Happy Halloween! - Grim reaper costume for my son!

Halloween is not big here. It is an imported holiday and is just commercial and superficial ... but there have been a few events for kids on kindergarten and school and dressing up is so fun for the kids. Previous years I got by with store outfits but this year I asked Andrei what he wants to be. His answer was Slender Man and took me by surprise. I was not quite aware that he was over superheros! I told him I don't think I can put together a slender man costume in less then a week and asked him to keep thinking and showing him options I could buy! He rated almost all the costumes available as childish and didn't got much interest in any untill from search to search he got to some adult grim reapers and zombies costumes with nice make-up and then his face light up, literally! So considering what he liked and what I thought I could do in a short time frame he choose to be death! There were some cheap satin robes I could buy but they all look so cheap and ill made and unattractive! So I decided to make the robe myself!
   I considered a few robes patterns but none looked exactly right to me. Even if I had little time I lost a lot of it choosing a pattern and a fabric!
  In the end I decided to draft the robe myself starting from a hoodie pattern from Ottobre. I just love the front cross over hoodies they have - looks stylish and covers the neck nicely:

I changed the shape of the hood to trail on the back a bit and slashed the sleeves for more drama. I went for a A-line maxi dress with it and the heavy twill I choose was so so perfect for it! I could not believe how well  it draped in this fabric and how reached it looked compared to the cheap satin ones!

To make it a little different I added black and white striped batiste lining to the hood and sleeves! Great effect!

I bought professional latex makeup for him but his party at school started very early in the morning with his classes and also thought he might to be comfortable with all that makeup so on the last minute replaced make-up with a cheap plastic mask he could take off at any moment. We trayed some latex masks as well who were better looking but he could not stand them over his face! It was nice that his hood covered the neck as well! I also got him a pair of black latex gloves and a skulls necklace! He was pleased with his outfit! And so was I!

I had bigger plans to add some bloody hand embroidery to the robe and a few other creepy elements but never got around to do it! I took great pleasure in seeing how nicely the hood, the shoulders and everything was actually fitting him.

Little men wardrobe

Participating in the wardrobe contests on PR I learned so much about coordinating the items I make. It all gets so much easier to wear when you sew a few items that can all go with each other. Last year I give up on trying to make an entry for myself and did one for my son instead and it was very rewarding. It also feels a lot more fair making one for him while Eva is always getting hers. And he is the best receiver of everything I make. I simply love, love, love sewing for my son.
   I found this years requirement rather easy: 1 topper, 2 bottoms, 3 tops.
   The first item I make were some pull-on black jeans. I have seen the patern for it in the latest kids issue 01/2018 #16 :

Used some fun lining for the pockets:

 

They looked rather OK and being black it will work with almost anything....
The next items I made was the panel print blouse - mainly because I decided to use the twin print for Eva and I wanted the 2 of them to coordinate with each other. I used the exact pattern as for eva only size 122 for him - Ottobre  6/2010 #15:

This also was the kind of top that goes with everything in my opinion.
From here on I try to actually make an wardrobe and up my game. Denim, specially stretch denim,  is one great fabric to wear for comfort and endurance and I been wanting a good denim jacket for my son so I decided to actually make one myself. I picket the pattern for cool dude denim jacket from Ottobre 3/2013 ( one of  my favorite issues of all times ) #27

I never make a jeans jacket so I needed some directions and I could not figure out what to do from just words. I needed pictures. So I looked online and found Hampton Jean Jacket Sewalong - an amazing resource if you plan to make a great jeans jacket. That jacket has a few more design features then this one but is still very close and helpful. I took a few pictures along the way myself this time:

And from the same fabric as the jacket made a new pair of jeans exactly as the black one:

Now I only had 2 tops left and it was time to some great coordination magic to tie the wardrobe together. I wanted a shirt in the wardrobe to have some more dress up options or to wear it over thirsts. I remembered ElizabethMadeThis had some cool raglan sleeved shirts made for her boys and since then I got my hands on that Ottobre issue and decided to use that pattern. It is a really cool pattern - Ottobre 3/2017 #25:

As you can see the collar is really weird and it looks upside down. I had to check and recheck photos and markings 10 times to confirm this is how it actually is... And the sleeve seem make for a great shaping on the shoulder. Loved that. I also had a long search for the right fabric but I think I found the perfect shades and print for this wardrobe plan:

And to close up I thought to do a simple short sleeved T-shirt in the right colors again and used the same pattern from the 1st top:

I am quite pleased with how everything went together:

The weather is still bad here and I continue to sew from stash so Sewing 38 - Shopping 30 this year with only the items I published and I still have a few made and not documented yet . Yey!