I had suggested a butterfly, and for a while she was into swimming like a dolphin (on the hall carpet), but by mid-October she had made up her mind: she would be a witch for Halloween. Last week I got a clarification: she still wanted to be a witch, but a good witch, preferably one with a pink costume. By that time I had bought a whole bunch of black satin and tulle, so I ignored the request for pink and focused on glamming up her basic black witch gear instead –adding a little Endora to her Elphaba.
I sew with the sewing machine manual open, so all of the construction need to be pretty basic. To make her cape, I cut a half circle from a yard and a half of black satin, the radius of which was the length of her longest coat. (I folded the fabric in half and drew a quarter circle freehand with tailors’ chalk.)
Then I cut a neck whole sized from one of her jumpers.
To add some witchy flair, I wanted to line the cape with two colors of satin. To do this, I used the black satin as a pattern to cut quarter rounds of chartreuse and blue fabric, leaving a one-inch seam allowance all around.
Then I sewed the two halves of the lining together and hemmed the rounded bottom edge of both it and the black cape.
After that, I pinned the lining and cape together, with the outsides of the fabrics facing in. I sewed them together along the straight top edge and around the neck hole, turned the cape right side out, and presto! To finish the cape, I just sewed on a little frog closure and tacked back the front edges with a few stitches to show a little more color.
The rest of the costume was easy. I embellished a hat I bought with a two-sided hatband made of the same silk, some black sequined trim and a rhinestone brooch. Of course, keeping it on her head was a much bigger challenge than putting it together . . . .
The skirt was also a snap. I just loosely pleated four layers of black tulle, pinned it to some black bias tape, and sewed it on. I tacked on a little sparkly ribbon for trim and used the bias tape to tie the skirt on her like an apron.
Julia was a little put off by the cape at first, but really got into her costume once she checked her look in the mirror,
and headed out to trick-or-treat on the streets of Chelsea.
