Unraveling Fiddleheads: Halloween 2014!

Hurray! Halloween is here! My favorite holiday to sew for. I actually finished the costumes a few days before Halloween, and I spent less then $4 on fabric. I'm feeling quite proud!
Do you remember Disney's Robin Hood? My brother and I adored that movie. We watched it over and over and over and laughed and laughed and loved it. My husband and his brothers all felt the same way. So last fall one day when Fern was sick we picked up that movie on itunes and have begun the indoctrination of our kids on all those old Roger Miller tunes. They love watching the adventures of that crafty fox, Robin Hood, his sweetheart, Maid Marion and that good-for-nothing scurvy Prince John.

I mentioned when we were watching the movie that maybe their dad and I could dress up as Maid Marion and Robin Hood for Halloween sometime, and Fern latched onto that idea right away. Except that she knew she wanted to be Maid Marion, and therefore her sister would have to be Robin Hood. This was all well and good when her sister had just turned two and didn't have too many opinions on things. As the year went on however, she began realizing the power of choice and has since refused to do just about anything unless it is her idea. So she went through her routine of thoroughly rejecting this idea, then coming up with it on her own soon after. And by the beginning of September they were both gung ho about these characters and I could begin trying to fit sewing into the free time that existed among 3 weddings and a week long family vacation out of the country that took place between labor day and Halloween.

Wow, they are cute.

I will do another post with more complete info about the construction process, but I will give an overview here. Fern's costume consists of two dresses, a hat with a veil, a necklace and a removable fox tail. Althea has a dress, hat, pants, mittens and a belt with a fox tail attached.

I decided to do two dresses for Fern instead of a dress with a blouse underneath because a) Maid Marian has many layers of skirts visible underneath that dress when she dances in the forest

b) I didn't have a pink knit that would have been good for making a turtleneck and

c) I did have a pink tablecloth that I came across in a free box while walking to pick up our farm share one day that has this awesome eyelet trim around the edge that was just too good to not use as the bottom edge of a dress. And it was the perfect light pink color.

So she has this pink wrap dress:

underneath the purple one for extra layers of skirt!

The purple dress is made from a bed sheet that she actually was currently using on her bed. She has two back ups though, and I couldn't help it. It was the perfect color and so soft. It is pretty thin though, so it is lined with an old bed skirt which has a ruffly edge to it.

The hat was made with interfacing that I had on hand from their Easter Bonnets, covered in the purple sheet. The veil was (I love this) a layer taken from a carefully disassembled bridesmaid dress that I wore in my brother's wedding last year. It has some really lovely drape to it.

Did you notice? She has a fox tail. She LOVES that thing.

She also has a necklace made from a lovely pendant that is a broken pin that belonged to my great grandmother. I didn't want to sew it onto the dress, or to make a choker for her, so we made a necklace with a matching purple ribbon and brought that blue from the Disney character's dress into our ensemble.

(she is wearing a turtleneck sweater under the dress in this picture as well to keep her warm for the parade)

Althea's dress is made from an old shirt of mine. My only fabric purchases were the yellow felt for her hat (which followed this tutorial), and the orange fleece for her pants and mittens. I got away with purchasing about a 1/3 yard of the felt, and 1/2 yard of the fleece. Both of which were already on sale and so totaled about $4. I had the red feather on hand already and we re-used an old belt. She had a perfect pair of faux fur / suede boots on hand already as well. And ta-da! There you have it.