Halloween 2012: Special Agent Ellso (Oso)

I know I haven't been too crafty lately.  It's been so humid, I haven't really been feeling the funk.  Although, I have been slowly working on Ella's Halloween costume!

As soon as the costumes and Halloween treats started appearing on store shelves, Ella announced that she was going to be a princess.  She picked out a pink, princess Aurora dress and asks to try it on at least once a week to twirl around in.

Since then, I learned about the Co-op doing a special day for the kids, including costumes, trick-or-treating, and even a pizza lunch.  I wanted Ella to have an awesome handmade costume and to give out little treats to her friends.  She still likes Yo Gabba Gabba and Fresh Beat Band, but I was worried that either the idea is too old, or that no one would know what character she was supposed to be!  Recently, she's started watching Disney Junior and has really taken to Doc McStuffins and Special Agent Oso.  I wanted to get her the Doc McStuffins doctor set for Christmas, so I thought maybe she could be Oso.

The internet didn't have too much on Oso.  There weren't too many toys, and I think the show is too small to have a huge fan-base, so there were definitely no costumes.  All the kid costumes online were ones that parents made for their kid.  I guess my only option then was to be totally ambitious and make one for her myself!  BTW, Ryan did make a comment about making it myself, something to the extent of "as long as it's not too boroz" in other words, "I'm not confident in your skills to make something decent so she can use it at home".  GASP!  Oh no he didn't!!  He claimed he didn't mean it "like that", but really, he did.  He means exactly that as he's referencing my ability to cook food, since we've had a few mishaps of the most awful tasting meals.  Ever.

But come on, I'm really not half bad at this sewing activity ;)
















This won't be a tutorial since I lack the discipline and forethought to actually photograph my steps and list out exact details of my work.  However, I will share a bit about my process in case you're interested in how I did it and how you may want to approach a similar project.

Ok, so first, I wrote out all the elements of the costume:

• Oso body - Long-sleeve yellow body/legs and white belly, round tail
• Oso head - Yellow hood with facial details
• Vest - Black with red trim, faux notions
• Accessories - Paw pilot and watch communicator

Then I tried to figure out what I could sew to make it work.  I scoured blogs for free patterns and tutorials to help me.  Most times I had to create the pattern myself for the sizing, but at least I could find information on how to build the pieces.  Here's what I came up with:

• Oso body
• raglan tee by Craftiness Is Not Optional, using yellow knit (purchased a couple cheap yellow blouses from Ross') for the back and long sleeves and white (knit shirt I threw into the junk pile) for the front panel.  Tail was a gathered circle ( like making a yo-yo), attached to the back bottom of the tee.
• leggings by Craftiness Is Not Optional, again using yellow knit
• Oso head
• hoodie by The Boy Trifecta, I drafted my own hood shape by tracing a hood from one of her jackets, but used the instructions on how to piece it together and attach to the tee
• face details by Disney Junior, I used one of the coloring book pages, enlarged his facial details and cut it out with felt.  I covered most of the felt pieces with scraps of knit so that I could match up the colors and hand-stitched them in place on the exterior hood (I did this before assembling the hood so that you wouldn't see the messy backside).  For the mouth and nose, I did a satin stitch because I wasn't sure how else to get it to look similar.
• Vest
• frontier vest by MADE, I didn't have felt yardage, so I cut out the pieces from sheets and assembled them together.  The back is actually two pieces that I attached and pressed.  The red binding is just strips of 1 inch felt that I attached like bias tape.  
• notions by me, I used silver lace ribbon to look like a zipper on both sides, and on one end attached little zipper pulls.
• Accessories
• Paw pilot by Disney Junior, there's a printable matching game that has an image of a Paw Pilot, I printed it out, cut it to shape, and laminated it.  I used E-6000 to attach a flat back metal pin.
• Watch communicator by me, I just made a strip with a circle and used some embroidery thread to make frequency lines on the face.  It's held on her wrist with adhesive velcro.

And, that's it!  I probably could have finished this project in a weekend if I had no other distractions (and the weather was cooperating).  It was rewarding to work on it and have Ella exclaim, "You making Oso??!!" when I would finish each component.  At least she thinks it looks like it.  And if she's happy, I think that's all that matters.