Project: Hobbes Halloween costume

This year's halloween costume went through many many options. But, we finally settled on Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes. A syndicated comic strip that ran in the old school newspaper from the mid '80s to mid '90s. From one of my favorite artists of all time, Bill Watterson. His comics are one of the best written .. in any format. And they stand the test of time. True classics.

Hobbes is the sidekick of Calvin (in his vividly wild imagination), but only a stuffed toy to everyone else.

Since it's Bill's principle that he would never license out the Calvin & Hobbes property for any commercial sales, I was fairly confident that we would not see another Hobbes on another kid. Well.. unless it was also homemade.


NOT THIS GUY:


The projects starts off with paper as a template. Sizes were taken off of Persephanie directly. Then with the paper template, simply transfer it onto the fabric.






Daddy's little helper. Helping pin the fabric together. Prepping for the sewing machine.




Sleeves done. Now the body. 2 pieces, almost identical. For the exception of the crotch. There's an extra piece of material added for the butt so it can 'stretch' a bit, so there won't be any kind of wardrobe malfunctions.

Entry would be through the crotch/inside legs area. Just pulled over her like a long sweater. The hole would be attached by little snap-on buttons. (Which will be hand sewn on)




The Hoodie:
This piece was actually pretty hard to start. Very challenging. Trying to figure out how to make a flat 2-dimensional piece of fabric wrap snuggly around my daughters head. Then it hit me. Why not just go grab one of her other hoodies she had and reverse-engineer it! I can just flip them inside out and see how they sewed them together. It would also show how many pieces and what shape the pieces are. Once that's figured out, it was super easy.

Since it was SO hard to get my daughter to stand still while I take measurements or 'test fit' pieces on her.. I went out and bought a foam dummy head ($7.00 at Dressew!) This way I can just work ON the model without fear of poking/stabbing it.


The Chest Hair:
Found this hair at Dressew! Place is SO AWESOME! They have everything.. and so cheap. This piece was simply cut and fabric glued on. SO EASY!! I thought of sewing it down... but, got lazy.. and time was running out for me.


The Tiger Stripes:
Simply used fabric glue again to paste it all on.


The Hands:
I found Sephie's gloves and was planning on using it to reverse-engineer the pattern. Since the hand is such a complicated thing to wrap fabric around. I wanted to see how the pros do it. Upon research.. I concluded it was just TOO complicated for me to try. Time was running out for me. So, I took the easy way out. Hoping the frabic's inherent stretchiness would save me! I took an outline sketch of Sephie's hands. Preschool style!! woohoo. Cut the pattern on the fabric (x4). Sandwhiched two pieces... and prepped it for the sewing machine.


With the two halves together, all I had to do was sew along the lines I had drawn. Giving myself an extra 3/8" buffer outside the actual profile outline. When done, I flipped the glove inside-out, so the stitching is on the inside.

The pieces for the ears. I stuffed a thin piece of fabric for the black part of the ears to give it more volume. And a simple white piece of fabric for the center of the ears. Those little triangular notches are material I removed so I can bend the 'ring' without have excess material to bind.

Rough cutouts for the tail.


The ears and tail. Used standard pillow stuffing to stuff the tail for some soft volume.

Some more of the batting stuffed into the muzzle of Hobbes.

Hand-stitched the muzzle closed.

Hot-glued the nose ($0.25 brown cotton ball found @ Dressew). More hand-stitching for the ears onto the head.



The Final Product:






There is a flaw in the design. One that I hadn't anticipate or even expected. Persephanie had a hard time getting into and out of the costume. Not that it was a perfect fit. It was. Maybe TOO perfect. The suit fit super snug on her frame. The problem was when the costume was being pulled over her eyes, extreme claustrophia set in. She cried and screamed "I'm LOST!" Absolutely terrifying for her.. but, hilarious for us. Even when I got her head through, her arms were trapped while struggling to find the sleeve. Midway through she even tried to get back out... which resulted in more crying. She only wore the costume for her Preschool. Manage to take a few photos there. But, as soon as she got home, it came off. And of course.. another struggle.

So there it is. The costume was retired.