My thoughts are that you get two, maybe three Halloweens to pick your kid's costume before they start requesting who knows what. This might be my last choice with Elise, so I wanted to make sure she was a cute animal with ears.
Not being the greatest seamstress, I started with this easy idea from Martha Stewart, but made a few changes along the way. Layered over a store-bought black knit shirt and a pair of leggings, this costume was really simple.
(Sorry I didn't take any in-process shots. I was kind of making things up as I was going along and I got lazy.)
I bought a white onesie in a size bigger than she currently wears (because it was going over the black shirt and pants) and cut off the sleeves.
The Martha idea was to gather quilt batting and sew it to the onesie, but I found this fleecey-looking chenille fabric at Jo-Ann Fabric and couldn't not use it. I bought a yard, but ended up only using about half a yard.
I sized up and cut a rectangle of chenille a bit larger than what was required to wrap around the onesie, then I machine sewed two opposite sides together to make a tube. I slid it over the onesie, then I just tacked down all of the edges to the arm, neck and leg openings with a needle and thread. (I may go back and machine sew around all of the openings for strength.)
It looks a little tunic-like when she's standing, so maybe I should have made it a little shorter, but I wanted to leave plenty of fabric for freedom of movement. And I like how it bunches when she sits.
Martha's idea had the felt ears sewed to a white knit cap, but I knew Elise wouldn't leave a hat on for more than a few seconds, so I sewed them to some barrettes. She leaves them in for the most part. I hope trick or treating is distracting enough that she forgets about them.
I also skipped the black face paint on the nose because I thought that was just asking for trouble on an 18-month-old.
One last thing, I slipped a pair of my black socks over her tennies because lambs don't wear glitter shoes.
