Halloween Costumes, 2012

I enjoy Halloween every year because I have a good time creating costumes for our grandchildren.  This year, Belén fell in love with a ready-made Little Mermaid costume, so instead of a costume, I made her a set of starfish barrettes.

I thought it would be fun to make Eloise a new costume and found a cute Snow White Simplicity pattern.  In addition to that, I made a couple other costumes this year, including:

Porter’s Super Baby Costume

My daugther, Anna’s, best friend, Sara, asked me if I could make a Super Baby costume for her 6-month-old baby, Porter.  She had found a custom-made costume for sale online that she liked so I designed a pattern to fit her little super hero and this was the finished costume.

Of course, it looks much cuter on Super Porter, himself…

Needless to say, this was a fun ”Super Baby” costume that will likely become a pattern in the future.

Eloise as Snow White

The next costume I made was for our granddaughter, Eloise, who is 18 months old.  Her costume was made using a Simplicity Pattern, #2563.  It consists of a dress, cape and a hair ribbon all made out of satin.  She looked so adorable in this costume and really seemed to enjoy wearing it.

The sleeves of Eloise’s costume were very full and puffed with 3 teardrop- shape red appliques on each sleeve.  I decided to use my embroidery software to sew these appliques in place.   The end result was an exact placement of the appliques on the sleeves.  In addition, the embroidery module finished the appliques with  perfectly symetrical placement and beautiful satin stitching.  If you would like more details on how to do this, I can explain in a future blog.  Just let me know if you are interested.

It was so much fun to watch Eloise figure out how to Trick n’ Treat and, in no time at all, she was quite comfortable with the concept.  I must admit, she really did look adorable in her Snow White costume.

Yesterday, Belén informed me that next year she wants to be Cinderella, and she asked if I could make her costume.  It just so happens, a Cinderella costumes is included in the same pattern, so that will be a fun one to make as well.

Alecia’s Octoberfest Outfit

Last year, Alecia and her family went to Germany for Octoberfest.  She asked if I would make her an authentic German Octoberfest outfit, known as a dirndl, for an Octoberfest party she and Andy were going to attend.   I told her I thought I could and began to look for a pattern.  As luck would have it, Burda Pattern Company had several styles to choose from since they are, in fact, a German pattern company.  Alecia chose the style she liked best.

It consisted of a blouse, with an elasticized waistband, a jumper with a front zipper enclosure and the finishing touch was an apron with long wrap-around ties that formed a bow in the front of the apron.  After taking Alecia’s measurements, I prepared the fabric and pattern pieces and began to make her outfit.   Her blouse was made from a beautiful dotted Swiss fabric and the style had a ruffled neckline with buttoned front and cuffed sleeves.  The apron was actually gathered by using pencil pleating tape, which helped to form tightly pleated gathers in the front of the apron.

 

Last, but not least was the jumper, which has a front zipper from the bodice to midway down into the front skirt.  It was an unusual application that I had never done before, using a hidden zipper.  After I practiced on some scrap fabric first, I inserted the zipper as one of the final steps in making the jumper and it went smoothly.  The finishing touch was to sew double chains with hook closures across the front bodice and then her outfit was complete.  I was so pleased as the fit was perfect and I thought she looked great in it.  Don’t you agree?

After a bit of marathon sewing the week before Halloween, once the final costume was complete, I treated myself to sleeping in!

I’ll end this blog with a picture of our favorite little Trick n’ Treaters this year…  I’m sure you wonder who…

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