Little Red Riding Hood Halloween

Princess Victoria is finally old enough to really enjoy her real first Halloween! My daughter and son-in-law left the particulars of the costume up to me!

Taking a break on the swings at Groupon!

A couple years ago I thrifted a deep red rayon velvet dress from an antique /vintage shop. My original intent was to make Christmas stockings with them but there was not enough fabric for 5 stockings plus we decided that the Christmas stocking we currently have are perfectly fine and lovely.

I had just put the dress in the thrift shop box when we started talking Halloween and Little Red Riding Hood just popped in my head! I wanted to make this an easy costume for her to wear and easy to be put on and off. The velvet dress had just enough fabric to make the hooded cape from McCall's 7237. I made the smallest size and it turned out perfect length for my tiny granddaughter. I eliminated all facings and serged all the seams and just turned and topstitched the hems.

The cape confused her at first, she kept trying to find armholes to put her little arms through! She quickly got used to it and then was distracted by candy...

The tulle skirt was made by cutting strips of glittered tulle and tying it to elastic. This little pull on tulle skirt was great for this costume and will also be good for dress-up playtime.

On Friday Groupon, where my daughter works, was having trick or treating for all the kids. We signed up and I brought her Trick or Treating and bonus was she got to spend the afternoon with mommy and grandma!

Riding the elevator and ready to fill her basket!

Such excitement on her little face as she ran down the hallway between the 2 sections of Groupon. She kept her hood up the entire time and was such a ham. Waving and blowing kisses at each of the candy stations. :)

It was really such a joy to sew up a Halloween costume for Princess Victoria!

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

The Halloween Party

My 50's girl Halloween costume was great! It was fun to wear and looked good too.

We all had a great time at the Halloween Benefit Bash. There was about 1700 people and it was held in the great hall of Union Station in Chicago.

Halloween Custume 2009 Part Three: the Final Outcome

I am ready for the party! Third time was the charm in making this 50's poodle skirt. The new fabric that I bought was a linen like fabric that I found on sale at JoAnn's. The waistband has no elastic and no gathering so the effect is much slimmer than heavy felt gathered at the waist!
I also made a slight change to the crinoline... shortening by about 10 inches.

Below are pictures of the final costume. I'll have to play dress up for my husband so he can take some pictures before the Halloween Party. Stay tuned!

The final product :)

This time I could cut the fabric out on my cutting table instead of the den floor!

Zipper and button tab detail.

Poodle detail, used fake curly fur.

Shortened crinoline

Ribbon for my hair and bobby socks.

Halloween Custume 2009 Part Two: not very successful!

Or maybe just plain HORRIBLE!!
Last Sunday I spent all afternoon working on my Halloween Costume, I was excited to have a big block of time and felt confident that I would get it done and that it would look awesome.... HAH....
I went from Horrible to Horrible take 2 to literally throwing away all that pink felt AND the pattern in to a large black garbage bag. What was I thinking???? or more accurately why wasn't I thinking??? The pattern that I was using was just plain bad and if I had spent a few minutes thinking about what I wanted my finished garment to look like I would have known that and I would have never, ever bought felt. ugh... total brain lapse on my part.

Monday, I spent a little time talking to mom and checking out some pictures in the Internet, I then drafted a new pattern and headed back out to the fabric store.
Take 3 is much, much better! (still not a skirt I would wear in real life but acceptable for a costume!)

Still putting the finishing touches on so you will have to wait for a 'final' pictures in tomorrow's post.

HORRIBLE

HORRIBLE take 2
I was actually laughing so hard that I was crying!

Crinoline was way too long...

bad, bad pattern

Halloween Custume 2009 Part One

I started working on the poodle skirt tonight. Hubby went to a drawing class so I had several hours of uninterrupted sewing time. I have to say that even though I really love dressing up for Halloween, I sometimes dread the making of the costume. I mean seriously would you look at that pile of materials... Stuff I don't normally sew with.

The skirt itself is going to be the easy part, it is making the darn petticoat/crinoline to put under it that is a pain in the arse to do. And of course the pattern said you only need 2 yards of tulle for the underskirt, who are they kidding! Maybe if you want some seriously flat and lame poodle skirt. I started off with 9 yards and I will see how that looks. I can always add more if I need it.

Oh well, it will be fun and I will look awesome for the Elekta Halloween Cancer Benefit Bash. That by the way is why I choose to do a pink poodle skirt in the first place... October is Breast Cancer awareness month and the 'official' color is pink. Even the NFL players are wearing pink!

The huge pile of pink fabrics... felt, tulle, netting and sparkly tulle and some lining material.

Fortifications in the form of Scotch and chocolate to mess with all that tulle!

The felt nearly covered the floor in the den!
That is allot of pink.


Going old school for part of the sewing and using the mechanical Necchi.

The Necchi with a ruffler attachment.

Sure was not going to hand gather all that tulle!

Piles of gathered tulle.

First layer pinned on.


That is it for now... I am off to bed! Stay tuned for more on the Poodle Skirt!