots.

Next up is Charlotte dressed as Izzy (from the Never Land Pirates, too).  Despite the fact that I am the classroom yearbook photographer for Charlotte's kindergarten, I somehow neglected to get any better photos of Charlotte at her class Halloween party later that day than these ones.

The head scarf was sewn from some shiny pink fabric I had on hand.  The awesome shirt was crocheted by Erin.  I promise to do a better photo shoot of Charlotte modeling the top!  The bag of pixie dust was quickly stitched together from some awesome gold/black stretch velvet stuff I found in the remnant bin.  Instead of Tinkerbell's finest flying dust inside, I stuffed the pouch with a wadded up piece of paper.  I added some purple leggings and her cowboy boots and called it a day.

That top is so cool!  The head scarf was a little difficult to keep on, even when I bobby pinned it to her hair for trick-or-treating that evening.

Corey tried desperately to get some good glamor shots of our pirates before they headed out to hunt for candy, but cooperation was not high on their priority lists.  We brought parts of the costumes to Illinois this weekend when the kids and I visited Erin, Andrew, and Sonia.  Within moments of the kids reuniting, we had the Jake & the Never Land Pirates CD blasting while Sonia and Peter danced in partial costume.

(Charlotte was too busy drawing and writing -- she has a complete obsession with this since starting kindergarten.)  We substituted one of Sonia's bandanas for Charlotte's head scarf that I couldn't locate while I was packing for the trip.

Sonia had such a blast with the costumes that I left her the bag of pixie dust to keep -- I can always make another one for Charlotte in about five minutes flat.

Yo ho, let's go!

Maisie's Spooky Skirt

I made my sweet three-year-old niece, Maisie, a spooky skirt also while I baby-sat her last week.  She was hilarious when I showed her the skirt as a work-in-progress.  "Is dat fo' ME?  It IS spooky, Aunt Niki!"  I had to bribe her with M&Ms a couple of times to get her to try it on for fittings, but all in all she was a good "client".  Here's a shot my sister-in-law, Stephanie, sent me of Maisie wearing it a couple of days later.

That girl is even cuter in person, believe me!  I'm so jealous of that kitchen backsplash.  Maybe someday . . .

Then, a few hours later, I got a text from Steph asking what the washing instructions were for the skirt. Apparently, there was a pee accident involved -- whoops!  I was stumped.  This materials is just about as man-made as it gets, so I just wildly guessed that she should wash it on cold in the gentle cycle, but not dry it in the dryer.  I haven't heard back how it went, so I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping it worked.

Spooky Skirt

I was lucky enough to win a great little bundle of fabric from the super-talented Sanae Ishida that included some ridiculously fun rainbow spiderweb tulle and spiderweb flocked tulle-esque polyester.  At the risk of spiderweb overload, I was unable to resist putting the two together for the ultimate Halloween skirt.  Charlotte promptly renamed it her "spooky skirt", so I guess I had better follow suit.

If anyone can pull off a double spider web skirt, it's definitely going to be a girl who was named after a spider, right?

I made the skirt by cutting the bottom layer 17 1/2" by the entire width of the fabric, and the top layer 14 1/2" by the entire width of the tulle.  The tulle ended up being a little wider than the polyester, so I had to cut a few inches off the width.

I turned the hems of both pieces of fabric under twice and stitched the polyester with a straight stitch and the tulle with a zig zag.  Man, that stuff is squirrelly!  Then I basted the two layers together with a zig zag stitch at the top and sides before I sewed it into a tube with a French seam.  I had to take the extra step of basting at the sides because the tulle had a mind of its own.  Then, I made a casing for the waistband and threaded in some elastic.  Easy as pie!  I would totally write a tutorial for it if there weren't already about 8,000,000 other better tutorials for simple skirts on the web.

The rainbow spiderwebs on the tulle are metallic and awesomely sparkly, so I tried to capture the sparkle by taking a photo in direct sunlight.  The skirt is fabulous and will look great with some black leggings (it's already too cold for bare legs!).

Now I'm thinking I need to use the mottled red fabric that was also part of the giveaway bundle to make a fun appliqué shirt to go with the skirt.  I have plenty of fabric left to make skirts for Sonia and Maisie, too, so that will probably be my weekend project.

Here is my little goblin, modeling her skirt (over her corduroys because I didn't have any black leggings handy).  I tried to get her to stand on the ground, but she has decided that she can only properly model something I made for her if she stands on the post on our back deck.

This is her idea of a "sweet pose".

This is her alternate "sweet pose".

This is her "elegant pose".

And finally, this is her "spooky pose".

I don't think Barbizon will be calling any time soon.


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Sneak preview of Peter's Jake & the Never Land Pirates costume

Shockingly enough, Peter decided he wanted to dress up like Jake (from Jake & the Never Land Pirates, a cartoon on the Disney Channel) for Halloween.  I was all set to buy (or even sew) another Batman costume, but he mentioned wanting to be Jake and actually stuck with the idea over several weeks.  I'm no dummy -- I know not to get a Halloween costume too early only to have the little twerp change his mind, but this seemed like a choice that was gong to stick.  Charlotte jumped on the bandwagon and decided she wanted to dress like another of Jake's crew mates, Izzy.  I'm working on her costume next.

I found a pretty good tutorial for the vest, but I had to draw my own pattern from some fairly vague instructions.  Luckily, I was smart enough to make a muslin first.  A few quick alterations to the pattern, and I had something I could work with!

Here is what Jake looks like in the cartoon:

I used some bottomweight navy material of some sort that I picked up at the store, and I paired it with some prepackaged bias tape and buttons. The tutorial left the armholes unfinished, but I decided to add a little bit of bias tape just to finish it off. I didn't have any navy bias tape, but I figured the cadet blue was close enough.

Peter loves it an has already worn it all over the house.  Now I need to work on getting the shirt, bandana, sash, pants, and boots ready.  I can scrounge for the rest of those by using old t-shirts and his cowboy boots.  I will post the whole finished ensemble when I get it done.