DIY Hallowe'en: Dragon Costume/Hoodie

Hallowe'en is a cold time of year where we live. So costume choices always need to take into account the need for a jacket (or other warm clothing) underneath. A while back, I bought some clearance fleece from Fabricland for a project that I have long forgotten about now - which turns out great for the boys, because the fleeces were the perfect colours for their requested "Fire-Breathing Dragon" costumes.

I posted about the wings and a link to the tutorial from I'm Feeling Crafty are here.

For the hoodie, I used a pattern that I had on hand already: Burda 9716. Though you could easily use a sweatshirt/t-shirt pattern as well. The only modification that had to be made was the hoodie back. Instead of cutting the back on the fold, I added a seam allowance to the centre back and cut it out as two pieces, so that I would have a seam down the back to which I could add some scales/back ridges.

I cut a spiky spine out of fleece be the ridges along my baby dragon's back. Sandwiched some fusible interfacing between two layers and used a zig zag stitch to seal the layers together. Fleece doesn't really fray that much, so I didn't finish the raw edges any further than that.

Don't worry about messy edges, a little trimming fixes everything.

Then I sandwiched the spine and the hoodie-back pieces together, pinned and sewed them up, right sides facing.

Just about the flip the other hoodie-back piece on top.

To reinforce the seam and to ensure that the spines stood up as straight as possible, I ironed open the seam and then stitched down both sides of the seam to tack down the seam allowance and keep the spine from falling to one side or the other.

Don't know why I'm not using my walking foot here, remembered it
and switched for the rest of the construction.

For the hood, I also sandwiched some ridges in the centre seam so that the baby dragons would have spikes on their heads too. I cut these spikes out individually since they had to fit along the curve of the hood.

Same drill, with fusible interfacing in between, and a zig zag stitch along the edges. I basted the hood spikes in place before sandwiching the hood pieces together. This was because I had to ease the spikes in around the curved seam and with the amount of pinning required for all the thick layers of fleece, I thought it was much easier to baste the spikes on instead.

Spikes basted in place and waiting to be sandwiched with the other
side of the hood.

I didn't reinforce the hood seam the same way as the spine. Partly because the hood spikes won't take as much stress as the back spikes, which will have the wings crushing them down and the boys leaning on them every time they lean back (or roll on the ground). And partly because the curved seam required quite a lot of clipping with the pinking shears to get the seam to turn out nicely, so there really wouldn't have been much to stitch down anyway :)

Other than these modifications, the hoodies were finished as per the instructions. (Note: the Burda pattern is a lined hoodie... I really didn't need such a nice finish, so mine are unlined and hemmed as I saw fit).

Here's the hoodie and the wings in their full fire-breathing glory :)

I like the costumes because the hoodie and wings are separate pieces, meaning that the kids can use them as all-purpose, dress-up clothing afterward. Also with the dragon suit being a modified fleece hoodie, it's soft, warm, comfortable, very versatile in terms of layering and the older boy can easily dress and undress himself at school. Fairly quick to put together and the boys seemed pleased with the end result.

p.s. In fact, every time someone noticed his costume, my eldest son would stop his running around and pose a bit for some admiration. lol. Vanity at its best.