Halloween!

Originally, when I was planning out a costume for L.Soup, I had everything ready for her to be a princess.  Or a fairy.  Or maybe even a really cute witch.  See, my sister passed down this adorable dress that her daughter wore for our wedding when she was the same age as L.Soup is right now.  I thought it would be perfect for a costume.

My niece and sister at my wedding.

Then I started thinking about it, and realized that in a few years she's going to be asking to be a princess, or a fairy, or maybe even a witch.  So I needed something else.

I was going to try to fit the dress into whatever plan I came up with, but it seemed more tailored towards my first 3 options.

I finally settled on candy corn.  Figuring I could add a little satin fabric to the dress and make her look like the fanciest piece of candy corn ever created.  So I went and bought the fabric.  And then I hemmed and hawed.  Is this going to look completely ridiculous?  Is adding pieces of fabric to this dress going to ruin it?  Is it going to even look like candy corn when I'm done with it?  Is it going to be warm enough?

So I hedged the idea of using the dress.   But by this point I was pretty dedicated to the candy corn concept.  My mom mentioned she had a good amount of felt in pretty much every color, since she uses them for hair felties.  She was nice enough to let me use some of it, and Monday night I created THIS:

I took a dress that fits her right now and used it as a pattern.  I just flipped the dress inside out, and traced (leaving a little extra all the way around for seams) around the outside of the dress for each color section.  The bottom of the pattern dress hits her right about mid thigh, so I knew I wanted it to be a little longer.  The orange fabric in the costume goes to the same length as the actual dress, and then the yellow is extra. I traced and cut two pieces for each color.  I could have also just cut one piece for each color, and only had one seam.  The white pieces are shaped a little differently for front and back, so I decided to do two seams for each level.

I sewed the colors together, for each side (front and back).  Then I carefully sewed the first seam, making sure the colors lined up perfectly with each other.  I had to do some trimming in the arm holes because I apparently am terrible at tracing, but it wasn't a huge issue.  Finished up the other side and I was basically done.

I'm pretty excited about how it turned out.  I got to use my KAM Snaps at the shoulders and overall it's perfect.  I enjoy working with felt, because you don't have worry about cut edges unraveling.  It was nice to not have to hem every unfinished section.  That just meant that I had to be very neat when cutting the arm and neck holes and the bottom of the dress.

What are you doing to me right now?

It's a little long.  Actually, it's exactly the perfect length.  Except L.Soup hates that it covers her feet, and she continuously pulls her legs up to try to figure out where they went.  So I'm going to have to cut an inch or two off the bottom.  Not a huge deal.  I might put it on her a few more times before I do to see if she gets used to it.  I kind of love it the way it is.

I even got inspired while I was in the crafting room, and printed out the pattern I bought a few months ago to make L.Soup a winter coat.  I got all the pieces cut out, now I just need to tape them together and get started. 

Now I just need to teach L.Soup to say "trick or treat".

That, and not cry every time she sees someone she doesn't know.

Yeah right.