The costumes are done!

The costumes came out great. E seems to be comfortable in her costume. She likes the tail and all of the dangly things on it. D isn't too crazy about his pirate hair. I guess that is to be expected. He keeps playing with it and pulling on it. He's probably not used to anything brushing on his face and neck like that. Onto the pictures and details...

Arrrr matey! This is D trying to do a pirate face. His red bandana is made out of red snakeskin printed stretchy fabric. It is a rectangle of fabric with black yarn sewn onto the inside of it. There is a band in the back that goes all the way around. That part has yarn sewn onto it and then there is a part that ties over it. The hat is made from McCall pattern 5118 and it's version H. I made some modifications to it. It was made without the chin strap and the brim was extended a few inches. That was tacked up in three areas to make the tricorn looking hat. It was made out of brown faux leather that I found in the flat folds section of fabric at Joanns. It's not a vinyl, but thick like upholstery fabric. It was very easy to sew through the multiple layers.

His shirt is from McCall pattern 4952. It was made out of natural colored muslin fabric. The tie is fake leather. The vest is from Simplicity pattern 4944 C. It's a jacket in the pattern, but I only wanted a vest. I simply cut out the front and back pieces twice and sewed them like a vest. The outer part of the vest is made from linen. The liner to the vest is the same snakeskin print fabric as the red bandana. Right now, the vest has a tendency to pull back. I need to add a button to the front of it to prevent that. The sash around D's waist is just a striped rayon fabric that I had in my stash. It's sewn into a tube and the ends were frayed.

The pants are from Simplicity pattern 4944. I was planning on making them with elastic just below the knee, but I just left them unhemmed. They're starting to fray a little and I like that, especially if D decides that he doesn't like wearing the shoe covers. The pants are made out of black moleskin fabric. The shoe covers were made from Butterick pattern 4632 and greatly downsized. They're still a bit big, but that depends on what shoe D wears underneath them. They have a tendency to flop around and that bothers D, but doesn't seem to trip him up or anything like that. I plan on adding more elastic to the undersides or possibly something that will tie it to his shoe laces.

E's costume is made from version A of Simplicity 4043. It's a very cute pattern. I like how there is a full tail and her legs stick out of one side of the skirt. There are many little details to this pattern that make it a bit time consuming. The blue fabric is something that I had in my stash that I bought a long time ago. It's woven and looks like it might be cotton or polyester or a blend. It had blue metallic threads woven into it. The top part of the halter and the tail have a white sheer layer over the blue fabric. Then there are the sequins. Some of the sequin trim was sewn on my machine, but the tail was done by hand. Both sides of the tail are done and that was the neatest way that I could figure out how to do it.

The tail has ladder yarn dangling off of it. I used two different kinds. I picked out one and E picked out a more sparkly, hairy one. Off of the yarn and at random places throughout the tail, there are pailettes in various shades of blue. Those were either hand sewn onto the tail or tied onto the yarn. The tail also has a loop sewn onto it for E to wear around her wrist. I need to trim some of the yarn as it drags on the floor when the tail is looped up like that. The upper part of the skirt has a hook for the tail if E gets tired of holding it.

I bought some extra of the ladder yarn to make a shawl since the top is a halter. This was done from tip, increased towards the middle, several straight rows, and the decreased to the other tip. Then there was a lot of fringe added to it. E will most likely only wear the costume indoors, but I still wanted her to have something to throw over her shoulders. She likes it and says that it does keep her a little warmer. It was around 65 degrees outside when we took these pictures today and she didn't complain at all.

Phew!!! Well, those are the costumes. I want to add some beads to D's pirate hair. Yes, he is inspired by Captain Jack Sparrow. I wanted to lean towards that instead of the clean type of pirate with gold trim on his coat and a feather in his hat. D looks cute in his pirate hair, but it still needs something. I haven't decided if I'm going to draw on any facial hair. I have yet to make D's bag. I haven't decided on how I want that to look yet.