Sebastian – Tiny Cajun crab, best friend to Ariel.

I could have gone sexy for my Sebastian the crab costume, but that’s too cliche for Halloween nowadays. Instead I made my costume big, goofy and from a toddlers monkey costume. Allow me to explain…

Since Chris was Ariel, I took the role of Sebastian – Tiny Cajun crab, best friend to Ariel

At first I thought of making a jumper type outfit, but then remembered that wearing a one piece outfit with several arms attached to it could making going to the bathroom a little difficult. Instead, I started looking at patterns for other styles, but apparently an adult size crab costume pattern is not common. Go figure.  So I decided to make something similar to this pattern:

The fabric cutting lady at Joanns thought it was the cutest outfit until I told her it was for me. Creeping out the employees…check! I estimated and bought two yards of a bright red fabric for the body, head and legs and 1 1/2 yards of a darker, more textured fabric for the shell. Before leaving I grabbed two Styrofoam egg shaped balls for the eyes.

I am terrrrrrible at math so the measuring aspect of sewing is always a challenge for me. To avoid making the middle too short, I based the length of a sweater dress I have.

For the remainder of the body section I simply added a few (too many) inches to every side of the pattern. It certainly wasn’t the best fit, but it did the trick.

The pattern was simple – including only a mid-section, sleeves and elastic at the bottom to pull it all in, sort of like a bubble skirt.  The only part I wasn’t too happy with was the collar which ended up way too big, but hey it’s a DIY costume that I had a week to make and oh yeah, we didn’t have any plans yet, so I wasn’t too worried.

Mid-Section

Sleeve

Neck too wide

Next up the was the head. I used the pattern for the hood and again added a few inches. Since the collar was too big I wasn’t going to be able to attach the hood – solution: drawstring!

The eyes were a little shoddily made but they ended up looking awesome. I cut the bottoms off the styrofoam eggs off so they were flatter and easier to attach to the hood. There was no neat way to place them on the top so I simply stitched some white and red fabric together, pulled that over the eggs and top stitched the fabric to the hood by hand. The pièce de résistance…pupils. Black magic marker can make such a big difference sometimes.

Before I forget, there were two other pieces to the costume – the claws and the shell.  The claws I sketched by hand onto cardboard, then traced them onto the fabric, cut out two pieces of the darker fabric and sewed the together to make claw mittens.  They were a little loose on the wrist so I tacked some elastic to the inside and done.  Nice and quick.

I found a pattern for the shell online from a tutorial showing how to make a stuffed animal turtle.  I printed it on regular 8″x11.5″ paper and blew it up to be 4 quadrants on 11″x17″ each.  I taped those together and had my pattern.

I used the dark fabric again and cut out two pieces.  On one side a drew some shell markings then sewed both sides together, leaving a small opening so that I could stuff it.  I must be getting either lazier or cheaper, but either way I didn’t feel like going to back to store for stuffing, so I used old fabric I had from past projects.  Go back to that last sentence and change lazy/cheap to Eco-friendly; yeah that sounds better 🙂  Since the shell was a little heavy with all the “stuffing” I fashioned it in a back-pack type way, using a few long pieces of fabric to make shoulder straps .  It worked out great, I must say.

I had visions of grandeur for the arms, they were going to be stuffed, have joints, and all move together. Well, I got as far as getting them stuffed and sewn together. But they ended up too heavy and small giving the resemblance of tick legs. No bueno.

I packed up everything and headed to Brooklyn to finish there.

Chris became the problem solver by coming up with the idea of using hangers inside the legs. Lightweight, flexible, perfect! The only problem was I ran out of bright red fabric and didn’t have time to go buy more. Target to the rescue! I knew I could find something cheapy in Target that could double for legs while I was doing my weekly shopping. I was thinking maybe socks, but the solution came in a pack of “fancy” $3 holiday cloth napkins.

I spent the Saturday afternoon before Halloween sewing the legs to the costume (while watching the last of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies – So. Good.) and was finally done with everything about an hour before we were going out.  Nothing like cutting it close….again. Maybe I should just accept that’s how I sew?

The finishing piece was a pair of red stockings – the only thing I didn’t make between the two costumes.  We met up with a few of Ariel’s land friends and headed off to Jeremy’s apartment to begin the night.  1 house party, 2 bars and way too many renditions of Under the Sea later, Williamsburg did not disappoint.

❤

Uncanny resemblance

Two costumes in 3 weeks seemed like a good time frame, until I started sewing.  Needless to say I finished the costumes on Halloween about 2 hours before we were heading out, but they got done and they were fantastic.  The next day I immediately ordered myself to take a week off from sewing and sleep…a lot.  New bedtime is now 11pm (note: I’m writing this at 11:14pm).

So let’s pick up where I left off, Ariel’s beautiful purple top was done and next up was the tail.  I didn’t want to buy a pattern for the tail, because I’m cheap, so I looked at the envelopes of patterns to figure out how I was going to do this.  I found and based my tail off pattern M5498 from McCalls:

I picked up a stretch jersey material for the main part of the tail because Chris requested that he be able to walk in the skirt (picky, picky).  The fins and top were a sequined, darker green fabric.

My next thought was how is this going to stay up on him?  I went back to my handy-dandy notes from my FIT class and decided to follow the steps for the elastic waist we used on our pajama pants.  Elastic bought, plan is ready, lets go!

I cut two rectangle pieces of the stretchy green fabric, the length of Chris’s legs and a LOT wider than his waist so that there was gathering room for the elastic.

The front piece I kept whole like in the above picture.  The back piece I cut in half, so that I could create a slit, making it easier for Chris to walk.  After stitching the back pieces together and making the slit, I stitched the sides of the front to the back pieces; creating a skirt.

Next was adding the elastic.  Same steps as with the pajama pants – on the top fold over 1/4″ of fabric and edge stitch, then fold over another 1″ and top stitch that, make sure to leave a 2″ opening to insert the elastic.  I did not remember to leave the opening because, honestly, I just zoned out.  After removing 2 inches of stitches (and calling myself an idiot) I pulled the elastic through.  This part was a little irritating since the fabric was so stretchy that it kept getting stuck on the elastic, but eventually I prevailed and the waist was done.

Its shiny sequin fabric time!!  *Drag queen alert*  I was completely guessing how to make the fins since I didn’t buy the pattern.  First I cut a long strip of fabric, about 2 feet by 6″, to keep aside for the waist sparkles.  After that was removed, I cut the rest of the sequin fabric in half – one half for each fin.  On the sides of the skirt, I cut two triangles out of fabric.  On the sequin fabric, I ran a loose thread across the top to gather the fabric, then simply matched it up to the triangle sections I cut out of the skirt.  Hey, guess what!?  It worked!  Seriously, look:

I thought since the first side worked so easy, surely (don’t call me Shirley) something would go wrong on the second side.  Much to my pleasure, things worked out just as smoothly.

The finishing piece to Ariel’s outfit was adding the sequin fabric to the top of the tail which was simple.  Nice way to end a project with an easy step!  And now the masterpiece…

Oh you want to see it on Chris??  OK!

I know what you’re thinking, “Come on Karen, that is just a real picture of Ariel!”  I swear, really it is Chris.  Uncanny resemblance, right?!

❤

Ariel and the Inappropriate Priest.

Staying awake is not my strong point – I get that from my dad.  In reality, I have been sewing a lot, it’s just that every time I go to blog about what I’ve done for the day I fall asleep and wake up with my laptop half hanging off my bed.  This time I finally got something in writing, so here’s what I’ve accomplished so far on Chris’s Halloween costume, which if you haven’t guessed from the last post is Ariel aka the Little Mermaid.  (Ahhhhh, he’s going to be so pretty!!)

I had this grand idea to make the top actually look like seashells.  What I would do was simple: trace a seashell shape on the fabric, cut that out and fold darts all around it to add texture.  Simple right?  I bet you know where this is heading…

Started with the shape, which I folded it in half and cut out:

Drew lines on the fabric to follow for folds:

Folding did NOT go smoothly.  In fact it was a pain in the ass.  But after about 4 hours I ended up with this:

Ok, not terrible, until you realize that the edges are all uneven and fraying, oh and there’s that whole “it got a LOT smaller from the folding and ended up the size of a pasty instead of a bra” issue.  Either way I decided to try the other one and gave up real quick

The seashell bra that I had such high hopes for is now a toy for Mila.  Recycling, yeah!  To save time and frustration I decided to go with a simple triangle top instead.  I tried cutting it freehand but that didn’t work so I grabbed a pattern off the internet.

Trace, cut, fold and…much better!  I folded the sides in ¼” to give it a nice finish and the bottom came up 1” to leave space for a string to go through.

Next I ripped a piece of fabric, folded it in half, stitched and pulled it through with a pin to make the string.  I repeated with smaller pieces for the neck straps.

The bottom string slips right through.

For the neck straps, I sewed them onto the tops of the triangles about a ¼”-1/2” down.  And the top is complete!!

I already started working on the tail, but I’ll save that for another post.  This weekend I’m subjecting poor Chris to a fitting, I think I’ll owe him lots of beer for that.  By the way, did you know the Little Mermaid came out in 1989!  Crazy, right?.  Almost as crazy as the inappropriate scene with the priest in that movie – if you catch my drift…

❤

The best Catwoman is Michelle Pfeiffer.

October 31, 2010

Good news, this is the last possible “past” project I can write about and then I’m up to current projects!  whoo hoo.  Its more of a DIY costume project, but there is some sewing included so it counts 🙂

I LOVE Halloween…really really love it!  August is usually when I start planning my costume.  I spend a lot of time in those pop-up Halloween stores and shopping online to make an awesome costume!  Axl Rose, Amy Winehouse (before there was a pre-made costume) Sarah Palin (see Amy Winehouse parenthesis) and this year….CATWOMAN!   Meeeeooooowwwww!

I do not like the costume in a bag versions of Catwoman, they do no justice to the fantastic-ness that is Michelle Pfeiffer

Let’s not even talk about the Halle Berry version, blasphemy.  So where’s the first place you go when you need a vinyl bodysuit? Church craft fair?  Nope.  Xpresions!  Porn shop to the suburbs.  Low and behold they had a shiny, long sleeved cat suit.

Only problem is there wasn’t really a back to it….at all.  It was open all the way down to about a quarter inch above inappropriate-ville.  I could wear it, but sitting down or bending over or any other quick movement would be out of the question for the night.  Not a problem with my handy dandy sewing machine!

I had some black super stretchy knit fabric left over from my anniversary dress that would work perfect for making a back.  I needed something really stretchy because the suit was tight and I would not have been able to get it on with a woven fabric on the back. I put the fabric inside of the body suit and just traced out the opening right onto it with a marker.  I cut about a little more that an inch outside the line to give myself some seam allowance.  I did a straight top stitch right along the opening to attach the two pieces together.

Now I had a sweet, more appropriate body suit, but it still needed something.  Stitches.  The perfect solution came from my desk at work – white out!  I tried my best to follow the pattern from the Michelle Pfeiffer costume – not that anyone would notice if I did or didn’t, but I put wayyy too much effort into my costumes.  For example, both my Amy Winehouse  and Axl Rose costumes had exact replica’s of their tattoos that I photoshopped and printed onto fake tattoo paper.  The extra effort is always worth it.

I completed the look with a Catwoman mask I got from Amazon.com, caked on makeup, high boots and fake nails which made it hard to do anything all night…yet they stayed on during cartwheels in pretend superhero fights.  Go figure.

❤