Couple Costumes are for Blockheads

So we don't normally dress up for Halloween, but decided to go all out for it last year. The party itself wasn't until the weekend after Halloween due to how it fell on the calendar in 2013, so now seems like a good time to share the results!

Peanuts costume inspiration

I love old school holiday cartoons—from claymation anything to classic animation,—it is just not a holiday without them. At some point, I got it into my head that we could dress up as Lucy and Schroeder from Peanuts. I know people normally do Lucy and Charlie Brown but it's Schroeder that Lucy is so hung up on.

This is my "I just made an Anne of Green Gables-esque puffed sleeve SUCKAS!" face

I made my dress using the Kwik Sew K4002 tunic pattern as a base with some cheap blue fabric that I found on sale. I then added some length, raised the neck line to a crew neck, and  drafted a ruffled collar finished with bias binding as well as some puffed sleeves. To get the neckline just right, I traced the curve of a crew neck garment I already had and felt comfortable with. I completed the look with oversized black buttons (actually from a snowman kit on clearance at Joann's) and embroidery, hair dye, saddle shoes, and some bright blue socks from Target. Luckily, my naturally not contemporary 60's-esque haircut was just right. My husbands outfit was really easy as it was just a matter of finding a purple and black stripe t-shirt to pair with black pants and hair dye.

Here we are, looking like dorky 12 year olds. It was awesome.

I'd never done alterations like this before and just went for it after reading as much as I could find. I haven't done a lot of garment sewing so this was definitely a confidence booster for me. I would definitely recommend experimenting with simple silhouettes for Halloween costumes as a way to get comfortable with sewing clothes—it's very creatively freeing and doesn't come with all the pressure of having to get things just right since it's not the kind of thing you'll be wearing on a regular basis.