DIY Baby Lobster Costume

We are all about costumes at our house! Any excuse to dress up is a win in my book. With Halloween approaching I wanted to share Little Plum's DIY costume from last year (I'm still busily plotting Halloween 2014!). We go to a themed party each year, and last year was our first attempt at incorporating a baby into our costumes. We needed something easily tote-able as Little Plum was not yet walking. After some brainstorming and Pinterest searching, we settled on chefs with Little Plum as a lobster. The adult costumes were easy enough. We grabbed some cheap catering aprons, chef hats, and bow ties all from the craft store. Done.

For Little Plum, I knew we needed something comfy and easily removable in the event of baby rage or dirty diapers. I began by tracing a pattern from one of her shirts with raglan style sleeves (think baseball-tee sleeves) because these are way easier to sew than set-in sleeves. I added large scallops to the bottom hem to make the lobster tail.
 

Body pattern

The whole costume was made out of fleece to minimize hemming. I finished off the back and neck openings with coordinating bias tape, leaving the ends long so that the costume tied like a smock over her regular clothes.

Front View

Back View

For the claws, I measured the width of her sleeves and the length from elbow to wrist to get the general claw dimensions, then free handed a claw pattern, leaving enough seam allowance to stuff the claws with 1/4 inch foam. I also left a large seam allowance on the back end of the claws to give me plenty of room to attach them to the sleeves. I made four claws total, two for each arm.

Claw pattern - the back edge is the width of the sleeves

I chose to sew the claws on about half way up her arms so that she would have easy access to her hands. I attached two claws to each sleeve by hand, first sewing each claw on and then tacking the two claws together on each side.

Detail view of where the claws were attached and then tacked together

Here you can see how much sleeve was poking through the claws

The hat was another bit of tricky business. I ended up heavily modifying a pilot cap pattern to fit Little Plum's massive noggin. A pilot cap has two seams down the crown which is the perfect place to attach antennae.

Hat pattern

I made a casing out of bias tape and stuffed it with pipe cleaners for the antennae, which I then sandwiched into the pilot cap seams prior to sewing it up. I finished off the edges of the cap with bias tape, leaving long tails for ties. The antennae are a little floppy when the hat isn't on a head. I left the casing extra long on the inside of the cap so that no pipe cleaners were jabbing into baby heads.

The hilarious Muppet-like eyeballs totally make the costume! For those, I cut out large circles from white knit fabric. I attached solid black safety eyes to the center of the circle (you can find safety eyes in the bear/doll making section of most craft stores). Then I just hand stitched a quick running stitch around the perimeter of the circle and stuffed it full of fiberfill as I pulled the stitches tight. Once the eyeballs were stitched closed, I tacked them onto the hat by hand.

Overall I was super pleased with how the lobster costume turned out. It was completely tolerable to a baby and looked freaking hilarious! We carried her around in a huge canning pot lined with bath towels.

Do you DIY Halloween? Do you have a family costume theme?