Halloween Bean (Turtle)

After a week of sick household resulting in missing most of Kids Clothes Week Challenge, the COSTUME week of Project Run & Play (which I had most looked forward too), and the signature look week (I had lots of plans for that week’s outfit too), we THEN had family members visiting so it’s been a crazy house these past two weeks.  It was great seeing family, but that left little time for sewing so I was way behind on my list of projects!  So I hunkered down and while I had finished most of Bean’s costume last week, I finally added the last stitches yesterday afternoon.

There were a few things I wanted to make sure came along with this costume:

• Fleece Pants (to wear throughout the season)
• Fleece Hoodie (again, to wear throughout the season)
• Other than the light green fleece which I bought on sale I wanted to use fabrics I had already
• I wanted to use some pinks and purples so Turtle Bean would look a little more girly, hehe

These are the same pants pattern I drafted last year and I love the fit over Bean’s cloth diapers so I’ve been adjusting the sizing as she grows.  They have a slight yoga flare to the leg which is cute and I really like the diagonal yoke shaping.  I am sure I’ll make a few more of these style pants before the year is out.

This fleece hoodie took me a little while to figure out.  I drafted and cut out all the pattern pieces I thought I would use, with no idea how I would actually put them all together.  My older sister sent Bean a sweatshirt from the GAP and I really love how it fits, so I wanted this hoodie to be a similar shape.  The darker green is ribbing from an old sweater I had that had a tear in it.  I lined the hood with it as well.  Since I want Bean to be able to wear this for warmth this fall, I knew at least the front should be lined so her chest would stay warm.  So I added a front facing that goes up and around the neck.  The hood lining makes it extra cosy as well.

Here I think you can see the fleece hoodie a little better.  Once Halloween is over I can just take out the few stitches to remove the turtle eyes, hehe. 

I made a little half tank top out of the green fleece to hold the turtle body pieces together, leaving plenty of room in the neck and armhole areas since I knew this would be worn over the fleece hoodie.  I machine sewed the front turtle piece directly to the tank, but I hand sewed the back turtle piece since I didn’t want the stitches to go all the way through to the shell.  I secured the shell with a few stitches at the shoulders, armpit area. and the bottom edge of the tank, just so it wouldn’t flop around too much.

To make the turtle shell, I used a bag of fleece scraps that my mother gave me a while ago.  I would have used slightly different colors, but since I wanted to work with what I had I chose as many girly colors as I could.  I cut out hexagons from the scraps and then sewed them together like you would a hexagon quilt.  Since it was fleece, forgiving, and really only meant as a costume I didn’t stress about it too much.  Once I had enough sewn together to make the basic turtle shape I put a green fleece border around it and topstitched around the edge leaving some of the green to show from the front.  I used a big green oval shape to close up the back and once stuffed the whole thing ended up looking like a ridiculous pillow, hehe.

For the front piece I cut two tear drop shapes out of the green fleece, sewed them together right sides facing, flipped them right side out, and then topstitched a bunch of rib type lines all over through all the layers.  I didn’t stuff this part since the fleece was pretty thick with the two layers and I didn’t want it getting in Bean’s way while she wears it.

And get in her way it does not!  She was moving so fast I could hardly get a picture that wasn’t a blur.  It didn’t seem too heavy or irritating so I think this is a winner.  Hopefully we get some good pictures on Halloween itself.



I do think this pic is my favorite though.

And just so you can see Bean will happily wear the fleece separates once Halloween is over, here are some pics of before I put the “turtle tank” on her:

Of course, I’ll need to remember to remove those eyes, hehe.

As usual, linking up to: