Halloween Costume Update

One month until Halloween!  I am not even close to ready, but I have made some progress with our Halloween costumes.

I started by tackling the "chainmail" that Trevor will wear beneath his knight tunic.  I had what I thought would be a brilliant idea: I could take some grey sweatpants, put window screening over them, ink through the window screening and it would make the perfect chainmail. 

Unfortunately, the idea was less than perfect.  It was very difficult to get the ink on evenly, and Staz-On was definitely not the right ink for the job.  I tried a few others, but this was the best I could get.  Not exactly chainmail.

From a distance, it just looked dirty.  Bummer.

Clearly, I needed larger openings than the window screening.  And ideally, I needed a circle.  I toyed with making my own stamp using a tiny rubber band or washer, then (thank goodness) found a tiny circle stamp in my stash.  I did a test patch and loved the way it looked!  Now that's chainmail!

During a recent Fiskateers event, I spent hours stamping this little circle about 8 million times.  I stopped just above the knee and am crossing my fingers that I won't have to add more rows.  My gnarled, sore fingers.  That was a LOT of stamping.  And I haven't done the top yet.  Ack!

We found this foam sword for 50 cents at Target.  The shape and size are perfect, but the colors of the handle are really weird.   Red and green?  Why?

Trevor wanted the whole thing to be silver.  He gave it a few coats of paint, and now we have this.

My friend Kim offered me an empire waist dress that I am going to use for my damsel costume.  Trevor really wanted me in a pink dress, but that's not going to happen.  This dress has too many things going for it... not only does it fit me perfectly (rare that a dress fits me so well- I don't even have to hem it!), but it didn't cost me anything in either time or money.  I have no interest in scouring the thrift shops for a well-fitting pink dress that may or may not exist.

So that's the progress so far!  Trevor picked out the material for his tunic, but I haven't been brave enough to start sewing it.  We also have some fabric to make my cone-hat.  We weren't able to find matching fabric, so we got cream.  I'm not sure how that's going to look, but for now I'm ignoring that issue.

As for Steve's dragon costume, I'm about 99% sure that isn't going to happen.  I still haven't had a good idea of how to make it.  As I look at the calendar, I see that a dragon costume isn't going to be a priority.  He owns a Renaissance outfit that might fit the theme, or we might dress him as a king.  That sounds so much easier than a dragon.

Stay tuned!