I am not a seamstress by any means. I quite literally broke onto the sewing by hand scene a couple years ago when I made my daughter’s Halloween costume. It wasn’t my first time making a costume necessarily, but it was the first time I had to figure it out without crocheting it.

My daughter was Sabine Wren from Star Wars Rebels in Kindergarten. Talk about a challenge. I didn’t have the essentials like special fabrics or a sewing machine that worked anymore, or a child size form to work around.

Back then I did it all with felt, clothes I could recycle and fabric cuttings that were left in the remnants bin at Joann Fabrics. After years of research and practice, I have finally gotten myself some new cost effective equipment, and still have to sew by hand.

Eventually there will be a post about trying to troubleshoot with my A-Line Baby Lock sewing machine, but that’s for another day.

Today, I’m here to tell you that your projects, however daunting, can be created with and without the extras.

Deciding On A Costume

First, we need to decide on a costume and do some research. By research, I mean look up the character we’re trying to create for visual references in all angles.

For an example, when my daughter told me she wanted to be Sabine Wren, my mind raced a little. I knew that wasn’t a costume I could buy. I knew that the character was older than my daughter at that point, and I was not, by any means ready to sew in a chest piece to show that difference. Alterations would need to be made to even remotely get this to work for her.

That and, I didn’t exactly know how to sew clothing yet.

In fact, the very first time I made an attempt on such a concept was when I helped my sister in law become Princess Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy on Halloween.

It would have been daunting to start with no knowledge of how to make dresses at all. Except, back then I had repurposed a bridesmaid’s dress I had from my other sister in law’s wedding. Knowing full well I wouldn’t have another use for it, I started working on removing a layer of the gauzy material to create the sleeves. After that, I adjusted the top around the shoulders and we were good to go.

I’d love to say I have a picture of it but I still haven’t found it. This was years ago. If I find a picture I will certainly update this section.

Choosing A Sabine Wren Costume

As for going forward with my daughter’s hopes to become a self empowered character, I collected what I could on Sabine Wren and made general attire assumptions based on what my daughter could easily wear at school. This is where the above comes into play. I knew that I could make a costume out of what we had, so why not invest in base layer clothing to support the art that would become Sabine’s armor?

To do this, I referenced the character once more. The underlayers were black for her shirt and brown for her pants. Therefore, I picked up a black sweatshirt and khaki pants from Walmart to start. I knew she had some black boots somewhere and so I grabbed some black socks so that we could extend her boots up her leg as comfortable shin guards.

Now all to do was add color to the shin guards, create a holster, make an easy belt that she wouldn’t have to fuss with, being a youngster and all, and her upper body gear.

I have to say, even though I was half way done, I knew I had my work cut out for me. Her upper body gear was a lot to think about.

Thank goodness felt did the trick on so many levels. Not only did it hold it’s own in places, but it also added a sturdiness factor that could act like armor. This was an asthetic I was very pleased with.

Cutting out the felt was another challenge. I did a lot of this by eye, which means, I didn’t really have the ability to create stencils to make the pieces. I also didn’t have the luxury of a form to get a general idea of how the pieces would look on a three dimensional form. To combat this, I measured pieces against my daughter whenever possible. It was also important to make it durable as well as wearable.

All of the pieces made were then added to the sweatshirt, including her belt.Her knee pads were floaters though. Those I made sure to sew into a thick band of elastic so that she could pull them up or adjust them when she needed to.

It’s been a couple of years since then and this sweatshirt still fits her. I will say that layering the felt gained thicknesses that was less than ideal. It was hard to sew that. I do remember feeling sore, especially while trying to press through sticky back felt. I purchased that to stick on the sweatshirt to hold the chest piece from moving. I’ve used pins to handle this in the past, before you ask. However, safety was an issue. Securing this properly to my highly active child would have been a complete disaster otherwise.

Notes on the shoulder pads: the yellow one was the most design heavy part of the costume by far. Regardless of this, I’m glad I didn’t give up. The stitching still holds and has seen many wash cycles since. I’m glad I decided to keep with it.

Notes on Add Sabine’s Props

As you can see in the above picture, I did purchase laser tag light blasters for this. They needed holsters on each side of Sabine’s hips. This was a frustrating part of the costume.When she’d move, the weight and shape of the blasters would fall of the holster. I tried about everything to get this to work properly too. I tried sewing the holsters into her waist band itself in four anchor points as well, but it just didn’t work. Truthfully, I still feel like she had a great time regardless. And who doesn’t like playing laser tag as their hero?

Finally, since we picked mid season Sabine. My daughter was thrilled to find blue and green hair sprays. It was all she talked about later that day.

Fall Guys Costume

That same year we purchased a blow up Fall Guys costume for my son. Being that he’s tall, we couldn’t purchase the child size inflatable. Instead we needed the adult size and it was just way too big. There was no way he would be able to do anything in class, let alone sit down in a chair. So of course I found myself needing to do a quick fix with him too.

I had him decide on a sweat shirt and sweat pants combo. Next, added a felt face to the belly of his sweatshirt. The only thing I had trouble with was the fact that the sweatshirt was new and every pull of the thread took the soft fuzzy material along with it. It made my white thread look blue.

You can also see where my stitching was all over the place. Holding the face down with pins only marginally helped me stay the course. Trying to find the right spot and pull the thread without it tying knots with every pull was tiring enough. Despite how much it bothered me, my son was ecstatic and wore the sweatshirt for as long as he fit into it.

Becoming a Box of Cocoa Puffs Costume:

The following year, my son opted out of Trunk or Treat. He also certainly didn’t find Trick or Treating to be any kind of exciting so he stayed in.

My daughter, on the other hand, decided she wanted to be a box of Cocoa Puffs.

Since last year’s costume was difficult, I was revealed to know that she came up with an easy one that year.

For this costume we got creative with a cardboard box. I contemplated covering it to give her some kind of warmth but stopped myself. The warmth she’d have would thankfully be in the layers within the inside of the box instead.

Drawing and painting took a pause here. Instead I snapped a picture of the boxes front and back image. We then went to Staples to print them as posters so that we could hot glue them to the cardboard.

Next, using dark brown yarn I had, I crocheted her a cowl that would go over her neck and shoulders. The stitch I used to make that was a bobble stitch, which when all of the bobbles were together looked more like the chocolatey cereal itself.

I literally kind of just went for it, completely paying attention to her measurements and needs. There is no pattern but I can certainly sit down and count it out if anyone is interested.

Cutting holes in the sides made it easier for her to move in, however sitting was a problem in class. She did have to take it off so that she could sit down in her seat and put it back on for some things but that didn’t stop her. Even the sing along was amazing. Watching her sit down on the floor so that her box was the only thing we could see was priceless.

With all of these projects under my belt over the years, I couldn’t imagine what my daughter would propose next. This year took the cake on requests, which also means it will need to be it’s own post. Knowing that, my daughters costume was none other than Fortnite’s bonus level skin of Emma Frost.

The bottom line is, you can do this too. It just takes time, discipline and a creative eye.

Until next time, have a good one!