Zoinks, Another Halloween Costume!

I am doing Halloween candy handout duty. Sitting near the door listening for the sound of voices and feet shuffling through the leaves as the kids come up the front walkway.  We don’t get a lot of Trick or Treaters, so I have time to blog.    I have admired all the cute and creative costumes sewn in blogland these past few weeks, and exclaimed over those that are showing up at my door.  I am remembering all the costumes I have sewn for my sons in the past, starting with this one for my oldest son back when he was just over a year old. He was the cutest frog with his big fat cheeks. The costume is still up in the attic

McCalls 7842

 I was not surprised when he told me that this year, he and his roommates were going to dress up for Halloween as the characters from the cartoon Scooby-Doo.  This is a long running Saturday morning cartoon series featuring four teenagers and their Great Dane dog "Scooby-Doo" who solves mysteries. My oldest son, when he is overdue for a haircut and a shave, bears a strong physical resemblance to the Scooby Doo cartoon character Norville “Shaggy” Rogers.  People always comment on it.    Shaggy is the tall and thin, with wild looking brown hair, craggy features and whiskers on his chin. He typically wears a baggy green V-neck T shirt and brown pant.




Scooby Doo and friends

This has to be the most uninspiring, boring, “costume” I have ever made. For the T shirt I used New look 6084  which include a  “V” neck T shirt pattern for men, a separate and more fitted T shirt for women,  and unisex drawstring pants. The fabric was medium olive green poly cotton from JoAnn's.

 

For the pants I was envisioning bell bottoms, which gave me an excuse to peruse vintage patterns on etsy.com.  There I found Simplicity 9736, a vintage 1970 men’s bell bottom pants pattern.

 Why make a pair of pants, you may ask.  Because I swear it takes less time and money to sew a pair than trying to find size 32” waist, 36” inseam pants in a specific color at a reasonable price. I almost made them out of brown double knit fabric. I hate to admit it but I do have some in my stash, and double knits were recommended on the pattern. But instead I purchased some cotton/lycra corduroy from Fabric.com.  It was rather stiff for pinwale cotton corduroy, even after several washings.

Son #2 delivered the pants and shirt when he went to visit older brother for the weekend. Both garments fit fine and he looked very authentically “Shaggy”. So much so I have scheduled a haircut appointment for him during his Thanksgiving break.  Son  #2  was supposed to be the character Freddy, but he refused to wear the blond wig after someone told him it made him look like a drag queen.  This actually worked in his favor as several playboy bunnies came up to him at the party, asked if he was Hugh Hefner, to which he said "yes", and had their pictures taken with him.

Shaggy and Freddy Halloween 2012

I think I hear another group of  trick or treaters.   Got to go!