It's Costume Day (Happy Halloween)!: Beginner Sewing Project - How to Make a Cute & Simple Owl Costume

Sewing is not my strong point... actually, neither is knitting, and I've never attempted to crochet... but my dream of making "things" for my family often leaves me needing to whip out ol' Bessie (which is the name of Bessie, my sewing machine).

My very first-ever sewing project was this owl hat, which was the start of a Halloween costume and crossing an item off of my Domestic Bucket List: make a play-costume for one of my spawn. Eventually, she'll be old enough to see all of the mistakes I make, so I thought I'd start crossing this one off sooner than later. Maybe one day there will be few mistakes to see! Only one way to get there.

That said, if you're a beginner seamstress ('seamstress' reads a little prettier than "sewer" which, on paper, makes you & I sound like an early septic system) making your child's halloween costume is a real possibility. It may have some, um, 'room for growth' but it'll be a wearable piece for the costume box!

The hat.

First, I started with the hat. I used fleece because it doesn't fray at the edges like cotton does - you can create little shapes and appliqués to sew onto your piece and they won't look as untidy as something coming apart at the edges. Those with more experience, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I followed the tutorial from FleeceFun.com which outlines a simple owl hat. They have other very cute animal hat / costume designs (frogs, dinosaur, mouse, viking) which really could last all winter! My only suggestion with the FleeceFun pattern is that it's much too short for wearing through the winter - it doesn't cover The Caterpillar's ears very well at all. That could have been a result of my mistake, but next time I'll be quadruple checking her head length. And there will be a next time: these hats are easy to make and they look super adorable.

Make a dress from a pillowcase.

I made a simple pillowcase dress out of, quite literally, a pillowcase. My main frustration while doing this is that searching online for 'pillowcase dresses' results in a lot of people telling you how to make a basic dress out of a not-pillowcase. And sure, that's fine, but I really did want a pillowcase dress! The bottom hem is finished for you! That's awesome, right?

A traditional pillowcase dress cases ribbon around the neckline, but because my daughter is only 19 months and will likely be wearing this dress for lots of playtime in the future, (lots of jumping around and rolling) I didn't think a ribbon around the neck was a very safe idea.

I found this tutorial which is a little different than others and focuses on an elastic neckline and comes with easy instructions for how to make a pillowcase dress. I included some alterations: I used bias tape around the arm holes because I had it on hand, and I sewed on separate ribbons at the edge of the neckline to hold the dress up. Mind you, The Caterpillar is still so small I really could have just sewed the pillowcase to itself - but the ribbons at the arm holes mean she can grow taller and into the dress.

If your plan is to add appliqués to the front of the dress, don't touch the arm holes until you are absolutely satisfied with your design. Cut the pillowcase open at the side, and sew it back together once you have your decorations on the front of the dress.

Thank you Jen Leheny!

Adding feathers.

I cut out a handful of feathers in the same fleece colours I used for the hat. I pinned them to the front of the dress one by one in a row, and sewed each row on after I was satisfied. For my 19 month old (21" length dress) I needed 8 rows of feathers.



Sew the sides back together.

When the features were finished, I added 4 ribbons (one to each open end of the arm holes) and sewed the side back together.

And there you have it! A simple pillowcase dress. This was my first project, so I allowed myself lots of mistakes - and I recommend that approach strongly. Don't focus on perfection, just get a product in your hands: that will give you the confidence you need to make another one, and another one, improving each time as you go. (The beauty of making things for kids... she won't notice messy lines!)

The end.