It is OCTOBER! Time really flies – I’m more than halfway through my 12 week maternity leave, which is very bittersweet. We have an exciting month ahead of us in October. My brother-in-law will finally get married, after many COVID-related delays. My baby girl will turn THREE years old! And we will celebrate Halloween… Maybe in a more typical fashion than last year? Remains to be seen…
I normally stay VERY up to date on posting my makes here on the blog, but as I’ve had some time to look through photos while I’ve been on maternity leave, I’ve realized that I missed a couple over the past year! Luckily, this one is just as relevant this year as it would’ve been last year, especially if you are looking for a fun (and simple!) family Halloween costume to DIY this month!
Halloween 2020 was a weird one. I usually go all out during spooky season, figuring out matching halloween costumes for my husband and I, sewing a garment or two in novelty Halloween fabrics, enjoying all the decorations throughout our neighborhood. However, knowing that we wouldn’t be trick or treating or attending Halloween parties in the typical way we had in the past, I felt fairly unmotivated to come up with fun ideas. Despite the smaller scale of our celebrations, though, I didn’t want my little girl to miss out on some of the Halloween fun, so I came up with a fun costume idea for our family that we could wear more than once!
My sweet girl was the belle of the ball in her tulle pumpkin costume. I searched through some ideas on Pinterest for this one, and it was much easier than I anticipated! There were only a few things I needed for this look – a length of ¾” or 1” elastic, 2 yards of green tulle, 10 yards of orange tulle, and 2 yards of green ribbon. To begin, I measured out a piece of ¾” elastic to fit around her torso, right underneath her arms where I wanted the top of the dress to fall. I sewed the elastic ends together, and now I had the base of the costume! Next, I cut strips of tulle – 10” wide by 20” long for the green, and the full length of the fabric for the orange. I hand tied the strips of cut orange tulle around the elastic to create the pumpkin look, then added in the green tulle to create the look of the leaves on the top of the pumpkin. While the elastic could’ve done the job of holding up the dress, I went ahead and used my satin ribbon to create tied straps at the top of the dress. There was no real science to this – I put the dress on her, roughly measured how long the straps needed to be, cut and sewed. Lastly, I wrapped the rest of the green ribbon around the elastic to hide the ties and create the top of the pumpkin. I topped it off with a little green hand-tied bow, and we had ourselves a precious pumpkin princess! For these photos, she wore her costume over a short sleeved onesie, but a long-sleeved onesie would have been perfect for cooler temps, too. If you want to make more of a Jack-O-Lantern look, this could easily be achieved with a bit of black felt cut to make the face and affixed to the front of the dress, whether by sewing or gluing!
My husband and I were supporting characters in this costume – instead of going all out with something more traditionally costumey for ourselves, I decided to sew us some fun themed sweatshirts instead. My daughter was VERY into trucks at this time, so the fabric I chose for my husband’s sweatshirt was perfect. For myself, I chose a watercolor pumpkin print and some complementary florals for the ruffles of my sweatshirt. She was the pumpkin, and we were her pumpkin patch! Both of these fabrics were from Raspberry Creek Fabrics’ 2020 Halloween line, which has since been retired, but you can find their current 2021 Halloween prints here – they have another watercolor pumpkin print that I love this year!
Full transparency, my daughter had a tiny meltdown the evening we took these photos – though you probably gathered that from the photos already! This was one of those classic toddler tantrums that seems to have had no actual trigger but grew into a tornado nonetheless! She actually really ended up enjoying this dress, and has been asking to wear it for Halloween again this year! Of course this makes my mama / maker heart so happy, but we’ve told her she is welcome to wear it for fun around the house and we’ll find an all new theme for our costumes this year. We’ll have to find a costume for four this time around!
I hope that this helps to jumpstart some of your own ideas for Halloween 2021. I love seeing what sewists come up with this time of year! We are probably going a more ready to wear route this season (newborns are time consuming!) – are you making costume plans just yet?
Pumpkin Costume: handmade by me
Pattern: none used – see instructions above!
Fabrics: Tulle, Ribbon, and Elastic from JoAnn
Sweatshirt: handmade by me
Pattern: I AM Patterns – Apollon Sweatshirt
Fabric: Raspberry Creek Fabrics – Fall Pumpkin Trucks French Terry
Sweatshirt: handmade by me
Pattern: Papercut Patterns – Solar Sweater (formerly Kyoto Sweater)
Fabric: Raspberry Creek Fabrics – Polka Dot Pumpkins French Terry
Key Ingredients:
Brother XR9500PRW Sewing Machine
Brother 1034D Overlocker
Schmetz Jersey Ballpoint Needles
Dahle 36×48 Self-healing Cutting Mat
Heat & Bond Soft Stretch (Lite)
Thanks for reading my thoughts on our simple, re-wearable costumes! The fabrics and patterns used in this post were all purchased by me. All words and opinions expressed throughout this post are my own, as always. Links provided throughout this post may be affiliate links – if you choose to purchase any products through these links, I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you. This simply helps me justify the costs of my sewing habit and the time it takes to share it with you!! Happy Sewing!
- XX Elizabeth
