Halloween is next week, so now is the time to start panicking about the kiddos’ costumes this year. Suddenly Costco doesn’t have anything interesting in your kiddo’s size and you don’t dare brave the chaos of those temporary costume stores that pop up this time of year… so now what?
Time to make some costumes, and quick!
This week, I’ll provide you with some great ideas for costumes you can make – even some no-sew costume options!
For some reason my boys have been asking for pirate costumes lately, yet neither want to be pirates for Halloween… so… ? I guess they just want to pretend to be pirates, which is cool. So tonight’s Quick Make is a pirate eye patch – an essential component of every pirate costume.
First, I found an eye patch pattern on Pinterest. Pinterest is a gold mine for giving me ideas. I usually see things I like, find out how someone else made it, then adapt the pattern/instructions to make my own version.
I traced this pattern onto my black felt with my handy Chaulkner, folded the felt in half, so that I CUT out two at the same time.
I then STITCHED the dart (folding the “V” cut together) with a 1/4″ seam allowance, and PRESSED the seam allowance open.
Next, I cut out some skull shapes and bone shapes, using a fabric marker for the eyes and nose. I cut out more than the two sets I ended up with, because I didn’t like the first few I made… That’s the beauty of using felt. It is cheap and easy to cut, so you can redo something several times to get it just the way you like. Don’t be afraid to redo a project if you don’t like the first result. You’ll do it better the second (or third, or fourth) time around – you learn something about how you want it done each time you do it.
I recommend fusing some fusible web (Wonder Under) to the white felt before cutting it – that way, you just have to peel the paper off and iron the skull and cross bones straight onto the eye patch without cutting pieces of fusible web in the shape of skull and cross bones 🙂 I was not that smart tonight. I blame the head cold I’ve been fighting. So I cheated and used stitch witchery (fusible hem tape). I just cut little strips of it. More tedious than it certainly needed to be. Ah well.
Once the skull and crossbones were fused onto the patch, I sewed on the strap (14″ long piece of black elastic – mine was folder elastic, just because that’s what I have in my stash).
The kiddos love them! Scott was busy studying tonight, so I’ll have to snap a picture of them wearing the patches together tomorrow.
I’ll be back Wednesday with some more costume ideas to help you survive Halloween season!
Happy Monday!
