Beatles Sgt. Pepper Costumes

While I'm not going into the costume-making business outside my own family, I'm happy to pass along any trial-and-error tips to the rest of the planet.

My Beatles-lovin' household decided almost a year out from Halloween 2010 that they wanted to be the Fab Four, specifically sporting the Sgt. Pepper uniforms.

Thus commenced not just sewing up some costumes, it involved much more than that:

• Studying photos from all angles
• Finding pattern(s) to as closely as possible duplicate the uniform look (while making sure aforementioned pattern(s) would be at my skill level
• shopping for material, notions, and eleventy bazillion kinds of trim
  
• shopping for specialty patches and/or ways to duplicate for authenticity
• Cutting pattern pieces
• Cutting material
• Sewing costumes
• Sewing on miles and miles of trim

First, I primarily used these two photos for recreating to the best of my ability the Sgt. Pepper costumes for my own Fab Four. Was I going to be able to duplicate them exactly? Hell no. But I could get pretty darn close.






I used a combination of McCall's Pattern 4745 (which is a Civil War officer uniform) and pirate costume Simplicity 3644. Not perfect, but close enough.

Aside from basic costume sewing here are some of the detailed modifications I made.

• For the epaulettes on the shoulders, I used foam board to cut out the shapes, then hand sewed the material to fit around them and hand sewed on the trim on each one. Then using velcro that is how I secured each epaulette to the costume jackets.
• On John's epaulettes there are daisies, so I got fake daisies in the floral craft department and hot glued them to each.
• The O.P.P patch (which stands for Ontario Provincial Police) on the sleeve of Paul's costume I actually found a REAL patch online, so that patch was fabulous. The rest of the patches were made by scanning each image, reversing it, and using t-shirt iron on computer paper, transfering each image to material and sewing that on.
• Medals were obtained at a local shop that makes medals and trophies - I bought samples that were blank or shapes that were close and turned them around.
  
• The long "jewelry" item on Paul's jacket that starts about the waistline was done with wire and beading by the teenager assistant son.
• The miniature canvas painting on George's jacket center chest was printed off then painted as a copy by my teenager.
• Ringo and Pauls pants side trim, and John and George's pants side trim were the reverse of each other's main costume color. So, I just sewed those strips and sewed them onto the pants before constructing the pants.
• My son's grandma had some John Lennon spectacles to complete that look
  

Each child has their own Beatle alter ego, so I started with the largest kid (the teenager) and constructed his first, then on down the line as I was cutting down the pattern pieces as I went. And this is the final result, the best and most time-consuming Halloween in the history of trick-or-treating.
I started out doing the uneven jacket bottom for George but then it looked terrible and I started swearing a lot (more) so I abandoned that in favor of a cleaner look. The trim for Paul's jacket bottom as well as all of the gold floral ribbon trim for Ringo was, in my humble opinion, SPOT ON. John's red trim was also a nice change of pace. Sewing the same thing does get pretty boring.

It should be noted I got some major mom points for this, also, the kids said a lot of people took pictures of them when they were out trick-or-treating.

Grand totals:
$291.42 for material, notions and trim.
Hours spent doing research, shopping and construction: 70 hours (give or take)
Best Halloween ever: PRICELESS

Halloween Costume

My younger son Zach wanted to be something a little outside the norm. Link from Legend of Zelda. He actually wanted to be Link last year but I was already constructing a complex witch costume for Sammie and knew I'd never have time to sew both so I promised him this year I'd do Link for him.

So....what do you think?
The forearm pieces are old soccer shin guards he outgrew that I spray painted. The boots are women's fuzzy slippers (two pair, one for the cuff added on). I sewed the tunic, hat and pants. We threw on some leather belts for the body pieces and I managed to find a sword and shield that were fairly close matches.

11th Hour Halloween Sewing

This is what I'm doing right now...full costume details after Halloween if I manage to get this sucker done!!

Pretty Witch Costume

Last year, I made Zach’s scarecrow costume. This year, it was Sammie’s pretty witch. I thought it turned out pretty cute and took less time than I thought it would, especially since I lost days working on it to take care of a barfing kid!

A Crafter's Resolutions

I know a lot of people make goals for the new year, I’m the same. But having an attack plan about one’s hobbies isn’t a bad idea either and I’ve decided to do that for 2007 as well. What about you?

Read and learn more about how to use my camera and Photoshop - I got my Rebel in March, and I’ve taken almost 5,000 pictures. I can do a lot more to learn all the nuances and cool stuff that the camera does and I haven’t yet.

Scrapbook more - I didn’t get much scrapbooking done last year. I made one album and worked on some stuff for hubby’s firefighter scrapbooks, but I didn’t do very much overall.

Bake more - I love baking and trying out new techniques in the kitchen. I hardly did any of that last year.

Try new recipes - I need to go thru the zillions of cookbooks and tons of recipe cards I have and make something new more often instead of the “same old same old” I let myself get in a rut.

Knitting – I have a few projects on the immediate status. 4 scarves and two felted bags. I want to make sure the rest of the year I work on the kids’ Christmas stockings so they’ll all have them for next Christmas

Crosstitch – This may be my most ambitious goal, is that since it’s been so long since I’ve bothered to crosstitch at all, I want to complete two unfinished projects. I need to make this a priority above the other crafty things on the list.

Make elaborate birthday cakes - I want to make each of the kids really cool birthday cakes this year. I even want to figure out how to use fondant possibly. There’s a lot of research yet to do but it would be fun to really do up the birthday cakes big and each one can be unique.

Sew girls a summer outfit - I had a lot of fun sewing Zach’s Halloween costume because my sewing machine hadn’t been doing anything more exciting than putting on Boy Scout patches. I’d like to maybe just at least sew the girls each an outfit for summer. Nothing elaborate, but something simple enough to keep me remembering how to use my sewing machine!

Read at least 8 books in addition to my book club selections - I already guarantee myself reading for my book club. And then I look at my stack of books still in the pile of wanting to conquer right away and I never manage to read many more even though I want to. I got a good start on accomplishing this in 2006 by starting the Outlander series. I’ve started the 4th book so finishing that one as well as 5 and 6 will help me in this goal.

Finish planting flowerbed by driveway, do backdoor flowerbed - I have two flowerbeds in highly visible areas of my yard that need my attention. We’ll put in some landscaping brick, give the soil an overhaul and I’ll plant some fun and interesting things in these two beds. I got a headstart in the fall in one of the beds by putting in 50 tulip bulbs. We’ll see how those look come spring!