As many of you know from Facebook, my little Monkey has been putting me through the ringer on deciding which costume to wear. She originally said she wanted to be Wolverine, to which I responded with major glee, because I knew I could pull that off and make it cute. Plus I was more than happy to oblige when she asked that her daddy dress up as Gambit while I went trick-or-treating as Rogue. Then she crushed my hopes of a cat suit (totally joking here) and decided she wanted to be Hulk instead. Next it was a witch. Then a pumpkin. Then Captain America, and so on, and so forth until I finally told her that she had until a certain date to tell me what she wanted to be. The date came, and she chose her original request: Wolverine. I was happy to oblige, and went out that day to buy the supplies so she couldn't change her mind again. So here it is:
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| Ta-Da! |
As you can see, this is not the traditional Wolverine. What can I say? I have a little girl, and I was inspired by a post I saw a while back of Batman and Robin costumes complete with tutus. I knew that was the direction I wanted to go for Wolverine-a. So first things first, the tutu:
I found a really good tutorial for tutus here.
You'll need:
Tulle---5 yards was just enough for my daughter, and she's a size 4T. I found Peacock Blue Tulle at Walmart for $1.50 a yard.
Ribbon---You'll need enough to wrap around your waist plus a little extra to tie, so your waist size plus 8"
Scissors
Measuring tape
Sewing pins
Lay out your fabric on a cutting board or flat surface, it should be folded in half as it was on the bolt. Measure 7" in from the outer edge of the tulle. Place a pin at this measurement to mark it. From that pinned point, measure another 7" in, and mark with another pin. Continue to measure and mark along the entire length of fabric. Cut the fabric into strips using the pins as a guide. These strips will be about 7" wide. Keep cutting until you have a nice little stack :-)
(At this point you may want to visit the original poster's website to see her step-by-step photos that go along with the following instructions; I took a few, but they're not as good.)
Next you lay out one of the tulle strips, and cinch it in the middle.
Fold the strip in half, forming a loop at the top. Place your piece of ribbon on top of the tulle, loop side up.
Weave bottom ends of tulle through top loop, with ribbon caught in the middle. Pull the ends of the tulle until a knot forms.
Repeat this process until you've covered your length of ribbon minus the extra for tying.
Tie a know next to the two end strips of tule to hold the strips in place.
Now that your tutu is complete you can move onto the shirt. I bought Monkey a yellow shirt from Michael's in a size small. I had to take it in a bit, but this isn't necessary if you can find a fitted tee for your child. Here's what you'll need for the shirt:
One yellow shirt in your child's size
Yellow thread
Sewing scissors
Blue felt with matching thread
Black felt
Black thread
Black fabric pen
First, hack off the sleeves. I'm a bit OCD with sewing so I used my seam ripper to get it as neat as possible. It really didn't make a difference.
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| No the shirt didn't turn orange; I had to use my iPhone :-/ |
Then, I cut two equal-sized triangles out of the blue felt. I "measured" these by having Monkey try on the shirt and the piece of felt across her shoulder. I sort of eye-balled were the points should hit by referencing photos of Wolverine on Google. It should look something like this:
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| "What are you looking at, bub?" |
I pinned it in place while Monkey modeled for me, and then, using the blue thread, I sewed each side down.
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| As you can see, I neglected to hem my sleeves 'til the very end. Don't make my mistake; it was a pain in the butt to hem them with that felt. |
Now you can add the stripes that decorate Wolverine's sides. I drew out a triangle on paper, cut it out, and "measured" with it to make sure I could fit three of them on each side.
When I got the right sized template, I folded the felt in half, pinned the template in place, and cut out 6 separate triangles (which were actually diamonds when they came out because of the folding).
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| Don't forget to fold the felt in half! |
Next, I pinned the diamond-shaped felt onto the shirt so that there was a triangle-shaped stripe on both the front and the back before sewing in place using black thread.
Once you sew the black felt in place, you're all done with the top. Now we can move on to Wolverine's mask. Here's what you'll need:
Yellow felt
Black felt
Elastic
Black thread
Scissors
Again, I didn't have a template; I cut out a simple half-circle type shape in the yellow felt. Using the images from Google again, I free handed the black portion of Wolverine's mask. until I came up with this:
Simply sew the top down with black thread. I held the mask up to Monkey's face to gauge how far apart the eyes needed to be before cutting out the holes. Next measure out you elastic by wrapping it halfway around your child's head to see when you need to cut it. Sew each edge of elastic to each side of the mask, and you're all done here.
I snatched up the last pair of bright yellow leggings from Wal-Mart for $2.00 to go under her tutu, and that's all I have for y'all until I can figure out how to rig some claws and the boots. Stay tuned to see what I come up with, and to see pictures of the entire outfit :-)
Update: Here is the entire ensemble on Halloween:
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| "I've got your point right here, hub!" |
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| Wolverina and Rogue |
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| Wolverine and Gambit (aka Gumbo) |
I finally caved and ordered the claws instead of making them. You can find them here.
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