Adventures in Costume Making

Josh's costume is done, and if you ask me, it looks pretty darn good. I am so glad I decided to make his costume. I admit I was a bit obsessed over this thing. Every night as soon as the kids were in bed, I would get to work and wouldn't stop until I had to go to bed. If I could have, I would have stayed up all night to work on it. At least I have work to motivate me to tame the crazy a little bit. So after gathering all of my materials and getting some very helpful advice from a little old lady at Joann's, I got to work. I made the cape first, since that was easy. I can handle cutting and gluing! After that I moved on to cutting out the pattern, cutting out the pieces of material and sewing it all together. After some finishing touches of velcro up the back, elastic around the wrists and ankles, and some bias tape (which I had never even heard of until this project) to keep the collar from being scratchy, the jumpsuit was all done. The only real mistake I made was getting the grain of the fur going in opposite directions on the front, but all in all, I would say not bad! Along the way I picked up some other handy sewing experience, like threading the bobbin and threading the sewing machine needle. The costume pattern also called for a hood. I made the hood, but figured it wouldn't really work for us. Since he would be wearing a hat, there wasn't any room to put the hears on the hood. And what do a guinea pig's ears look like anyway? Plus, the hood kind of made the whole thing a little creepy. So we decided to just skip it. Then I was on my quest to find the right hat for the costume. I tried and tried to find a youth sized golden yellow or yellowish-orange cap, but the only place I could find them was online, and the shipping charges were ridiculous! So I had to come up with a plan B. I found a white hat at Michael's and got some dye to make it just the right color. It turned out perfect! So without further adieu, the moment you've all been waiting for. Drumroll please...................
Here is a photo of the real Linny.







And here is OUR Linny!

When we are getting all dressed up on Halloween, we are going to give Josh a little pink nose and some whiskers as some finishing touches. I'm sure no one else will have any idea of what he is, but we will know. Josh is so excited to be Linny. I'm so happy I could make his Halloween for him!

I do have to pause and give a couple shout outs for those who helped me along the way. First of all my Mother-In-Law, Angie, a veteran seamstress, for giving me some awesome tips along the way. And my mom who let me use her sewing machine and helping me figure out how to use it. Thanks guys for all your help.

Here are some of the pictures I made Andrew take of me during this whole process. Happy Halloween!