A Harry Potter Halloween III: Characters Most People Don't Remember Edition

 

I'm sure this will come as a major shock, but we chose Harry Potter as our family costume theme again this year (2011's costumes and last year's).  At this point, we're starting to dip into the secondary and probably tertiary characters, so whenever an average person (read: non-obsessed) asked who we were going to be, there was generally a lot of explanation on my part, followed by them smiling and nodding and most likely still having no idea what I was talking about. Ray was Professor Lupin, I was Tonks, E was Luna Lovegood, and O was a "generic Slytherin student."

Inspiration photos

Last week was Kid's Clothes Week, and while I didn't officially sew along and keep up on the blogging this time (I have such a major backlog from summer still to post about!), I did make a couple of the kids' costume elements.  As much as I love crazy costumes, I was happy that this time their things are all re-wearable on a daily basis.

I started with Luna's skirt, the Montmartre from Ottobre Design 4/2010.  It's a pleated woven skirt with a knit fold-over waistband and an elastic casing.  I made the size 98 width/104 length and cut the waistband only half as high to eliminate the fold.  I also cut the waistband off of some RTW knit shorts and serged them on at the same time as the skirt's waistband.  I love how it turned out.

The stars glow in the dark!  I think the "real" Luna would approve

Next up was a Hogwarts sweater for O to go with his button-down, black jeans, and Slytherin tie from Ebay.  I had some charcoal grey sweater knit in my stash and sewed it up using my old standby, the Fishsticks Designs Charlie Tee.  I sized up, as recommended for the hoodie version, and winged a v-neck based loosely on the Mamu Design Sabrina pattern.  I was a little nervous about both the fabric and the v-neck, since I'd never used either before, but it went together really seamlessly (heh).  I serged everything except the neckline and had zero problems.

So much faster than knitting a sweater!

His shirt is untucked underneath, so it looks kind of bunchy, but the fit is great.  I think he'll get a lot of wear out of this.

Then this week I made E's Luna jacket from the Ottobre 1/2010 Variksenmarja coat pattern, size 104.  It's meant to be corduroy with a lining, but I made it unlined out of sweatshirt knit that I ordered online.  IRL it's more of a burgundy than the pink I thought it was going to be and as it appears in most of these photos.  I was a little bummed about that, but it turned out so cute that I'm over it.  I rounded the collar and cut about 4" from the length.  

The sleeves were also just about perfect for her before I hemmed them, so to eek out as much length as possible, I used single-fold bias tape for the hems.

The neckline is finished with the same thrifted vintage bias tape. This technique always makes me inordinately happy.

This might be my favorite project all year.

The lion hat was from a thrifted costume that I cut the hood from and finished with bias tape.  We added tights and legwarmers over her AFOs and her usual footwear, Chuck Taylors, which Luna also wears.

It was super windy last night when we were taking pictures.  E was not a fan of that part.

Lupin's suit and tie were from the Goodwill Outlet (textiles by the pound!!).  There were matching pants too, but they were several sizes too big and I ran out of time to alter them, so Ray just wore some brown pants and a dress shirt he already had, and we added some facial scars with makeup.

I had planned to sew a more Tonksish coat for myself, but of course ran out of time. On the plus side, our costumes were actually ready before we needed them, and I was never sewing into the middle of the night.  My sweater, hoodie, t-shirt, and leggings were a combo of things I already owned and bought knowing I would wear them otherwise.  I also got to dig out my vegan Doc Martens that were a College Sarah wardrobe staple.

I remembered them being a lot more comfortable.  Those suckers are heavy!

 The driving gloves and wig were Ebay purchases.  I wasn't expecting to like the pink hair at all, since I don't do much pink, and pretty much never pastel.  But I really like it!  Too bad I'm both too cheap and too lazy to do it for real and keep it up.

I made the necklace from faux leather and ribbon clasps from Joann's and buttons from St. Vincent de Paul.  I don't know about you, but our St. Vinnie's has a fantastic button selection, and they're so much cheaper than buying them new.  I always try to check there first on the rare occasions that I plan ahead.

E was giving O some serious side-eye by the time we finished with photos.  It cracked me up when I saw this one.

I think she was confused by his spell-casting.  He was very, very into it.

A Harry Potter Halloween: 2013 Edition

Happy Halloween!

O wanted to do a family theme for costumes this year (yay!), and we kicked around a lot of ideas, but finally settled on Harry Potter again.  It took a while to decide on characters, since we didn't want repeats -- although O went from "generic Death Eater" to Lucius Malfoy specifically.

After much debate, we picked Crookshanks for E.  O thought we should really have a Hermione if Crookshanks was part of the group, but eventually came around to the idea.  A cat is perfect for her anyway, since she and our cat are BFFs.  Well, more like frenemies, but they are pretty much inseparable.

The cat costume costume is from Butterick 3238.  I made a 5, which is what she wears in RTW (albeit a slim in pants when I can find them).  It was roomy, but about what I expected.  I wasn't crazy about the fit of the hood, but it got the job done. 

I'd found some more cat-like faux fur at Joann's but they were 1/2 yard short of what I needed, so I ended up with this rather vibrant fleece.  At least it was cheap and super easy to sew.  My primary goal this year was to not stress about the details, especially for E's costume.  It's highly unlikely it will be worn again, hence the stash muslin lining for the hood rather than buying matching fabric.  I also didn't bother with shoe covers for the same reason.  And I may have run out of time to make those. Whatever.

O's cloak is McCall's 5952 and some cheap cotton/poly bottomweight fabric also from Joann's.  It also went together easily, although I should have checked the sizing before cutting it out.  I made his RTW size (8), and ended up taking 2" off the sleeves, leaving them to hit in the middle of his hand for some growing room, and 4" off the hem.  I really should have taken even more off the hem, since it dragged in the back if it wasn't situated perfectly and it's been raining all afternoon and evening, so he came home from trick-or-treating with a pretty soggy cloak.

I really liked how the neckline was finished with bias tape.  I'll have to remember that for other things that don't call for it in the directions, but could really use a cleaner finish. (I'm looking at you, Modkid Sydney!)

The only other modification I made was to curve the bottom of the sleeves so they weren't so pointy.  Lucius doesn't seem like a pointy sleeve kind of guy to me.  Actually, he probably would have a  tailored sleeve, but I wanted to make it a pretty generic cloak.

One of the things O really wanted to have was Malfoy's walking stick.  Since we weren't about to spend nearly $100 on a costume prop, we made our own out of a big dowel, clay, adhesive "emeralds", and some paint.  It's a little lumpier than either of us would have liked, but considering he's eight and I spent my semester of high school pottery drawing instead of actually touching any clay (my small-town school was not overly demanding -- ha ha), we did okay.  He was quite happy with it overall, and it was a fun project to do together.

Ray and I were Hagrid and Professor Trelawney, respectively.  Our costumes were primarily from our existing wardrobes and thrift stores.  I did buy some cheapo prescription glasses from Zenni Optical, since I have a few more future costumes in mind that would require similar frames.  And then I bought Ray's wig/beard combo from one of those pop-up Halloween stores.  The "Jesus" wig was the only one that was suitable, and I felt all weird buying it, wanting to tell people that we weren't actually going to use it for Jesus (I didn't, because who would actually care?!  They're all in there looking for sexy policewoman costumes or whatever, so I doubt they're judging me and my Jesus wig).  Can you tell I have a hang-up about religious costumes?  Also Native American costumes, but that's a bigger issue than I really need to get into at the moment.  Back to secondary Harry Potter characters!

We had a fun Halloween, and it was relatively low-stress. That doesn't mean I wasn't sewing the hem of O's cloak this afternoon, of course, but it really wouldn't be a holiday if I wasn't scrambling to finish something up at the last minute!

Handmade Holidays: Ornaments

For the first time ever, I actually accomplished my goal of making at least one handmade gift for every person on my list!  We just won't talk about when I finished up my list.... Well, in all honestly, I still have one thing to make.  I gave my oldest nephew an IOU as part of his so I could consult with him a bit, but for all intents and purposes, I'm calling it a win.  Next year, though, I need to start much earlier!  (Every year I say, "Next year I'm going to ____!)

I'm continuing the tradition of making an ornament for each of the kids with something that was representative of their year.  E's was once again based on her Halloween costume. I used this tutorial to make her a Raggedy Ann ornament using the yarn from her wig and fabric from her costume dress.  I think my clothespin base must have been thinner than the original, because I had to change the proportions of several things, especially the arm length, which I shortened considerably.  I also sewed a tube for the sleeves instead of wrapping the pipe cleaner, in order to have finished edges.  Instead of the gingerbread button, I cut a heart out of felt and embroidered her name (blurred out in the pic) and the year on it.  It was a putzy project, and I think I may have glued the head on a bit crooked, but the finished product is pretty cute.

O is very into all things Egyptian, thanks to Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles, so I decided to go with that theme.  I made his from Fimo clay "engraved" with hieroglyphs from a generator that I found online but forgot to bookmark (this was late Christmas Eve, of course) and painted with a few coats of metallic acrylic paint.  His name and the year are written on the back with Sharpie.

I also made a golden snitch ornament for my oldest niece, a fellow Harry Potter geek.  I got the idea from this one on Etsy, which has much cooler wings.  It took me forever to find paired wing charms, but I did finally find some at Michael's.  The wings don't like to stay in place, but it is still pretty funny.

More Ornaments

The only gifts for my kids that I made this Christmas were felt ornaments. E. got her own owl ornament.  O. asked for one too, but I told him I'd seen something else he'd like even better.  I was right; he was thrilled.  I mean, really, what says Christmas joy like Darth Vader??

I also embroidered their names and the year on the backs.

O. had a playdate with one of his buddies a few days after Christmas and wanted to make him a gift also, so we made another book ornament.  This time, the book of choice was the Harry Potter Lego book, which was O's "something to read" this year (We do the "something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read" thing, plus a gift from Santa and stockings).  His friend had brought it to school earlier, so we knew he was a fan as well.

Continuing with the Harry Potter theme, which seems to be a constant in our house, I made the older of my nieces a Weasley sweater ornament.  Not just a Weasley sweater, though, but one for Draco!  I'd asked my brother which character he thought she'd choose, and that was what he said.  O. was befuddled.  Ha.  She later told me that it was probably more Tom Felton that she liked than Draco.  ;)

I had the pattern from Charmed Knits, but was looking for something in the round, so when I found someone's top-down raglan modifications on Ravelry, I was sold.  Done and done.  I can see many more of these in my future.  

A Harry Potter Halloween

For years I've been planning to do a family theme for Halloween, but haven't actually accomplished this since it was just the husband and me as Richie and Margot Tenenbaum a looooooooooong time ago -- until this year! 

O. decided he wanted to be a Death Eater from Harry Potter, so we determined E. would make a great Hedwig, which left the husband to be Harry, and my hair made me an excellent candidate for Ginny Weasley.

The Death Eater costume started with a blank cardboard mask that we spray-painted silver.  O. then added the details with some pewter paint.  I tried very hard to let him do most of it (I may have a bit of a control problem when it comes to crafting...), and just helped with the spots that had too much paint.

The cloak is sewn from twill, based on this tutorial, sized down.  I rounded the hem at the sides so that it would be even, and also rounded the back neck, and left it unlined.  We were pleasantly surprised that the hood would stay up in a point (for a while) in true Death Eater fashion.

He decided on a striped long-sleeved tee underneath, to look like he had escaped from Azkaban.  It's sewn from the Fishsticks Designs Charlie Tee pattern.

Our little Hedwig's costume started with a quick fleece pullover jumper dress, so I went with my old fallback, the Ottobre 4/08 Nasta Pinafore, which has now been the basis of three out of her four Halloween costumes.  This year I added two inches and flared out the hem a bit more than last year's bee costume. 

Her wings are the Martha Stewart Masked Owl, printed at 450%.  Instead of ironing the pleats, I sewed tucks, since I was using cheapo poly felt rather than wool, and she was going to wear it a few times, so I wanted to be sure that they'd keep their shape.

Her hood is from the now OOP Simplicity 9331, which is a hand-me-down from my sister, who made an adorable leopard costume from it that I think all of her kids wore at least once.  I was happy to put it to good use again.  :)  My original plan was to add ears, until I realized that Hedwig, a snowy owl, doesn't have ear tufts.

For her feet, I made another pair of Super Slouchy Boots.  These are just a single layer of fleece, and I added three rows of shirring at the ankle to help them stay on.  For the talons, I sewed some fleece scraps into a cone shape, and then used liberal amounts of hot glue to attach them to the boots and shape them.

I had originally intended to sew robes for the husband and myself too, but not surprisingly, ran out of time.  Most of our costumes came from our closets and thrift stores, with ties from eBay.  I did hem my pleated skirt, which you can't even see in the group photo, but hey, it's a bit of sewing!

 Happy Halloween!