Halloween Sewing

Way back in the summer, my daughter asked me to make her a Gryffindor House Hogwarts cloak for her Halloween costume.  She's always thought of these things much in advance and thankfully gave me lots of warning.  A couple of weeks ago, she asked me how it was coming along.  So of course, I sprang into action.  I figured it would take a couple of hours, but really, it took me the better part of a day and then some.  You know, because I had to draft out the pattern from a little diagram and had to make it durable and clothing like, instead of just a one use costume.  This Hogwarts cloak could be handed down to her grandkids, if she were to have any!

The sleeves had a funky design, that I would change a bit if I ever made a second one.  Here it is half finished.  Of course I don't have a photo of it finished, because I got the last hem stitch in 2 minutes before we had to leave to drop it off on Saturday!  She promised me a photo of her as Hermione though. 

Then I had to work on a project for myself.  A project for no reason other than I felt like it.  It's not like I'll be going anywhere for Halloween, nor is it likely that we'll even have a single kid knock at our door where we live.  We've had one in the past 5 years and that was several years ago.

This hat is made of felt.  I could only find cheap craft felt, so it's interlined, plus the brim is wired, twice, since the first time wasn't strong enough for my liking.  The fabric store had every colour and width of cotton bias tape, except for black in the size I wanted.  They had some sort of shiny, man-made fibre bias tape  in the right width, in black, which I used.  I had to slip stitch it down by hand, as it was pretty slippery.   It looks quite nice though.

The flowers are made from scraps of the hat felt, some very dark Blackwatch plaid ribbon (much darker than the photo), wire and

glass beads.   They were super easy to make, being a circle of felt, cut in a spiral, rewound and then glued on the bottoms.  I used a fabric glue for the flowers, but hand stitched everything on to the hat, because my glue gun died last year and I forgot to replace it.   It was at least 15 years old, so was likely about time.  But I won't get back into town before Friday, so hand sewing it was.

If I do this again, I think I'll try a funky purple or grey, with black design quilting cotton, with big tulle and silk or paper accordion pleated poofy flowers.  And I'll replace the glue gun, just for speed and simplicity. Or just maybe I'll weave the fabric first.......