Monday, October 3, 2011

The grand re-opening of Mama's Halloween Sweatshop

It's that time of year again. The only time of year that my tiny shred of domesticity comes to the surface. It's Halloween costume making time. Every year since I began grad school (except for last year), I set aside a month or two to sew Elliot a Halloween costume. I get to feel like I'm not a totally delinquent mom, and he gets a cool costume. I've always liked sewing - I think I mostly learned how to do it from watching my mom make stuff for me when I was little. It's a useful skill, and one that many people are surprised to find out that I have. I remember how exciting it was as a kid to try on things in various stages of completion and knowing that my mom put so much time and work into making something special just for me. I guess I just wanted to share those experiences with Elliot.

I still use the same sewing machine that stitched little clothes for a much smaller and younger me. It's almost 50 years old, but it's built like a Sherman tank:



There's really only three things I dislike about this machine: one is that it won't take a double needle for top stitching, it weighs a freaking ton because it's enameled cast iron, and the last thing is that it doesn't have a free arm. A free arm is a feature that makes it much easier to hem sleeves or any other small tubular opening without sewing the opening shut. The lack of a free arm makes sewing tiny children's sleeves almost impossible to get right on the first try.

I sewed my first Halloween costume for Chris (many many years ago) to wear to a Halloween party. He had long hair at the time and we found a plastic crown of thorns, so the obvious choice was to go as Jesus. The bonus was that he could carry around a big jug of wine to complete the look. He'd probably murder me if he knew what I was doing right now, but this picture is too good not to post:

Chris as Jesus. His dad (an elder at his Missouri Synod Lutheran church) was NOT happy about this.

I guess part of my reason for wanting to make Elliot's Halloween costumes is to avoid what every kid who lives in Michigan dreads when being readied for trick or treating. Behold the horror:

If it weren't for the cheap vinyl smock they called a costume in the early 80's, you'd think I was going sledding. My mom did make the cool Wonder Woman headband, but she would not let me wear my Wonder Woman Underoos as a costume. Boo.
Fortunately for Elliot, my traumatic memories of cold Halloweens have spared him much heartache and humiliation. I'll show you the costumes I've made for him so far, and tomorrow I'll finish with what I've been asked to make this year. I'll just say that this year will be different in that I am starting very late, just found out that he's been invited to a Halloween party in less than 2 weeks, and I have to draft my own pattern this time.

Batman 2007. Elliot was 3 years old. The cape was cut on the bias, so even the slightest breeze made it billow out fantastically. If it was socially acceptable for adults to wear capes, I totally would've stolen this from him.

Spiderman 2008. I made this using an awesome vintage pattern I found on eBay and lots of spandex. Thank God it wasn't cold that year! All of the webs were hand drawn with Sharpies. I went through a bunch of them. Elliot was 4 years old.

Scary T-rex 2009. This would've been a lot easier if he hadn't wanted to be "scary". I ended up using special automotive spray paint that actually sticks to the green fake reptile skin vinyl to make the belly a lighter color. Elliot also demanded that his costume have two-fingered gloves, since real T-rexes only have two fingers on each hand. Not sure where he gets his perfectionistic streak from. I ended up making "claws" out of Sculpey clay, and securing them (at least enough for pictures) with glue and tacking stitches. The head is paper mache. He was 5 years old, and this is the most recent costume I've made.

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