I forgot to show you the best part about the Woody the Cowboy vest I made. The back!
Woody has the pull-cord on his back, and I wanted to make sure to incorporate that into the costumes. My aunt had a set of wooden rings (the handles of her old laundry hamper), so I painted it white and just sewed the top of the ring onto the back of the vest.
“There’s a snake in my boot!”
So the kids are doing Woody and Jessie for Halloween, and I’ve been working on the costumes. To make Jessie the Cowgirl (from Toy Story 2) jeans, I started out with a pair of Rose’s old boot-cut jeans that had a hole in one knee and were getting a little short anyway. They’d last until November, though, and that is all that matters for this purpose. I cut a chap-shaped pattern out of an old brown paper bag.
Then I cut out two pieces of the cow-patterned fabric, about 5/8″ wider all around so that I could hem the the fabric before I sewed it to the jeans.  When it came to actually affixing the fabric to the jeans, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do… it was going to be a headache to hand-stitch the piece to the jeans, especially down the sides where it butted up against the jean’s seams. So I cheated a bit. I machine-stitched the bottom to the cuff, and then glued the sides of the chaps, and hand stitched the tops. So it limits the machine washable-ness of the costume, but as Rose probably won’t be wearing this past November anyway, I decided to save myself the pain. I generally don’t take costume shortcuts, but in this case, I think it turned out alright.
This year we are going to do a group costume with another family. We’ll have 11 people total, and wanted to do a kids’ movie theme, so we are going with Toy Story.
Dillon and Rose decided to be Woody and Jessie, so I started out buy getting some cow-patterned fabric, and making Woody’s vest. I didn’t bother getting a pattern because vests are pretty easy to throw together. As I often do, I drew out my shapes on a paper grocery bag and used that to cut the fabric.
I also cut a simple white lining for the vest. It isn’t necessary but it gives the vest a nice weight. So I sewed the lining to the vest (right sides together) and clipped the curves.
You have to leave the sides of the back open in order to turn it right side out, which is a little funny but it works. You bring the front panels back through to get everything the right way again. (Here is the right side, below.)
Then you just sew the sides together and you are good to go! I need to find a sheriff’s badge, but it is a decent start!
Overheard at my dinner table five minutes ago:
Dillon: Whose house do you think is more disorganized? Mine? Or yours?
Reiley: (his best friend…Â Thinking for a minute.) Mine.
Dillon: That’s impressive.
Me: Jerk!
Reiley: Are you talking to Dillon or Copernicus?
Me: Dillon. I work really hard to make our lives this organized.
Dillon: Ah. Okay. (Pause) …So whose room do you think is less organized? Mine? Or yours?
(And the conversation goes on…)