O wanted to do a family theme for costumes this year (yay!), and we kicked around a lot of ideas, but finally settled on Harry Potter again. It took a while to decide on characters, since we didn't want repeats -- although O went from "generic Death Eater" to Lucius Malfoy specifically.
After much debate, we picked Crookshanks for E. O thought we should really have a Hermione if Crookshanks was part of the group, but eventually came around to the idea. A cat is perfect for her anyway, since she and our cat are BFFs. Well, more like frenemies, but they are pretty much inseparable.
The cat costume costume is from Butterick 3238. I made a 5, which is what she wears in RTW (albeit a slim in pants when I can find them). It was roomy, but about what I expected. I wasn't crazy about the fit of the hood, but it got the job done.
I'd found some more cat-like faux fur at Joann's but they were 1/2 yard short of what I needed, so I ended up with this rather vibrant fleece. At least it was cheap and super easy to sew. My primary goal this year was to not stress about the details, especially for E's costume. It's highly unlikely it will be worn again, hence the stash muslin lining for the hood rather than buying matching fabric. I also didn't bother with shoe covers for the same reason. And I may have run out of time to make those. Whatever.
O's cloak is McCall's 5952 and some cheap cotton/poly bottomweight fabric also from Joann's. It also went together easily, although I should have checked the sizing before cutting it out. I made his RTW size (8), and ended up taking 2" off the sleeves, leaving them to hit in the middle of his hand for some growing room, and 4" off the hem. I really should have taken even more off the hem, since it dragged in the back if it wasn't situated perfectly and it's been raining all afternoon and evening, so he came home from trick-or-treating with a pretty soggy cloak.
I really liked how the neckline was finished with bias tape. I'll have to remember that for other things that don't call for it in the directions, but could really use a cleaner finish. (I'm looking at you, Modkid Sydney!)
The only other modification I made was to curve the bottom of the sleeves so they weren't so pointy. Lucius doesn't seem like a pointy sleeve kind of guy to me. Actually, he probably would have a tailored sleeve, but I wanted to make it a pretty generic cloak.
One of the things O really wanted to have was Malfoy's walking stick. Since we weren't about to spend nearly $100 on a costume prop, we made our own out of a big dowel, clay, adhesive "emeralds", and some paint. It's a little lumpier than either of us would have liked, but considering he's eight and I spent my semester of high school pottery drawing instead of actually touching any clay (my small-town school was not overly demanding -- ha ha), we did okay. He was quite happy with it overall, and it was a fun project to do together.
Ray and I were Hagrid and Professor Trelawney, respectively. Our costumes were primarily from our existing wardrobes and thrift stores. I did buy some cheapo prescription glasses from Zenni Optical, since I have a few more future costumes in mind that would require similar frames. And then I bought Ray's wig/beard combo from one of those pop-up Halloween stores. The "Jesus" wig was the only one that was suitable, and I felt all weird buying it, wanting to tell people that we weren't actually going to use it for Jesus (I didn't, because who would actually care?! They're all in there looking for sexy policewoman costumes or whatever, so I doubt they're judging me and my Jesus wig). Can you tell I have a hang-up about religious costumes? Also Native American costumes, but that's a bigger issue than I really need to get into at the moment. Back to secondary Harry Potter characters!
We had a fun Halloween, and it was relatively low-stress. That doesn't mean I wasn't sewing the hem of O's cloak this afternoon, of course, but it really wouldn't be a holiday if I wasn't scrambling to finish something up at the last minute!
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