Sewing our Sanity

Monday, May 7, 2012

Pirate Costumes

Pirates are huge where we live in Eastern North Carolina.  Blackbeard's ship, The Queen Anne Revenge, was found off the coast, there are renactments of pirate invasions, and almost every school mascot is a pirate.  And this weekend we attended a Pirate Fest.  So, naturally we dressed up as pirates!


I made the (big) boys' shirts from Rae's Flashback Skinny Tee but left the sleeves off.  For Natalie's I used the same pattern but made more of a scooped neck and a skinnier strap.  When I bought the knit fabric I wasn't paying much attention and realized only after I got home that the stretch of the fabric ran perpendicular to the stripes so they were vertical!  Since I wanted horizontal stripes AND I was making these for costumes, I didn't really care so the shirts stretch the wrong way but they turned out fine.  



Natalie's tulle skirt was made from 4 yards of black tulle and 4 yards of red tulle.  I folded each cut of tulle in half and laid the black piece on the floor with the red piece on top.  Then I folded the two pieces in half again so the red was sandwiched in the middle.  Then I sewed an 1 1/2 in. casing along the top folded edge and ran a piece of elastic the size of her waist through the casing.  It took me a lot less time than cutting and knotting pieces of tulle and knotting them onto elastic.  


If you are going to be a pirate you need an eye patch and a bandana.  For the bandanas I cut 20 in x 20 in pieces of knit fabric and tied them onto their heads.  Super fast and easy since they didn't need any hemming.  For the eye patches, I fused two piece of felt together and cut out an eye patch shape.  I put grommets on the sides and tied a piece of elastic about 16 in long through the grommets. (You could also just sew the elastic on if you don't have a grommet tool.)  I used my Silhouette to make a skull and cross bones stencil from freezer paper and stenciled the eye patch.  

The kids were thrilled with their costumes and we won for "Best Pirate Family"!  


-Emily

No comments:

Post a Comment