Halloween Costumes

I can fondly remember making Halloween costumes when I was a kid.  Other than a mask here or there, we didn't go buy a costume from the store.  Rather, we used our creativity and things laying around the house to create our costumes.  Here's a couple photos I found from the "good ol' days" with my brothers and me.

I hope to continue the tradition with our children to make their costumes.  I look forward to when they are a bit older and can take a more active role in creating their costumes.

K was a doctor today.  It's the same costume that Santa "contracted" me to sew last year as a dress-up costume.  I used two patterns, a costume pattern by McCall's for doctor scrubs and a pajama pattern by Butterick.  The scrubs were made as the pattern instructed.  The doctor coat was made from the pajama pattern; I used the pattern for the button-up jammie top.  I also used the special stitches on my machine to add her name to her pocket. 

B was Superman and I owe most of his costume to Dana at http://www.dana-made-it.com/ and all of her awesome tutorials.  I used the 90-minute shirt tutorial to make the top.  I also added a yellow felt belt (Ha ha!  That rhymes.).  The Superman logo was painted on the shirt using a freezer paper stencil (a.k.a. Poor Man's Screen Printing).  Click here for a tutorial about using a freezer paper stencil.  The pants were just traced from a pair of pants B wears, but here's a tutorial for making your own pants pattern.  There are also tons of patterns for a basic pair of pants, including both of the patterns listed above.  B's cape was a piece of red cotton with a casing on one side to gather it by his neck.  I ended up tacking it on to the shirt rather than having a string tied around his neck to keep it a bit safer.

Now that I spent my spare time during the weekend making B's costume and spent last night trick-or-treating, I better get working on the never ending job of correcting papers!

Upcycling Dave's Harley-Davidson shirt

I've always thought of sewing as going to the store, buying a pattern and fabric, and sewing it as the pattern shows.  I've done some changing around of patterns, but it was very exciting for me to see what other crafters have done without buying a pattern and fabric.

One of my new favorites is the 90-minute shirt by made that uses guys' t-shirts and some ribbing to make kids' shirts.  Dave has a bag of old Harley-Davidson shirts that I'm going to make into a quilt for him one day and I decided to raid the bag and make some kid's clothes with one of the shirts instead.  I was able to make pants for K using the sleeves and a onesie (using the 90-minute shirt tutorial) and pants for B using the logos on the front and back and some fabric from one of the other shirts.  Since it's 11:55pm I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how B's clothes fit him.

I have yet to figure out how to rotate a photo. :)