Madeline Halloween Costume

channeling "Madeline and the Bad Hat"

While I was working on projects before TLM was born, I started on LMS' Halloween costume. After some searching online for ideas that would be easy to do, I decided on Madeline. I'd make the blue jacket, find a hat, and we'd be good. And it mostly worked out that way :)

I used last year's Princess Buttercup costume pattern to make an updated pattern. I shortened the length and made it a little wider in the torso area. I didn't take any more in-progress photos because I always forget that part. I'll point out the various details a little further down in the post.

After checking all the local stores for a hat that would work and not having any success, I found this one on ebay.

I hot glued some black ribbon over the existing black ribbon, then made a bow with long tails for the back.

I also hot-glued some round elastic inside the hat to hold it on LMS' head better. The hat fit fine without it, but with all the various activities that she'd be wearing it at I figured the elastic would make life easier, and it totally did.

The completed jacket, hat and a pair of ivory fleece gloves. I'd wanted some white knit gloves for her to wear, but couldn't find any, so we went with the fleece ones instead.

--  I used the pattern I showed above for the jacket body, then made a cape to go on top. I sewed the two together at the neckline. I just used blue fleece- I figured it'd be easy to work with and would keep LMS nice and warm. The edges don't actually need to be hemmed, but I hemmed the bottom to give it weight so it would hang nicely. I didn't want the edge of the cape to be too bulky so I left it alone.

--  I ended up cutting the sleeves a smidge too short (not sure how that happened), so I added cuffs to make them longer. 

--  I sewed a piece of fleece to the front edge to make a placket where the buttons and button holes are. 

--  I used white fabric (leftover from the Princess Leia dress two years ago) to make a peter pan color and red fabric (from last year's Princess Bride dress) for the tie.  The tie is completely non-functional and is sewn on so that the jacket opens completely at the neckline. There's a piece of velcro instead of a button at the neckline to make it easily adjustable.

--  And then because I'm OCD and don't already have enough to worry about, I sewed ricrac to the jacket hem, the edge of the cape, and on the sleeves. Unnecessary, but I like the extra bit of detail it adds.

We completed the look with white bobby socks and black mary janes.

LMS insisted I take photos from all sides, so here's some poses (ok, mommy take a picture with me like this!) that show her outfit pretty well.

Demonstrating her "Madeline walk"- slow and careful, since that's how you walk when you go everywhere in two straight lines with 11 other girls :)

The last few photos are LMS being silly and having fun posing for the camera.

I finished the main construction of the costume before TLM was born, but didn't get the details done till last week, just in time for the ward Halloween activity and the Halloween 5k (more on the 5k later this week). If I wasn't such a perfectionist about the details I could have finished it a lot sooner, but that just doesn't work for me :) I'm very happy with how it turned out and LMS really likes her Madeline costume.