Halloween Costume Angst

Erik wants to be the planet Earth for Halloween. We don't practice that Halloween costumes should be scary, though I considered making it a global-warming-themed Earth somehow--shrinking polar ice caps, perhaps. At any rate, he isn't wanting to be scary. However, the process of me sewing a Halloween costume, without a pattern, has been scary enough to make up for his benign costume.

First, I should make it clear that while I have basic knowledge about sewing, I have sewn very little in my adult life. Most of my knowledge comes from watching my mom sew for years. I've sewn a few things, but it's rare. The last time I had my sewing machine out was... I can't even remember. It was at least a year, though.

So, I started out with the idea to make a bigger version of this Loopy Ball (pdf link) without the loops. I made a pattern out of a brown paper bag, and cut out two. They were far too small to ever imagine 6 of them stretching around Erik in the shape of a globe.

Round two, I gave thought to the size of my son. I drafted a nice pattern, cut out the sections, and sewed them together (I did end up using 3 different kinds of blue fabric, but I found enough). The first two went smoothly. Then I had to add on the third. It took me awhile to figure out what to do. It finally dawned on me, but then I still didn't have it down perfectly, as I sewed piece 3 to the wrong side of piece 1, making the seam on the outside instead of inside. Oh well. I decided to put Europe/Asia over that spot and live with the imperfection.

It's a good thing, because the imperfections just kept mounting. The biggest gaffe came after I'd sewn the entire ball together. It looked great, and had such roundness potential. I was very excited, so I immediately cut the hole for the head and the waist.

Now, if I had taken time to think about it, I would have realized that the design meant that a small hole cut would be much bigger in reality. I didn't take time, though, and ended up with a hole for his head that would have passed over my entire body--shoulders included. We wont even talk about the waist!

I could have given up, slapped some puffy paint on a t-shirt, and called it a day. But no, Erik wanted to be a round Earth, and round I would give him. So I hemmed the neckline, adding in several large (very large) tucks so that it wouldn't fall right off (and decided to use safety pins to make up for the rest. I then got the brilliant idea to sew a casing for elastic on the bottom. It would be great--it would take care of the fact that it was far too big, as well as providing a good way to hold in the stuffing.

However, anyone who knows anything about geometry would be able to discern the problem that occurred when I tried that bright idea. The circumference of the bottom was far smaller than the circumference of the area above it, so when I tried to make a casing, I couldn't get it to match up. I even pulled out the pins and tried pinning it first, before it finally dawned on me that what I was trying to do was impossible.

Of course, in typical last-minute determination, I made it work. I will admit at this point that I badly longed to start over. If I had possessed any more blue fabric, I would have called this the draft and started over. I didn't, though, so I pressed on. I made the casing work by bunching up fabric, which worked because I no longer really cared what it looked like, as long as I could stuff it and make it roundish.

The hardest part was now done. I did still have to cut the armholes, but that went well (no expanding problems on the side, thankfully). I did an amazing job of freehand drawing an outline of all the continents on felt, which I then cut out and placed to Erik's specifications on the globe. He vetoed plastic bags as "too itchy" for stuffing, and we went to regular poly-fil, which passed the softness test for him.

After all that work, had I made a passable Earth costume? I wasn't thrilled, since in my head (before making it) it looked entirely different. But of course, the judge that mattered was Erik. Here is a picture of him the day before Halloween, as he looked in the mirror for the first time:



Yes, he liked it! He was thrilled with it, actually. So I tried hard to overlook the many imperfections I could see, and enjoy the wonder of it with Erik.

Even with all of the struggles, I really enjoyed the whole process. It was fun to sew something again. Now, will it get me inspired to sew more? I hope so, but I do recognize something else in my life will have to give if I want to sew. I do know I'll look forward to sewing a Halloween costume next year, and perhaps I will even start a little earlier this time!