For Halloween, Libby wanted to be Minnie Mouse. Actually, I finally found some Minnie Mouse-esque polka dot fabric and brought it home. I've had my eyes out for it for two years. Why is it so hard to find? Anyway, I brought home the fabric and showed it to her and then she wanted to be Minnie Mouse. Good girl!
Gracie wanted to be a dolphin. For school, the kids could be an animal, any animal. They had an animal unit and they learned about habitats, what animals eat, all sorts of things like that. She chose dolphin and she would not change her mind. I suggested a hundred other animals that would be easier to sew, but she was determined and so, I became determined too. I bought a nice blue fleece fabric, but she rejected that right away. It was the right texture, wrong color. Dolphins are gray, they just look blue in the ocean because the water is blue. Ah, ok. Back to the store for a more realistic colored fleece.
Fenna decided to be a woodland fairy. She was on her own though, luckily I didn't have to insist that she make her own costume. She was all over it! She found a youtube video with a tutorial and the costume looked very cute. We shopped for the necessary materials, but that's as far as my involvement went.
For the Minnie Mouse costume, I used a simple dress pattern. I have quite a few that would have worked well so I chose one that I know fits her nicely. I added ties to the sides, because she's so skinny that she needs to cinch up anything around her waist. The ties also make the big Minnie Mouse style bow in the back of the dress and cover up the little crookedness from my not so talented zipper installation, haha. The polka dot fabric is thin, so I lined the dress. I used a red broadcloth to line the bodice and a white broadcloth for the skirt lining. I sewed on a piece of eyelet lace to the bottom of the white skirt lining so it would show just like the real Minnie Mouse. I decided not to make a collar. I know Minnie has one, but I was in a hurry to finish these costumes and I didn't think Libby would notice the lack of a collar. I got lucky on that too! I did make a hairbow complete with black ears, but she refused to wear it.
The dolphin costume was complicated to even begin to think about it. I researched dolphin costumes online and didn't like anything I saw, which was a limited amount of resources anyway. There just aren't very many kids dressed as dolphins out there. I asked the boss, "what do you think the dolphin costume should look like?" She gave me very specific instructions about the shape of the snout, it has to have a white belly, a tail that looks just so, and fins, don't forget the blowhole!
I had to wing it for most of the dolphin costume construction, but I did use a pattern for the basic structure. I chose an old outdated hooded pullover jacket pattern. Who knew you could get a dolphin out of that? Gracie provided the rest of the instruction and I googled pictured of bottlenose dolphins for the shape of the fins. Piecing them all together went well and next thing you know, Gracie was the proud owner of a dolphin costume! She wore it all day long at school, it was sweaty when I picked her up. Eww.
Fenna made her own fairy costume. She was a woodland fairy rather than a tinkerbell fairy. She used 12 yards of tulle in various shades of green, brown and yellow. Then, she cut a Tshirt to get the right neckline (with a tank top under of course), and finished it off with a long leather ribbon around the waist. We searched and searched for white fairy wings to complete the outfit, but they just weren't in stock anywhere this year. We did find several colored wings and some angel wings, but they weren't right. She still rocked the fairy costume without wings. Totally cute!
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