As I mentioned in Sunday's post, Henry decided that he would be The Fox and Max would be The Hound from the classic Disney movie. I am pumped that I got by one more year without having to buy a highly flammable (and highly crappy) super hero costume from my arch nemesis, Party City.
Guys, this is really simple. Just some felt, some stuffing, some elastic, and basic sewing skills. In a couple of hours you'll have a super cute Halloween costume that nobody else will have. And you'll laugh and laugh at all the matching Elsa's and Anna's and give yourself a mental high five.
THE GOODS:
- 1/2 yard orange felt (standard 44" width is fine)
- 1/4 yard white or off white felt (or 3 8"x10" sheets)
- 1 8"x10" sheet brown felt
- Polyester fiber filling (about 10 oz.)
- 3/4" elastic for the waist (1" narrower than the circumference of your child)
- 1/4" elastic for the mask (about 12" long)
- Orange thread
- White or off-white thread
- Brown thread (optional)
- free printable pattern
CUT YOUR PIECES: Download the free pattern and cut your pieces. You'll need to tape the 2 tail pattern pieces together. Lay them out and pretend you're done. Ah, if only.
SEW THE TAIL: Pin the orange so the zigzag covers the white. Make sure that both tail pieces line up when sandwiched together so your tail has a nice curved shape and it doesn't look like you were drunk when you made it.
It's also helpful if your child steals the pieces while you sew.
Top stitch the tail about 1/8" from the edge using orange thread.
Pretty! I love the look of topstitched felt.
Now put your tail pieces right sides together, pin them, sew all the way around leaving about a 3" gap near the base of the tail. See photo below.
Leaving the gap here makes it SO much easier to attach the elastic in the next step. Turn out your tail.
Take your 3/4" elastic and cut to 1" less than the waist measurement of your costumed kiddo. Overlap the ends about 1/4" and sew. Ideally you'd do a zigzag stitch, but my machine revolted and I had to spend 20 minutes taking my machine apart and undoing a whole mess of thread, so a straight stitch it would have to be.
Pin the elastic so the seam aligns with the seam at the base of the tail. Stitch on both sides (where I have my pins). That'll keep the tail nice and secure when another child inevitably tries to rip it off your kid.
Stuff the tail with fiberfill. I found that using a wooden kitchen spoon was pretty handy. I used the fat end to get the filling near the bottom, and the handle end to get the filling into the tip of the tail.
Turn the edges of the opening under and hand stitch them closed. I tried to take a photo for you guys, but it was blurry. Sorry. You'll just have to trust me. I used a whip stitch, but it's not really going to show. Frankenstein-stitch the thing closed if that's what you need to do.
I'm creating suspense here by not showing you the finished tail. You have to make the mask first. Ha! Or just scroll down. Or up to the first picture. OK, my plan has some holes.
MAKE THE MASK: Lay out your pattern pieces. So cute.
First, make the ears. Lay the white pieces on the brown, pin, and topstitch. I kept the orange thread in the machine because I'm lazy I like the way it looks.
Position the ears such that the orange part of the face will completely cover them.
Like this. You'll want about 1/4" overlap from the ears to the white base of the mask. It's occurring to me just now that you could put the ears behind the white and then you could put them wherever you want. Oh well. I like the way this looks.
Then topstitch. I just went all the way across because I'm lazy it's not going to show.
Pin the orange down.
Topstitch all the way around. Yes, even over the part between the eyes where there's no white below. It looks better.
Attach the nose with brown thread. I actually stopped being lazy here and changed the thread in my machine. But just the top thread, not the bobbin. Don't tell.
Attach the elastic to the sides, pinning it to the back. I switched to my off-white thread (top and bobbin...what a pain) and just went back and forth over it a few times to secure. You'll have to try and pin down your kid and get a head measurement at this point to ensure a good fit. Best of luck.
Ta da! Isn't he the cutest fox you've ever seen? And, yeah, that's my handy-dandy-tail-stuffing kitchen spoon there in the midst of the "campfire" we were building. Boys.
If we were going for Fantastic Mr. Fox here, I think I'd just let him wear this cute orange polo and call it a day. This happened to be what he wore to church that morning. Good thing for me, because the child HATES to change clothes for a photo shoot. Remember the legendary Boy Shorts incident?
I like the thickness of this mask for my 3 year old. Anything too thick and he tends to pull it off after a few minutes. If you want a mask with a bit more rigidity, you could double up (or even triple up) the white base layer. Or add some interfacing. Or whatevs.
Here's the final costume. I considered spending another $8 on an orange shirt and attaching a white oval to it to resemble the fox belly, but we already own this shirt, so.....a hipster fox it is!
For details on how I made these rockin' orange leggings, check out this post.
One costume down, one to go. Max's hound dog costume is going to be so simple. Like, done in about 30 minutes simple. I'm looking forward to it. I love projects that I can complete start-to-finish during a naptime.
YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY:
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment