Make it! Hallowe'en Costume edition

SO - this year the Big'un decided that he wanted to be a Knight for Hallowe'en. And so far, the littl'un has picked complimentary costume ideas... so HE decided he wanted to be a dragon. "Mama? You can make those costumes right?"


Uh........... right. Of course I can. Mama can make almost anything (see - I put the almost in there... Mama aint a dummy either)... and so.... I give you Hallowe'en 2012 costumes - make it!

Knight

This one was actually the easier of the two. FAR simpler than the work that went into the dragon costume. Here's the rundown:

slim pants (these were made out of a mans XL shirt)
hooded sweatshirt (same colour as the pants)
Knight's tunic (see pattern below)
Sword belt & Sword (purchased at Mastermind, but could be easily made as well)
Shield (made by the hubs)
Boots (thrifted and spray painted)

The tunic was a really simple piece. Just two pieces, a v-neck in front and slight scoop at the back. Cut the two pieces, with right sides facing, sew together the shoulders (marked with light blue lines), then sew up the sides (dark blue lines). You can either fold over and hem all openings, or you can use bias tape (that's what I did). Then hem the bottom to the right length - usually just over the knee is good.

The sheild was an old bucket lid that we attached vinyl straps to the back of and spray painted flat gray then shiny silver. The thrifted rainboots received the same treatment. And voila! A knight!

Dragon

Oh boy - Mama didn't think this one through. Ugh.

SO - we started with
a green hoody
An xxl mans long sleeve green shirt
a load of old flannel scraps (mottled green)
an old black pillowcase
some stuffing

First thing I tackled was the wings. They were actually easier than I anticipated. Because a)I only had scrap sized pieces of the mottled green fabric and b)I wanted it to look a big "ragged"  - I first sewed large pieces of the green mottled fabric so that I would have big enough pieces to cut wing shapes from - you def. don't have to do this. use a full piece of fabric and save yourself the time.

So, following the diagram below - cut two of each piece but with each fabric right side facing itself (so, green right side facing green right side, and black right side facing black right side) that way you end up with two mirror image pieces.

Then, sew with right sides facing the green and black pieces that match up, leave yourself a small opening, and turn. Use a chopstick or pencil to poke out the pointy wing tips. Then top stitch around the entire piece to close the opening and give structure to the wing tips.

After making both wings I hand stitched them onto the back and sleeves of the hoody so that when he moved his arms the wings would move. These are marked with the light green "x"s on my seriously uh-mazing paint diagram below.

Alright! At this point I made the littl'un put the hoody and run around for a while flapping his wings. Made me feel like I had accomplished something. Phew!

Onwards! Spikes etc!
Obviously - dragons require spikes. It's what makes them all...dragon-y and stuff. I didn't want to cut into the hoody too much so I made a long piece of spiky stuff to attach from the hood all the way down the back of the hoody. I used the xxl mens shirt arms to make the pants for the dragon costume (just simple arms to pants conversion - you could google it, but it's not hard to figure out) and then I used the body to make this part down the back and the tail. I cut a whole bunch of triangles out of the mottled green fabric and then... well, this is the pain in the butt part:

FIRST cut two long rectangle pieces of the darker green fabric. THEN line up where you want the spikes to be pointing down (so right sides are facing) and sew them down.

Press those spikes up so that you can use them as a template to line up the second matching set of triangles for your spikes on the other piece, sew them down and press up.

You should now have two pieces that look (sort of) like the diagram above. Put them right sides facing and sew a seam all along the edges going up to the point of each spike and back down again.
Turn and poke all the spikes right side out. Hem all the outside edges of the dark green fabric.

Stuff the spikes with cotton batting, then pin to the hoody starting at the front edge of the hood and going along the top of the hood, down the back and all the way down to the bottom of the sweater. If it hangs off the edge of the sweater DON'T turn it under, it will help to hide the top of the tail.

The tail is constructed basically the same way EXCEPT that after sewing on the spikes and sewing the seam going up to each spike point and back down again, continue down to the tip and around again to the top leaving the top open for stuffing. The tail can then be sewn over the waistband of the back of the pants.

PHEW!

The pants will be heavy. And if your littl'un is like my littl'un he'll want to shake his dragon tail - a LOT. Therefore, the dragon pants are held up by suspenders underneath the hoody.

AND THAT, my friends... is it!
Voila! Dragon!

Lots of work, but so worth it. RAWR!
Happy Hallowe'en!

Tea.