Happy Halloween!

I'm so proud to have made Madison's costume, in time for trick trunk-or-treating tonight!  I'm excited to share it with you, but first I've got to give a big shout out to Mrs. Dusek, my high school chemistry/physics teacher, without whom I would not know how to thread a needle.  Mrs. Dusek, I cannot for the life of me remember why we sewed moles for your class, but it sure saved me a lot of money this Halloween, so thanks!

Madison is going as Pebbles Flintstone this year.  Just imagine her sweet red ponytail.  I love it! 

Anyhoo, I decided on Pebbles about a month ago.  The original plan was to purchase her costume on Etsy.  Sure, thirty bucks (plus shipping) sounded like a lot of dough, but I figured, "Can you really put a price on that much cuteness?"  Well apparently you can, and that price must be a bit lower than $40, because I just couldn't make myself pull the trigger.

I kept putting it off, until Monday (t minus two days until Halloween!!!) rolled around and Madison STILL didn't have a costume.  So that night I did what any typical mom penny-pinching tightwad would do and went to Walmart for some material.  About ten dollars later, I left with a yard of green fleece, a thimble, a gallon of milk, and a lot of anxiety about my ability to make this thing happen.

Not one to be deterred, I got to work as soon as I put the milk in the fridge.  First, I used a yellow sharpie (because that's the first writing implement I found) to trace a slightly bigger version of this shirt onto the fleece.  I made it bigger because I knew that I would need extra room for my seam.  Turns out that people in the know call that a seam allowance. 

 After holding the first cut up to Madison, I realized it wasn't big enough.  Rather than starting over, I dubbed the first cut "the front" and just made the next one about two inches wider.

 At this point, Madison (aka my mannequin) had to go to bed, so I was flying blind.  I probably should have tabled the project until she woke up so I could double check the measurements guesstimations, but (spoiler alert) it worked out okay.  I hand stitched the sides and shoulders, pretty much making it up as I went along.  I have no idea if I threaded the needle correctly, tied the right knots, or used the appropriate stitch, but the shirt hasn't fallen apart yet, so I'm gonna go with yes.

 Patrick went to bed when I had finished three of the four seams.  I hadn't talked with him at all about how I was going to construct the costume, so he was surprised the next day when I "hid the seams".  That crazy guy didn't know that it was inside out!

As soon as Madison woke up Tuesday morning, I threw it on over her pajamas.  It fit!

 During her nap and a few snippets of time I stole while she played independently, I worked on cutting all the edges to look jagged and sewing black triangle flecks to the costume.  There are twenty flecks in all.  Phew!  Glad that's done! 

This is the most current picture I've got, it's about 80% complete here.  I'll share the final reveal tomorrow!  I don't want to risk ripping my amateur seams by putting it on her again unnecessarily.

Happy Halloween!
-Kelli