The Crafty Single Female Homeowner: halloween

This past halloween I decided to go as the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Mostly because I wanted to wear a ginormous tulle skirt. I pretty much DIY'd the entire costume, except for the undershirt.

The vest was a pattern purchased from Joanns. Do you know how difficult it was to find a vest pattern? I thought the late 80s and early 90s were back in style? My mom helped me with the vest, getting it sized. Although, neither of us were very good at it and it was much too large for me in the end. But since it was a one day deal, a little pinning was all I needed to make it wearable. This was also my first time with grommets! Very exciting.

Mom helping me with the vest - used interfacing and everything!

The skirt was a beast. I think in the end it came out to over 150 yards of tulle. it was amazing. it weighed down the elastic waistbad of the skirt so much, that I kept having to pull it up!

Starting to work on the skirt

I added the red felt heart with pins and made the crown out of construction paper. Used some lipstick for makeup and away I went for Halloween storytime at the library! Little girls just LOVED the skirt. We did a lot of twirling.

Before we pinned the vest to make it more wearable

The last couple of years I've gotten a bit crafty for my halloween costumes. Last year, I was super girl. First, because Super Girl is awesome and second, because I was Super Girl back when I was about four. Who wouldn't want to relive those memories?

Super Girl, circa 1985/6

Super Girl, circa 2010

This costume was fairly simple - I got a Super Girl t-shirt and sewed sparkly fabric to the shoulders to create the cape. I made a simple pull on elastic waist skirt with some plain non-stretchy red fabric, that I trimmed with the red sparkly fabric (same as the cape). Since I had some left over sparkly fabric, I also made some simple arm warmers, just by sewing it into a tube and cutting out an opening for my thumb.

This year I was a little more ambitious. I saw a couple owl costumes on pinterest that were just ADORABLE.

Source: bridgetcollins.blogspot.com via Deborah on Pinterest

and

Source: blog.craftzine.com via Deborah on Pinterest

This costume required much more time, effort and supplies than last years. I picked out 5 different fabrics - a tweedy brown, a herringbone brown, silky brown, silky gold, and fleecey blaze orange. I originally planned to create two separate pieces - a skirt using an old fold over skirt from Old Navy and a brown t-shirt I bought while I was buying my fabrics. Then I figured it would be easier (duh) to do a single piece. I just so happened to have a very old cotton knit dress with maroon fabric. It was too small, so it wasn't such a waste. Since it was too small, I cut up the the sides of the dress and figured I'd just wear leggings underneath.

To make the feathers, I made a triangular (with some curves) pattern out of cardboard and then I got to cutting. I picked up the pizza cutter type fabric cutter. Which is quite a dangerous tool, if you haven't used it before. I manged to slice my finger pretty good. The slicer let me do several feathers at a time and saved my fingers from scissor cramps. I spent a lot of time cutting and watching TV.

Once I got the feathers cut, I fused them together in rows of about 8. I used fabric fuse that you iron on. I thought it would be the easiest way of quickly zipping it through the sewing machine onto the dress. I think I could have probably just stuck with pinning it all - I don't know if I necessarily saved any time.

So, iron and fuse, iron and fuse. Once I got my mom to help me figure out the sewing machine (a couple times, of course) I started zipping through it. Once I figured out what was going on I was able to get through the rows of feathers pretty quickly.

Rather than trying to figure out how to do the top with the v-neck, I used the superfluous brown t-shirt and created a capelet. To make the capelet, I just cut open the sleeves and cut the shirt at the same length of the sleeves. This essentially created a rectangle with the neck opening in the middle. Much easier to sew on rows of feathers in a rectangle than on a v-neck pattern.

The capelet went really quickly - just took an evening more of work. The costume was essentially done...but what use is a costume without a mask? Probably none at all.

I picked up a white mask with the elastic band at Joann's. White would completely clash with the costume so I also bought some fabric spray paint in a brown/copper color. BTW, do you realize how MUCH I love spray painting? I do. It went way too fast though. Enter feathers and a glue gun and a girl has a mask appropriate for halloween costumes (or masqurade balls - once I added some gold glitter spray).

Here's the complete look.

And the complete look in action. It was a giant hit at storytime the week before Halloween, won me first prize in a costume contest on Friday night (I think they took pity on my homemade costume), Sunday brunch and then at work on Halloween.