Argh Matey!

How awesome is this place? I took this picture with my iphone a few years ago right before Halloween. It must have taken some serious time to do this. It might be hard to tell, but it was built in their front yard and attached to their wrap around porch. They had cannons that were smoking and tons of skeletons.

Argh! Pirate Costume

This year my son wanted to be a pirate for halloween and I was feeling particularly ambitious and thought I could actually make the entire costume myself. Let me put it out there that I am a novice sewer. I've never made a jacket or pants or anything similar, but somehow I thought that I was crafty enough to come up with something half decent that didn't cost an arm and a leg. In the end I got a pirate dress up costume for the hat and sword. I was going to get some dress up things for Christmas, so it worked out. Plus they were 50% off. I tried to make a hat, but it didn't come out so good. 

I started with the pants. I got some fabric from a friend's yard sale. I knew they would be a little short, but it's a halloween costume and I wasn't that worried about it. I followed a tutorial for pj pants and they were super easy and done in less than two hours start to finish. I had some elastic from another project laying around that I was able to use.

The jacket proved to be a bit more complicated and a few times I thought I was in way over my head. I started with one of my son's shirts as a pattern and went from there. I learned some things along the way, such as how to do a collar. When you have no idea what you are doing, it can be daunting. Plus I was using some felt that I got on sale, so I wasn't going to line it. I added some trim that I had lying around and some buttons from last years costume. (I needed gold buttons and it was cheaper to buy a men's jacket from a thrift store than to actually buy gold buttons.) Sorry for the bad iphone pics.