A Halfway Homemade Halloween: Featuring Merlin, Mad Madam Mim, a Vampire, a Princess, and a Shark

If I were a better person/blogger, I may have had these costumes finished much sooner. I also may have insisted on having everyone put on their costume during the day so we could have optimal lighting for a photo shoot. I definitely would have taken pictures before going to a Halloween party where mustard definitely made its way onto at least one of the costumes.

But, alas, I am a regular person/blogger who doesn’t get paid for any of this and so you get what you get! Poor lighting, mustard stains, and all!

At the beginning of the month, we did something we had never done before, which is straight up buy Halloween costumes from the store. I think that is exceptionally boring, but also sometimes necessary.

We outfitted this adorable shark.

And we got this girl a peacock costume. She, clearly, does not resemble a peacock. Upon trying on the peacock costume, she found it very itchy (she’s pretty sensitive about fabrics). She hated the idea of returning it but can’t bring herself to wear it either. Oh well, she makes a very cute princess (costume courtesy of our dress up box).

This girl wanted to be a spooky vampire and she wasn’t able to find what she wanted at the store and was perfectly fine having me make her costume. She can be a tricky person to make for because she is very creative and seems to have a specific vision in mind. Mind-reader I am not so I’m always worried I’m getting it wrong (and I think most of the time I do!) but she seemed happy with what I was able to make for her.

She picked out her fabrics (satin and velvet, all black!) and the trims (red ribbon and red gem buttons). I used the Galena dress pattern from Little Lizard King. It’s not the most accurately drafted of patterns (for example, it has you cut sleeves on the fold), but the pieces go together well and it works for a kiddo! I changed the sleeve to make it a bell sleeve (which you can’t really make out in the photos, sorry!) and also lengthened it to be ankle length. I made a size 6 but lengthened the bodice 1 1/2 inches.

She wanted a cape with a bat-wing-esque collar that stood up. The cape ended up being trickier than I expected. I draped the fabric around her to get an idea of how I wanted the fabric to fall, but my first attempt at cutting it out ended up being too narrow, so I tried again, widening the bottom several inches, which helped a lot. I attached the collar separately but if I did it again, I think I would have made it all one piece. I was going to line it but that felt redundant so I just made some bias tape that I sewed around the raw edges. For the collar, I used some foam I had left over from another project, but I think one of those stable interfacings would have worked better for this.

In any case, and thankfully, she’s been very happy with this costume.

And exactly one week ago, I had all the kids’ costumes taken care of and I was feeling really good about our Halloween situation. Until Ben came up to me with costume ideas for us. He thought it’d be fun to have us be Merlin and Madam Mim from The Sword in the Stone. In order to have these ready for our first Halloween party (total aside here: growing up we always only ever had one Halloween event which was trick or treating ON Halloween. But it seems like now we have several parties to attend on top of the day of. Does anyone else have this problem or is it specific to our area??), I had exactly one week to make a wizard’s robe, wizard’s hat, beard/mustache, a shirt, skirt, booties (not pictured) and bloomers! I had my work cut out for me! I worked on it every spare minute I had this last week, including the day of the party, but I did finish it all!

The wizard robe was by far the most intricate and time-consuming piece I made. One of Ben’s goals with this costume was to have something he could wear for future Halloweens but with the potential to switch things up. So if you remember Disney’s Sword in the Stone movie, you might recall that Merlin’s robe is actually more of a choir robe-no openings or closures-just, essentially, a big baggy dress. But that’s kind of limited in future uses, so Ben requested a more wizard-like robe.

Here’s an example of this costume’s versatility. Is that a wizard or one of the seven dwarfs? 😉

A big, oversized robe isn’t terribly technical, but I was intimidated by the thought of figuring out a pattern for this, especially when I was short on time. Luckily I found a free robe pattern at Fleece Fun and although all the photo examples of the robe are for children, it does come in adult sizes too!

Our only complaint about the pattern (mine from a sewing perspective and Ben’s from a wearing perspective) is that the hood is weird! I altered it slightly by rounding out the pointed edge, but I might have also shortened it too. It was really hard to envision what it would look like without actually sewing it (yes, a muslin would have solved my problems but TIME!). Anyway, we decided that just hanging down, the hood looks nice but worn on the head it looks a little odd. And either way, the weight of it makes the whole robe slide back on the shoulders but I did use a heavier fabric and the robe is fully lined, which undoubtedly doesn’t help.

Ben picked all the fabrics for this and the trim. He chose a crushed velvet in navy blue and a burgundy satin for the lining. I got 3 yards of each and used all but small scraps. I even had to cut things off grain! I usually do NOT do that, but for a costume it seemed like it’d probably be okay. Ben also chose the trim and I’d say it’s a perfect match. I got 5 yards of it and only had enough to line down the front and along the sleeve hems. The bottom hem and around the hood didn’t get any trim, unfortunately.

Ben’s beard/mustache was made from leftover minky from our giant Appa. And his hat was constructed with an old baseball cap (bill removed), cardstock paper and duck tape, then lined with the velvet. It looks rather papal in these pictures, but I promise looks less so in real life.

For my costume as marvelous, magnificent Mad Madam Mim, I made a Union Street Tee without sleeves in a purple polyester. I don’t like spending time or money on things I will likely never wear again and this top is almost certainly that. I don’t like wearing polyester tops at all and I wouldn’t choose to wear this style of top, but the fabric cost about $3 and it took me less than 30 minutes to put together (the sleeves and bottom are totally unhemmed). I’m wearing it on top of a Cielo top that I do wear.

The skirt would have probably been more Mim-like had it been made from cotton but I thought the satin was more likely to be used again, so that’s what I went with. I used my trusty Mave skirt pattern to quickly make this up. I extended the swoop slightly to make more volume. And I used a smaller elastic in order to make the paper-bag waist effect on the top.

My very favorite part of this costume (aside from the purple wig!) are my bloomers, which is a shame because you can hardly see them. I didn’t want to be Madam Mim without the bloomers! I won’t even tell you how I hodge-podged these together but just know that it took a guess and a few additions in order for it to work. I used the absolute most slap-dash techniques including only serging and applying elastic directly to the fabric instead of making a channel. But even so they turned out!

I bought the wig and the tights (I had to dye the tights to tone them down!). And I made some booties to put over my shoes but they didn’t lay flat and also drove me absolutely crazy so I scrapped them half way through the party.

And those are our costumes!

You might think that this post is about as slap-dash as my projects and you wouldn’t be wrong! Things have felt positively helter-skelter around here. But I’m glad I could stop in for a quick post and I hope it won’t be too long before I’m back. Happy Halloween!