Miss Kitty, have you ever thought of running away?

Quest: A Halloween costume for both a children’s Halloween Party, and for an adult’s dance party. Part I

Outcome:  The battle is yet ongoing but the beast will be slain. It might be a little messy, but it will be slain.

“What should I do for my Halloween costume?”  This question ran around in my head on and off for more than a month.  Last year I was making a Japanese inspired White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.  An unfortunate case of swine flu caused me to miss the Halloween celebrations altogether, and my costume remained unfinished.  I had made a mask, long furry tabi socks so I could wear geta sandals, fingerless furry gloves, and the body of a kimono styled top (but no sleeves.)  The things left undone were the top’s sleeves and closures, pantaloon styled shorts, and a waistcoat.  Basically all the not-fun tailored pieces.  

 I considered resurrecting this costume, I even thought I could ditch the  vest and be the White Hare of Inaba for the children’s party, as it’s something they would be sure to know (and gruesome enough to be scary, the rabbit has it’s beautiful fur torn off by a shark)  But it wasn’t quite what I wanted, and wearing geta to a dance party is not a good idea. Not to mention I have this fear of people thinking I'm a furry and/or a weebo.  I thought of doing Strawberry Shortcake, but the kids wouldn’t know her and it would have required some ambitious sewing on my part.  I wanted to use fabric I already had as well.  When I made a friend sock puppets back in March, I went on a spree and bought sheets of felt in every color because I bought them at the 100 yen shop and they were only a 100 yen.  The 100 yen shop is one of the most dangerous places for your wallet in Japan for that very logic.

             

One of the artists I follow on deviant art does lots of drawings from Toy Story and I recently saw

 Toy Story 3.  One day it clicked.  Eureka! Jessie would be the perfect costume!  It’s simple, very easy to make, and as she’s a doll, her outfit isn’t that detailed.  I had red felt to make the hat, white and black felt for the chaps, and yellow t-shirt fabric I could sew onto a white shirt to make Jesse’s cute cowgirl shirt.  I even already had wire to make a frame for the hat.  I thought to check my white felt, and it’s good I did because I needed more. So off to the 100 yen shop I went and bought myself two white t-shirts and a sheet of white felt.

            I planned to use one of the shirts as the base for the costume, and the other shirt as a fabric source to make the collar and long sleeves.  First I pieced together two scraps of yellow fabric so I had a large enough piece to stitch onto the shirt as the front yoke.  

Luckily Jessie is a doll, so her costume is pretty much a frontal piece, there are no details on the back.  Normally I take more care when making clothes, but as this is just a Halloween costume and going to be worn in a dark club, I was a bit messier with my sewing. I used red embroidery floss to chain stitch the rope pattern and edge the bottom of the yoke. 

That's about one day’s work.