Whew! Halloween sewing finally wrapped up at 3:30 pm today! Okay, there are a few things that I said I'd finish up for subsequent years, but the essentials got done.
O. asked to have a Halloween party with some of his kindergarten buddies this year, so there was some sewing involved, of course. First up was this bunting. I have a thing for buntings. ;) Isn't that painted-over outlet above the mantel a nice touch too? We used to have it covered by a picture, but it fell off the wall at 12:30 am one night! Lovely to be woken up to the sound of glass shattering...
O. and I made this little ghostie. No sewing involved, but lots and lots of coats of various types of starch and stiffening agents. I think he took us two weeks on and off. We rigged up a form like this to shape him. We downloaded the cupcake toppers from here, and O. helped by cutting out half of them, then we hot-glued them to toothpicks.
I also made goodie bags for the party guests. (We kept it small, and I'm so glad. Four boys doesn't sound like many, but it one small house, it was quite chaotic!) O. chose the fabrics and wrote out the tags, which I found here.
On to the costumes.... E. is still small enough that we get to pick for her. Yay! Her favorite toy by far is a bee, so it was the obvious choice. I used the same Nasta Pinafore pattern from Otto 4/08 that I used when she was a ladybug her first Halloween, modified to just pull on instead of buttoning at the shoulders. The stripes are satin ribbon, which I probably wouldn't use again. I made a cone out of fleece for her stinger, and stuffed it lightly, in case she ended up sitting on it. Had I thought ahead, I would've flared out the jumper some more, since she can't stand. It rode up quite a bit when she sat on the floor. I was originally going to make wire wings, but thought it would be too uncomfortable when she was in the stroller or rolling around on the floor, so I used fusible web and two layers of felt, then tacked them onto the jumper. They're a little droopy, but get the idea across. Her hat is from the OOP Butterick 4305, the same as I used when O. was Mike Wazowski, with pipe cleaners that have pompoms hot-glued on.
Her bee slippers are from one of my standby patterns, the Darling Diaper Minimocs, which is a freebie. I think the pattern runs a bit narrow, even with E's narrow feet, so I played with it a bit to get a good fit. My first pair was too long (I always forget that her feet are small for her age!) and I also didn't like the narrow satin ribbon I'd appliqued for stripes. I shortened the foot of the second pair and cut a curved piece of fleece for the stripe. Much better! I think I may put them on her for everyday slippers too.
O. wanted to be a clone trooper, which I was not too psyched about. I figured I could modify the pattern for the armor from his knight costume from last year, but when I was looking for a helmet on eBay, I found a great deal for the entire costume, so I bought it. O. requested that the husband also be someone from Star Wars, so he picked Obi-Wan Kenobi. I should have started this much, much sooner, but didn't, so many of the details are still missing. I used Simplicity 5840, and had pretty good luck with it for a Big 4 pattern. I made the cloak first. Wrestling with nearly eight yards of a cheap cotton/poly bottomweight fabric was interesting, to say the least! I didn't stray much from the pattern, other than that the binding of the neck seam didn't work for me as written. I had to trip the seam allowance a lot, and the topstitched it down from the right side, since I didn't have the time or patience to slip-stitch it all. The tunic and belt were made from a much nicer linen/rayon blend. The only change I made to the tunic was to skip the hand-sewing again. You were supposed to slip-stitch the neckband facing, but I serged the facing and just stitched in the ditch instead. The pattern belt ties, but we wanted to be more authentic, so I made a rectangular belt with hook & loop in the back, then he wore his own belt on top.
Happy Halloween!
