Halloween 2012 {the costume rundown}

*Warning, super long post!*

As a past kindergarten teacher, I have a strong love of  classic children’s literature.  Where the Wild Things Are is a loved book by many kids.  When I learned in May that Maurice Sendak, the author, had passed away it got my brain whirling with ideas about Halloween.  Because yes, I plan that far in advance. :)Owen quickly got on board as he knows the story well and started answering “Max” to the question “what do you want to dress up as for Halloween.”  I then decided that Ellie would be Moishe, one of the most famous of the Wild Things.  This was one of the many inspiration pictures I looked at to help plan the costumes.  I did a terrible job documenting the process of making them, so sorry this is not going to be a full blown tutorial.  Just a few tips and notes of what I did.  My mom started with Owen’s Max outfit.  she used this dinosaur pattern for the basic shape of his “suit.”  My mom did make the attached feet that just laid on top of his shoes.  We left the tail, hands, and hood off to be added at another time.  She put the zipper in the back though as Max has large buttons on his outfit.  I sewed 3 on at the end, just for decoration. For  his hands, I didn’t want him to be locked into mittens all the time as I knew we had a few inside events.  So mom made “mittens” with claws that didn’t actually function as such and just laid on top of his hands.  He just wore white gloves when we went trick or treating.You  can see them in action here: For his hood, I’m pretty useless as my mom did most of it, save me cutting the triangles for his ears. :)  She made the outside first and we cut it to make sure enough of his face was showing.    The ears have a bit of really stiff interfacing in them to help them stand up.  Instead of sewing them all fancy into the hood, we just sewed them right onto the sides. If I was reselling these, we would have spent a bit more time on that part.  Mom cut a few holes and inserted 3 pipe cleaners on each side and bent them back carefully and sewed them in place.  Then she sewed the lining over them so they wouldn’t scratch Owen’s face. For his tail, I just free handed a tail shape out of 2 pieces of fur from Joann’s.  I sewed them right sides together and then turned it inside out and stuffed it will Poly fill.Once again, I knew Owen had be able to get in his car seat with his costume on, so his tail needed to be able to come off.  So I just sewed a little Velcro on.  I should have probably pinned his tail for trick or treating as all the walking made it come off frequently.  Now the crown.  William had to literally hold me back from not remaking this.  Now to the regular eye, it probably looks fine.  But even a beginner seamstress would notice about 5 million mistakes.  Oh well.  It made Owen happy and that’s the point, right?  I cut out the crown shape out of 2 pieces of gold fabric and sewed just the points and sides of the crown together, right sides touching.  Them I flipped it inside out and put a piece of stiff interfacing in the points and around the bottom.  Then I sewed the bottom closed.  I hot glue some brown fur onto the bottom.  It has Velcro to keep it in a crown shape.And here’s my Max: Now onto Ellie, my Wild Thing. My mom whipped up her shirt out of red and yellow fleece.  She just used a shirt she already owned as a pattern.  For her pants, I bought a pair of boys comfy tan pants at Wal-Mart for about $3.  I bought a yard of tan felt and just cut out tons of “scales".” Then starting at the bottom, I hand sewed the on one row at a time, and worked my way up each leg.  I stopped one row below the elastic because her shirt covered it and why do any more work than I needed too, right? Again, for car seat reasons, her tail was held on by velcro.Her hat is my pride and joy.  I didn’t have a pattern, but I’ve been knitting and crocheting long enough that I was able to just wing it.  It helps to have your head model close so I could try it on as I went.  I used 2 yarns, a plain brown and a fuzzy yarn and crocheted a simple, thick hat.    Here it is about half way done.  This is what Ellie would look like with a bad toupee. :) When it was done, I stuffed 2 felt horns and hand sewed them on.  Since all of the wild things kinda look like boys, I made a little bow out of the material left from her shirt and glued it on.  She only got called a boy twice. Haha.And that's it for my wild thing.  All it needs it a cute baby.

Lastly, my mom sewed a quick little bag for me out of the leftover white fleece.  I added the handles and then picked this quote from the book.  I got black iron on vinyl and cut it out with my Silhouette machine.  The crown was cut from his leftover gold and I just used iron on backing to get it to stick.  Perfect for filling with all his goodies from the night.All in all, I had a pretty great time making these and am already on the lookout for next year’s idea.  Happy Halloween everyone!