1 Hour Pumpkin Costume: Tutorial

It is the morning of Halloween. Do you know what costume your child will be wearing? If not, why not whip up a pumpkin costume? This is SUPER easy and comes together in about an hour.

Supplies: Orange fleece (amount needed varies based on the size of your child, but one yard is probably plenty)
Black felt
Glue gun or craft glue
Orange thread
scissors
1/2" or 3/4" elastic (length depends on size of neckline)
1" or 2" elastic (length depends on size of waistline)
Sewing machine


To begin, measure your child at the following locations -
elbow to elbow
top of shoulder to top of shoulder
underarm to top of shoulder
waistline

Using your elbow to elbow measurement, cut your fleece this wide (my 4 year old measures 20").

Using your top of shoulder to top of shoulder measurement, cut a semi-circle out of the fold of the fleece. This is now your neckline.

Turn your fleece to the wrong side and fold down the edge of your neckline to make a casing (you don't need to fold under the raw edge - fleece won't fray). Leave a 1 1/2" opening to thread your elastic.

Thread your elastic through, stopping to try on your child before sewing the overlapped edges of elastic together and sewing shut your opening.

Try your costume back on your child and mark where you want the armholes to be.

Sew up sides.

Keeping your costume wrong side out, fold up the bottom edge of your costume. I used a wide sport elastic, so I made a big casing. Leave yourself an opening to thread the elastic.

Thread your elastic, trying on your child again, and sewing your elastic together and sew shut your opening. 

Now you get to make the face! Samantha chose what shapes she wanted for the features, and I cut them out of black felt. We arranged them together on the front of her costume and I used a hot glue gun to glue them down. (You could sew them, but I didn't to save time.)

Now on to the hat! I used this tutorial/pattern and added a rectangle of green felt for the stem. 

Voila! That's it! You made a very simple costume!