This shall be my attempt at making my daughter Kensington her very own Halloween outfit...from scratch!
I will note that I am not the best at sewing, nor do I have a pattern to go by...But admittedly I have found a wonderful 5 part video to follow on YouTube!!
Materials list:
- 2 yards purple shiny fabric (I got this amount from looking into other web posts where parents had made this costume for their 2 year olds...I realized it was WAY too much...You could get away with 1 yard, unless you want extra for mess-ups or something)
- 1/2 yard of shiny metallic type material for arms and legs (I did not do legs)
- 1 yard of flannel or comfy fabric to line the inside of the costume (this was JUST enough after cutting out bits here and there)
- 16 oz bag of stuffing, or smaller...I used about half a bag, but think I overstuffed the costume!
- (2) stryfoam balls, I used 3" ones since my daughter won't even be 2 yet and the 4" looked SO big to me!
- 1 pack of chenille black pipe cleaners (although I did not end up using these!)
- heather grey yarn for hair/scrap grey fabric to use for hair as well
- 1 square of white flannel (pre-cut section of store)
- 1 headband with springs on top (to make the eyes easier)
- sewing machine and thread (I used black for the entire costume)
- black sharpie marker OR black acrylic paint (to color the stryofoam balls)
OK, so first I watched the above Part 1 video and since the girl made the outfit for only her upper body, I used the dimensions she gave and took them in a bit. My rectangles measured 30" x 16". My daughter's shoulder is ~25" from the floor, so I gave 5" of wiggle room and fluff room (for when the costume is stuffed and in case we have a growth spurt in the next 2 months). I also took one of her t-shirts and placed it flat against the fabric and it measured 10", so I gave an extra 6" for stuffing room and comfort to slip the costume over her head.
So, here are my fabrics...the fleece liner was off-white/grey, the purple fabric was actually a performance fabric that had some shine to it, and the metallic one on the right was covered in sequins!
I laid out my fabric and measured the 30" x 16" rectangle and cut
I repeated for another purple rectangle, and also 2 rectangles of the liner off-white fabric...I now have 4 rectangles roughly the same dimensions
I then folded 1 purple rectangle in half and cut an armhole on the OPEN side (NOT the side with the fold). The armhole in the video was cut 10" from the top, but since this is for a ~2 year old, I cut 3" from the top and made the opening 4" down the fabric and 1" into the fabric
I used this for the other 3 and cut the holes in the same place
I then placed the WRONG sides together, pinned, trimmed as needed and marked 3 LINES across to use as sewing guides.
I placed the 3 lines 7" apart and started measuring from the top closer to the armhole, this made the first line just under the armhole
I then sewed across the 3 lines on each side of the body and also sewed up the armhole SINCE THE TOP WAS STILL OPEN and I could stuff that section later.
Then I took my stuffing and stuffed the 2 sections I had sewn, pinned the sides and sewed down the sides of both parts of the body
Then I placed the 2 stuffed body parts RIGHT SIDES together, pinned and sewed...DO NOT sew together the armhole or else your child won't be able to put her arms through later :)
The girl on the video marked under her nose and trimmed the excess from the top of the costume...and VOILA...you have made the BODY of the BOO costume! hooray! Jump for joy! That wasn't too bad right??
Part 2: The Hair
Not going to lie, but I didn't even take pictures. The video is pretty self explanatory, but I did make my circles MUCH smaller, being that the whole costume was much smaller. My circles were 10" across and I used heather grey yarn and some scrap grey fabric I had cut into little pieces.
Part 3: The Hoodie
I measured out and cut 11" x 11" squares of my purple fabric.
I then cut out a hooded shape
I repeated this for the off-white liner fabric, so now I have 2 purple hood shapes and 2 liner hood shapes
Sew the RIGHT sides together of the hood (match purple with purple, sew...then repeat for the liner)
Then line up the seams from both hoods, matching the RIGHT SIDES together
Next up re the teeth! Pull out your white flannel piece
Make some cute teeth!
Take your hood and place the teeth around the edge, pinning as you go in order to see PLACEMENT only!
Then take each tooth, and turn around (as seen in pic) and place IN BETWEEN the purple and white fabrics. This will allow you to sew the tooth in the middle and come out looking right after sewing it all together
Your finished teeth should look like this...
Now take your hood and stuff a bit. Then take your body, stuff the top portion. Pin RIGHT SIDES together and place the hood in seam of the hood in the center of the body (fold body portion in half and make a small cut in order to align properly), sew hood on!
Now, stuff the front portion of the top of your body, place the remaining teeth in between the purple and white fabric, and pin with the raw edges in so that you don't sew the seam with raw edges out!
Take a look at your masterpiece!
Part #4: The arms (and legs...which you will have to look at video for since I did not do them!)
Below is my lovely metallic fabric...complete with tons of shiny sequins! I measured the armhole on the body, which measured at 11", giving a radius of 6.5". So, I took my shiny metallic fabric, folded it in half and cut tentacle shaped arms that measured 6.5" wide by 15" long. I was able to take a piece of yarn and measure my daughter's arm from shirt seam on her shoulder to fingertips and that measured 13", so I gave an extra 2" for flipper length. I drew on the shape and cut it out. This gave me 2 pieces of shiny fabric cut in tentacle-like arms
I then repeated the process for the liner fabric, using the previously cut arms as a template.
Next I took 1 metallic fabric piece and one liner piece, matched them RIGHT sides together, pinned.
Sew around the edges, leaving the top OPEN so we can flip it inside out
Grab the lining fabric again (leftovers) and use the sewed arm to trace out 2 more pieces!
Now take the sewed together tentacle arm and 1 piece of the newly cut liner fabric. Place them RIGHT sides together, pin and sew (the sides don't need to match up perfectly)
Now, sew down the sides, LEAVE THE BOTTOM POINTED END OPEN
Flip it so the rights sides are facing out. I went ahead and hemmed the little flaps in now (as opposed to later in the video.
Stuff the top sections of the arm --> the space between your metallic fabric and the liner sewn to it (Don't over-stuff, you want your child to be able to move her arms freely still!)
Turn the body INSIDE OUT
Place the stuffed arm in the body (completely) and match the right sides together
Pin (make sure all 4 layers are pinned!)
Flip entire suit right side out to check placement of the arm, adjust if needed (you want to make sure the shiny part is closer to the head portion and the liner is underneath)
Turn the suit back inside out, and sew around the armhole
Repeat for other arm.
The rest of the video will guide you through feet, which I did not make since the suit was close to the ground on my daughter...What I did do was try the suit on my child, see how long it was and adjust the bottom length, stuff, pin raw edges inside to have a pretty looking edge, sew. ALMOST DONE!
Part 5: Eyes and pinning hair on suit
I did my hair pin on and eyes a little different for my daughter. Kensington hates anything on her head! So I had to figure out a new option for the eyes and just pin the hair on top.
For the Hair, I followed the video above on how to make it. To pin it on, I ended up sewing it through the costume by hand.
The eyes...I used a black acrylic paint (I actually started with a sharpie and it was going to take FOREVER!) and colored half the ball black, the front I put a black circle and colored it in the represent the pupil
The eyes were placed onto the spring top of the headband...I sorta screwed them onto the spring to ensure they were on far enough
And now, the grand finale! (Now everyone, please cross your fingers that my daughter will actually WEAR this outfit for Halloween! At least we have about 2 months to get her to play dress-up in it...aka get her to like it!)
Maybe she will want to dress up when Mommy and Daddy are in Mike and Sully costumes!
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