Sewing Halloween

Sewing this year's Halloween costumes was so very enjoyable for me. My collection of vintage patterns provided almost everything I needed to make them. For the cowgirl outfits, I used the patterns below. Lulu's puffy sleeve dress was the absolute cutest. Even though she was mostly covered up with her suede jacket (which I found at the Goodwill while I was pregnant with Penny), her shoulders look so adorable in this dress. The pattern, like most vintage ones, is only one size, so I'll definitely be making a couple more before she outgrows it. I bought the lasso fabric at Fabric Depot here in Portland a while ago, and the scraps I had left embellished Penny's western jacket from the pattern below (right). The blue fabric for the jacket was a cotton/nylon I bought at the Pendleton Woolen Mill outlet. It was great to sew and washes well, but it wrinkles quite badly, which has been a surprise. It took everything in me not to sew Penny a matching pair of bell bottoms, though I new she'd never wear them. Instead, she wore a thrifted bandana skirt ($1.99) and cowgirl boots from Ebay.

Penny's princess dress was from the vintage pattern below. Before I left London, I visited a shop I know that sells almost every Liberty print at 30% off. So I have a small stash, mostly small amounts of yardage, that I'm determined not to let sit on my shelves forever. She wanted to be a very pink princess ("Everything has to be pink, Mama. VERY PINK.") and she liked this print, so I sewed it up, using scraps of linen and shiny stars from a previous dress she's outgrown (and stained) that I sewed on the bodice.

Still, when I finished the dress, I felt it wasn't fancy enough. We talked about wings, but she didn't care to be a fairy princess. So after some pattern hunting, I found McCalls 7036 and to my surprise, she absolutely loved wearing it!

Their costumes have actually been in pretty frequent wardrobe rotation. Penny wore her bolero to the park yesterday, and she looked like a character from Blade Runner. My hope is that even if they don't want to wear them as everyday dresses and things, that we'll have an ongoing costume box that they'll enjoy for years to come. Lulu sure has enjoyed putting on Penny's sparkly pink shoes. Probably more than Penny :).