Halloweening

I love the freedom they feel to choose any costume they could want and the faith they have in me to be able to pull off an accurate representation of their vision. I love the thrill and the rush of seeing a pattern come together and their excitement as they try on the works in progress for fittings. And as they get older, I love that they come to appreciate just how special a handmade costume is and how lucky they are to not be limited to what is on the store shelves. I know the day will come when they no longer want me to make costumes… my oldest is 11 after all. But I will cherish these days and push through the late nights without regrets for just as long as I can.

This year we had a Grim Reaper, Vanellope Von Sweetz from Wreck it Ralph, and a little Ponyo… But before I get to the costumes, I just want to highlight some of our food and fun from Halloween week.

We kicked off our Halloween week with a party, the perfect excuse to try my hand at a fancy festive entremet with mirror glaze and my standard pumpkin deviled eggs. The entremet is certainly worthy of its own post, and it may get one as we get closer to Thanksgiving. But the deviled eggs are a breeze… just your basic deviled eggs (cooked yolks, a little mustard, lots of mayo, sprinkle of paprika) but mix the paprika in with the yolks and add a bit of food color. I like to scoop my filling into a plastic bag with the corner cut off or a piping bag to pipe the filling into the eggs. It makes for a much faster fill and nice round pumpkin centers. Snip a few green onion tops for the stem and done!

Pumpkin carving almost always waits until the weekend before Halloween for us because in Western Pennsylvania, the warm days seem to hold on a little too long to do it any earlier… lest you end up with slumped, wrinkled pumpkins on trick or treat night! Bella, my 11 year old, designed and carved her dragon pumpkin completely on her own. The younger two had a bit of help.

I will likely be working right up to Trick or Treat time to get the last of the accessories finished, and as usual, I didn’t actually get to my own costume (I was supposed to be Ponyo’s mom) other than making the beads of her jewelry). Perhaps my oldest will string up the beads for me and I can wear a light blue maxi skirt and T-shirt that I already own in order to approximate her for our own party next Saturday. At this point I still need to finish an orange wig and a little fishy sister for Fiona’s Ponyo costume… but the costumes themselves are complete and that’s the most important part!

Vanellope Von Sweetz costume was a lesson in frustration. It was SO simple, basically just regular, every day clothing. The first struggle was not being able to find striped fabric to approximate the leggings. Adding my own stripes and appliqueing them onto knit fabric was a chore, but definitely necessary to match the design. The next material acquisition difficulty I encountered was the thick, pink draw string. I ended up buying some yarn and just twisting my own rope for the drawstrings, it worked perfectly.

But by far, the biggest frustration was this skirt! Measure twice, cut once… always make sure your fabric is positioned the right way for cutting. Check it twice and then check it again. Whoops! I cut the fabric the wrong way even after all of those precautions to myself. It happens in life, and we just have to pick up the pieces and figure out how to move forward. In the end, I lost about 12 inches of width on each of the skirt layers so it should have been a bit more full which may have helped with the pleats and the overall look of the skirt, but it still works… and it is only a Halloween costume after all. All in all, I worked on measuring, pressing, and sewing those pleats for at least 2 days, then a third day playing with some matching tulle to ensure I could keep the pleats aligned but that the top layer would stick out slightly from the bottom. Much bigger project than it seemed at first glance!

Overall, Evie loves it and despite not being pleased with my cutting mishap on the skirt, I think it’s a great approximation.

As much as I love Evie’s hoodie (did I mention that? I LOVE the hoodie!), I think my favorite costume over all is Fiona’s Ponyo costume. Since much of this dress pattern was created from scratch, I was sure to sew a partial practice dress with some scrap fabric to be sure the pattern was well-shaped and sized correctly. I think I may end up finishing it when things slow down (HAHAHAHA) for a fun Spring dress.

Ponyo’s dress is basically just a red dress with fluffy white bloomers. Fiona was worried people would think the bloomers were a diaper so it was extra important to make sure she loved them. It took a few iterations, but I am so pleased with the end result. The bloomers have a strip of gathered tulle attached between the main fabric and lining around the leg holes to give them their poof. They hang lower like shorts so that they will peak out beneath the dress.

Crafting the sleeve shape was a bit of a challenge. I’ve never sewn a double layered sleeve before, but I knew it was the best way to get that necessary poof at the sleeve cuff. I did a lot of seam ripping after I realized I had to do construction in reverse order of what I had planned. It all worked out, and it made me that much more excited when the finished dress all came together!

In the end, I know I won’t get done everything that I wanted to… I’m learning to adjust my expectations and focus on the joy of what I DID get done. My kids will probably wear these costumes at least 4 more times this week and then they will go in the closet and I’ll pick one to enter in the County Fair next summer – generally whichever one has been played with the least between now and then!

Happy Halloweening!