The Birth of a Star

I love to sew, especially for my kids. In addition to pretty dresses, I love love to make them Halloween costumes. I've made cats, a unicorn, Eeyore, a phoenix (complete with huge wings) and a chick hatching out of an egg, among other things. It's been kind of rough the last few years because things have been so busy but this year I made one and assembled the parts for another awesome one. This post is only about the one I made, however (more on the awesome one this weekend).

The baby is just shy of six months old now and at first I wanted to make her a firefly costume, complete with glowing posterior, but apparently the only fabric I could find to light up the way I want costs over a hundred dollars a yard. A bit too rich for my blood for a baby costume, even for myself (and I love making over the top costumes). A random discussion between my husband, my kids and I spawned the idea of making her a starfish costume, which I thought would be super easy and super cute! Then I decided that even easier, and just as cute, would be making her a yellow star. Woot!

So here are the instructions, some really horrible pictures (my iphone is dying, /sadface) and some tips from where I learned what to do and not to do next time. (I fail so you don't have to!)

So here's what you need for a star costume:

1. One cute baby:

"Cute is my superpower. With it I shall take over the world."

2. Pattern paper, tracing paper, butcher paper, something to draw the pattern on.
3. Pen/pencil
4. Straight edge- a yardstick or a long clear ruler like the kind quilters use is best
5. Fabric and scissors (I used fleece for the fabric)
6. Fusible interfacing (I used lightweight but probably should have gone with something a little heavier. I just used what I had on hand).
7. Velcro (either the sew-on kind of the fusible kind. I knew this costume would only be worn once so I lazied out and used the fusible iron-on kind.)
Optional: French curves or some kind of curved ruler.

First thing you need to do is measure the length of your baby (top of the head to the bottoms of the feet). Anyone with a baby will know this takes some serious guesswork and the best way to do it is with two people- one to try to get the baby to hold still and stretch all the way out (HAHAHAHA) and the other person to measure. Measure a couple of times, get as accurate of a measurement as you can but don't stress about it too much.

Add about six inches to that measurement. So if you measured your baby at 30 inches, add six for 36 inches.

When you buy your fabric, you basically want two square pieces with the edges the length of the baby, and you want to make sure you have a couple of inches extra around the edges for when you place the pattern. So for a 36 inch total, add four for forty inches. Make sure you get enough fabric for two 40x40 squares. Clear as mud?

My squares of fleece one on top of the other

Now you need to draw your star pattern. Draw a regular five sided star. I didn't want to freehand this so I looked up how to draw a perfect 5 sided star inside of a square. This website had some great instructions on how to do it, I just transposed the directions onto paper and divided my measurements by eight. If you can multiply, divide, and add, you can do this. Alternately, you can just freehand it. Here's what my star looked like when I was done with it.

 Next I "puffed" out the star a bit. I wanted it to look more like a cute star or a Mario star like this:

This is where my french curves came in handy. But again, you could freehand this. Then I cut out the pattern, laid it on my fabric squares and cut out the shape. So now I have a couple of pieces of star shaped fabric.

Sew around the edges, leaving the bottom edge open. It should look like this when you're done:

See on the left of the picture? It's not sewed up there. That's where the baby's legs will be. You'll put velcro there later.

Now, in order to prevent smothering of your baby, you'll want a face hole. But I wasn't sure precisely where to put the face hole. So I put the star costume on the baby and taped the fabric at the spot where her forehead and her chin were under the fabric. Boy was she mad lol. Then I cut a circle of paper in about the size I needed, taped it onto the fabric, and cut it out.

Pro tip #1: Cut this hole SMALLER than you think it should be. You can always make it bigger but you can't make it smaller once it's cut. Ask me how I know.

Pro tip #2: You should probably remove the baby from the costume before cutting the face hole. Just sayin'.

Leave the costume inside out. Fuse your interfacing to the top half of the front side of the star, to help stabilize the arms and the head portion. In fact, if you want to do it intelligently (and not like how I did it) you can do this step before you cut out the face hole. That way you don't have to cut out interfacing to fit around the hole. Again, just sayin'. You want the interfacing or some kind of stabilizer to keep the face hole from stretching out and to help the points keep their shape.

Turn the star right side out. Apply the velcro to the bottom of the star. You can sew this in or use the sticky stuff like me. Apply it exactly on the edges. When you put the costume on the baby, you will fold the edges under to stick the velcro together, and it will hide everything and look like the whole thing is seamed together.

If you want, cut a couple of slits in the FRONT of the arm sections near the end for baby hands to poke through.

And you're done! Insert baby and admire the cuteness.

"No I won't cooperate! You can't make me stretch out so I look like a star! HAHA"

"Curses. Apparently you CAN make me look like a star by laying me on my tummy. I can't crawl away so instead I will voice my displeasure by screaming at you thereby making you turn me over so I no longer look like a cute star. HA"

Again, make sure you make the star bigger than the length of the baby by at least six inches or so. You can always sew the star smaller if needed and trim the seam allowances, but if you make it just the length of the baby it will be just a bit too short.

Happy sewing!