Costuming for Halloween

This time of year, it's almost impossible to think of costuming without thinking of Halloween, that day in which wearing a costume is considered normal. Once upon a time, back in the mid-twentieth century, it was mostly children who wore costumes. If they had mothers who sewed, they might have a very elaborate costume indeed. Or, if they didn't, they might end up wearing a sheet with a couple of holes for eyes, as in "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!"

Nowadays, however, with more and more adults getting into the act, stores devoted to Halloween pop up across the US, temporarily touting costumes and accessories to make them look even more real. Almost any classification of costume is available, from ancient Egyptians through any period of history to horror, outer space, and beyond. If you can find what you want there, fine. Enjoy!

If, however, you want something well-made that will last beyond a wearing or two, you should consider making your own. If you want a complete suit of armor, I do recommend finding an armorer, unless you do auto body work. Some parts and accessories are better left to the professionals. For the rest, however, you can set your imagination to work, find a pattern and just the right fabric, and have some costuming fun!

Many of the major pattern companies have patterns for costuming. Unless you're making costumes professionally, these are a wonderful choice. McCall, Butterick, Kwik Sew, Simplicity, Burda, and even Craftsy all have great costume patterns for sale. You don't have much time left for this year, but you if you go for something easy, you can still come up with something wonderful. Hope these suggestions help!

Sewing Tools

If you're ready to add to your costume authenticity by some hand sewing, you may need to add a few items to your sewing box.

• sewing box, a place to keep all your dandy tools
• sewing bird, hemming bird
• hand needles
• thimbles
• beeswax
• pincushion
• emery 
• awl
• grommet setter
• self-covered button kit
• thread scissors or snips

You're probably already familiar some of these items. 

You should already have hand needles. I covered some basic stitches in How Authentic Do You Want To Be? 

If you're doing hand stitching, a thimble will be both an asset and an annoyance, depending on how you learn to use it. Thimbles are used not only to push a needle through difficult or many layers of fabric, but to keep you from hurting yourself. Sewing through heavy fabric can really wreak havoc on your fingers. All sorts of materials can be used to make thimbles, but you probably won't want to use a decorative china thimble for a lot of sewing. Metal thimbles are standard and less breakable than plastic ones, although those can be a good substitute. (Not, of course, if you're doing handwork at a reenactment or faire.) Thimbles do come in various sizes, so be sure you get one that fits. You may also want to get a leather thimble. It's more adjustable, plus, due to its flexibility, you can grab the needle more efficiently.

Beeswax is used to keep the thread from tangling and to move through the fabric more smoothly. You can wax the thread either before or after you've threaded your needle. Just run the thread through the beeswax and you're done.

A pincushion will give you a place to keep your needles and pins. Pincushions come in all kinds of styles,although these days we're most used to the ones shaped like tomatoes. Sometimes they come with a strawberry attached. The strawberry usually contains...

...Emery. This is used to keep your needles and pins sharp and free from rust. Nowadays most needles and pins are made of stainless steel, but you'll still need to sharpen them from time to time. A sharp needle pierces the fabric more efficiently. 

An Awl is used to ream holes in eyelets. If you're making corsets or anything that requires lacing, you'll be making eyelets. You may ream the hole before or after you install the grommet (unless you're stitching them by hand using the buttonhole stitch). 

A Grommet or Eyelet Setter will help you safely squeeze the two halves of the grommet or eyelet together with the fabric sandwiched between them. Grommets will make a sturdier hole support for lacing than the buttonhole stitch, but it's up to you which you choose. There are two types: the tiny one that is available with a set of eyelets, used if you aren't setting a lot of eyelets or grommets. If you use lots of grommets, you may want to invest in a grommet setter/hole punch with a rotating wheel. This is not only quicker and easier on your hands, but allows you to set various sizes of grommets with just one setter.

Self-covered button set. These are usually available at the fabric store. You can find them with the setter included, or get a refill set that has just the buttons. I've had mixed results with self-covered buttons. My observation is that they work best with thin fabrics. However, you can use them with velvet if you cut the circle of fabric larger and skip the backing completely. I'll be doing a post on buttons soon with instructions on how to make self-covered buttons. 

The sewing bird or hemming bird is like a third hand. (Indeed, one brand calls it Third Hand!) During the Victorian Era, these little tools were sometimes shaped like actual birds. Nowadays they're simpler, but they do the same thing. You attach the sewing bird to a sturdy table or to the arm of a chair--whatever it will fit. Turn the screw until it holds firmly. Then you fasten the fabric into the clip and it will hold it steady for you while you work the seam or the hem. Another neat usage for the sewing bird is to hold strands of thread or yarn for braiding. I've braided raffia using mine, and it works great. (It does slip on occasion, but that's easily remedied.)

Thread scissors are small, like embroidery scissors, which you can use for that purpose. You can also use a tiny shear to clip threads, especially if you're reenacting. 

We'll talk about scissors, shears and rotary cutters at another time. How you cut out your fabric is a matter of personal preference. Most likely you won't be cutting out fabric pieces during a reenactment. However, if you are, there are antique-style scissors and shears available out there. 

I hope you enjoy your hand sewing! 

How Authentic Do You Want to Be?

When you have chosen your time and your character, the next problem you'll face is authenticity. How authentic do you have to be in order to be correct? If you're doing living history, you'll probably need as close to 100% authenticity as possible.

If you want to be authentic and not just look it, you can't use a sewing machine for costumes prior to the 1860s. While there were some sewing machines beginning in the 1850s, they were not generally available. In addition, the original sewing machines were not lock-stitch like modern machines. Using just one thread, the machine sewed a chain stitch. That was fine....unless a thread broke. Then the entire seam ripped out!

In 1877, the Merrow Company began manufacturing crochet machines (known today as overlocks or sergers). They are still made today. While I've been unable so far to locate information on how much the original overlocks were used in the late 19th Century, you can certainly use them for 20th Century costumes, especially beginning with the 1980s.

If you are like most of us, you find the idea of hand sewing an entire garment daunting! For cases like this, you can compromise and use a sewing machine for interior seams that will not be seen. For all external stitching, you can do hand work. Hems, for example, will look more natural if done by hand rather than machine stitching. (You can compromise and use the blind hem stitch, but unless your costume is late 20th century, I'd avoid serged hems and even topstitching.)

If you have never done hand sewing (and with the great machines on the market these days, many people haven't), why not start with small projects until you master the stitches? The sampler was a teaching aid for many of our young ancestresses. While many of them show only decorative stitches, you can make your own sampler with assorted hand stitch work, and then use it as your guide as you construct your garment.

Here's a list of the basic stitches you'll need the most.

• The Running Stitch
• Just the way it sounds, this is a simple, straightforward stitch. Like a machine chain stitch, however, if it breaks, the entire seam is apt to unravel. If you're going to do a running stitch, I recommend adding a Backstitch every few stitches.
• The Backstitch

• Viewed from the top of the seam, a backstitch looks exactly like machine stitching (if you have a steady hand). The other side of the seam, however, tells a different story. I like to think of this stitch as "one step forward, two steps back," although it is definitely not a bad way to progress. On the back, you see how the needle has moved the length of two stitches. 
• Backstitch forms a VERY firm join, but it's time consuming. Worked in combination with Running Stitch, it works great.
• Hem Stitch
• This stitch can be as firm or flexible as you need, depending on the fabric. You can take just one thread, and make the stitching almost invisible. 

Naturally, you can use decorative stitches, but for costuming purposes, those fall more under the classification of embroidery.

One thing you will notice if you do decide to make the entire costume by hand: even if you press the seams open, they will not be as perfectly smooth as a machine stitched seam. You'll see a slight waviness, due to the nature of hand sewing. This is perfectly all right, and even desirable in some cases. How durable the seam is depends on which stitch you use.

So, to recap: if you don't have the patience to make a costume entirely by hand, go for just the visible parts. Hemming by hand will make a big enough difference to most costumes. Costumes with visible outer stitching may be done by hand.

Adapting Garments

Happy Tuesday!

Today, I'm discussing an aspect of costume that is great for beginners: adapting clothes you already have to a particular costume period.

Obviously, some clothes are more adaptable than others. You won't be able to take a t-shirt and jeans and turn it into anything earlier than the mid-to-late twentieth century. However, those same jeans, if plain enough, can work for a laborer's mid-to-late nineteenth century costume. Levi's 501 button-front jeans would be the best choice for that, as zippers weren't generally available in men's trousers until the 1930s. That was also the decade in which zippers were first promoted in children's clothing, as a way for children to be independent and easily dress themselves.


First, choose your era. If you're reading this blog, you've probably already done that.
I decided on 1880 for this adapted costume because we were visiting Tombstone frequently and hanging out with friends who reenact the shootout at the OK Corral. (I never got to do any reenacting, but that's beside the point.)

I chose for the upper element a lightweight cotton print dress. It already had several elements going for it

• a squared neckline, which was the standard in the 1880s. 
• a lightweight fabric that would be easy to manipulate
• a lapped zipper to which I could sew buttons, making it appear to button up the back (another standard of the 1880s)
• a princess-seamed bodice

Not only that, but it more or less matched the long pleated skirt a friend had given me. 

The actual work involved was simple. I sewed plain white buttons onto the zipper lap. Then I gathered the skirt up each side to create a polonaise, sewing by hand and securing the stitches so they wouldn't come loose. This I wore over a long-sleeved blouse with a high neckline and stand up collar, plus the long skirt. Instant 1880s costume. Would it satisfy a dedicated living history reenactor? Probably not. However, it has the look and the feel, and for this costume, at least, that's enough.

I made the hat from some craft felt, lace, and some shoulder pads, then added a purchased bird ornament. If I get enough requests, I may do a post on how to make hats from shoulder pads! 

So, choose your period, and then look for clothes you may already have that can adapt to that period. You may be surprised at what you already own that, with a little imagination and a bit of sewing, can become one of your favorite costumes!

Fabrics, Part 1

The very earliest "fabrics" were skins and furs. I'll write more on those later, as the methods of their preparation is vastly different from other fabrics.

The fabrics of first handmade manufacture are the woolens and linens, so ancient that they are mentioned in the Bible. Cotton cultivation came later, along with silk, which, due to the difficulty of obtaining it during the Middle Ages, became very popular among the royal, noble and wealthy merchant classes of Europe.

Wool is sheared from living animals, especially sheep, goats (cashmere), camelids (camel, alpaca, llama, etc.), and musk oxen (quiviut). Primarily, however, the term "wool" refers to fibers sheared from sheep. (See below for a discussion of the "other" wools.) Sheep's wool is easily dyed, another plus. One of the earliest methods of forming fabric from wool is felting, where the wool is washed in hot water with some sort of soap and then rubbed by hand until the fibers mat together. Modern methods achieve this with machines, but you can still make your own felt today, either by using wool fabric or natural wool fibers.

Linen is made by gathering the stems of the flax plant, then soaking them until they swell. The process is called retting. Once the fibers are free of the outer stalk, they can be dried and woven. No good modern method of creating linen has been successfully developed, which is one reason why linen is so expensive.

Cotton is another ancient fabric, which, unlike linen, was made both in the Old World and the New. Harvesting used to be a time-consuming process, as did removing the seeds from the fluffy fibers of the pod. Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, to remove the seeds by machine, greatly simplified the process, reducing the cost in the 19th Century.

Silk, according to legend, was discovered when a silkworm cocoon dropped into the teacup of a Chinese princess. If true, she must have been amazed at the long, lustrous, single thread she was able to unwind from cocoon. History records that the Empress Si-Ling-Chi was raising silkworms by 2640 BC. The only insect-produced fiber has many different variations in the weaves, one of the most popular of which is silk satin.

Ramie is another natural fiber, sometimes called China grass. It behaves somewhat like linen. Nowadays, it's often blended with other fibers, notably cotton and silk.

The "other" wools come from a variety of fur- or wool-bearing animals. Goats give us mohair and cashmere. Camel hair comes from (of course) camels. Other members of the camel family provide alpaca, llama, guanaco, huarizo and misti (crosses between alpaca and llama, the camelid versions of a mule and a hinny), and vicuña. Angora comes from angora rabbits, which are clipped just like sheep, only much more frequently. (No harm comes to the angora rabbits!) Quiviut is taken from the soft underwool of musk oxen.

Depending on your costume time period, you may choose one or more of the fabrics made from these fibers. In a future post, I'll also discuss historic fabric blends (such as linsey-woolsey). In the meantime, while you're doing your research, I recommend the following books:
Claire Shaeffer's Fabric Sewing Guide
Fabric Science, Fifth Edition
A History of Costume

What's the Bane of Your Costuming Existence?

I don't know about you, but mine is polyester thread! Sure, it stretches, which makes it great for things like swimsuits and exercise garments. The only problem with it is this:

It's stronger than the authentic fabrics we love to use in costuming! That means if you're experiencing problems with a seam being too tight, the thread won't break. The fabric will tear! Naturally, you don't want that to happen.

Unfortunately, finding 100% cotton, linen and silk threads can be difficult. They also cost more than 100% polyester or cotton-wrapped poly threads. However, it's worth paying more if your costume lasts longer, especially if you're planning to get several years of service from it.

If you're looking for 100% cotton thread, some manufacturers include

• Coats of Coats & Clark fame (who manufacture the aforementioned cotton-coated poly thread, which is great for many applications but not 100% natural fiber sewing)
• Gütermann, who also have a line of other natural and artificial threads
• Mettler also produces cotton threads along with their polyester Metrosene thread

Some of these also manufacture 100% silk thread. 

If you're looking for a good source of linen thread, try Lacis. They also carry silk and cotton threads, plus a goodly number of sewing and needlework accessories, many of which will be appropriate for your reenacting activities. 

So, what's your pet costuming peeve? Please feel free to share it here! I'd love to hear from you!

Ways to Get Into Costume

Once you have your costume era and silhouette firmly in mind, there are several different ways to achieve your desired look. Each has its merits, so don't dismiss any of them out of hand until you've explored the options.

• Pre-made costumes. These are available from costume shops and internet costume sites. Prices vary greatly according to quality, materials used, amount of handwork involved, and country of origin. The more it costs to make, the more it costs to buy.
• Costumes from a dressmaker or tailor. Here you'll pay the going rate for the sewing provider, and for all materials, including any patterns necessary. 
• Costumes you make yourself from a purchased pattern. Several pattern companies make costume patterns. In a future blog post, I'll discuss those in more detail.
• Costumes you make yourself from a book containing patterns to enlarge.
• Costumes you make yourself from a pattern you develop, either by flat drafting or draping.

If you don't have a single craftsy bone in your body, obviously your best bet will be to buy a costume, either premade or custom made. Premade costumes come in certain sizes, just like regular garments, so you won't have as much choice of how it fits you, unless you have it altered to fit, which can add more money onto the project. 

If you love to sew and make things, however, you should plan on making at least part of your costume. Depending on your skill level, you can come up with something quite wonderful.

And if you're terrible with a sewing needle, take heart. Not every outfit worn by our ancestors was perfectly sewn! Plaids weren't always perfectly matched at the seams. Seams weren't always perfectly straight. Perfection actually can detract from the historicity of an outfit, so feel free to make mistakes. 

What Is a Costume?

When people think about costumes these days, a few different things can come to mind. Halloween is an obvious one. So are movies, TV, and theater. Historical clothing is often referred to as costume. So are pieces of ethnic clothing.

But what about our everyday wear? When corporate America gets dressed, isn't it wearing a kind of costume? Construction workers have their own costume, as do soldiers, law enforcement officers, firefighters, medical workers, bankers, retail employees...everyone wears some kind of costume, if you think about it that way.

While it's true that most people don't go to work dressed like a pirate or a Roman emperor, we all wear some kind of costume every day, even if that costume is just torn jeans and a T-shirt.

Over the course of this blog, I'm going to be discussing what costume means to me, and discuss various techniques of making costumes and accessories similar to the ones I sell at my Etsy shop, Goodly Raiment. I have a great interest in many of the different definitions of costume, though my personal preferences run to historical, theatrical and ethnic. (Please note that theatrical can also encompass fantasy, science fiction, and steampunk.) I hope you'll join me in a conversation about all kinds of costume and accessories, from every era, time, place, or imagination!