Last night I started the sewing part of the costume making procedure. I started with the shirt.

Stitch front to back at shoulder seams. Stitch front to back at side seams.

No Problem

With RIGHT sides together, stitch facing to collar in a 3/8″ seam, leaving notched edges open. Trim seam; clip curves.

Facing? I call my mom and find out facing means putting right sides together. Okay. Now where do I sew? I have to look at the picture in the directions to know what they mean. Okay, done.

Turn collar; press. Machine baste raw edges together. On OUTSIDE, pin collar (facing side) to neck edges, matching centers back, large dots and placing small dots at shoulder seam…

I got lost with the rest of the directions but I had messed up anyway with the color so I couldn’t continue anyways. My collar is lopsided. Now I will have to cut out a new one.

Lets move onto the sash.

Fold sash in half, lengthwise, with RIGHT sides together. Stitch in a 3/8″ seam, leaving an opening to turn. Trim seam and corners.

That was easy enough. The next step required me to press and stitch opening close. I will do that later. I don’t feel like doing those.

Now on to the bandanna. Oops no red thread. Okay on to the pants.

Stitch center front and center back seams. To reinforce seam, stitch again over first stitching. Clip curves.

Very easy.

Press 1″ on upper edge to INSIDE, forming casing. Press under 1/4″ on raw edge. Stitch close to lower edge of casing, leaving an opening on inner edge to insert elastic.

I didn’t do any pressing but I didn’t have any problems.

Cut piece of 1/2″ wide elastic to fit waist, plus 1″. Insert elastic together securely. Stitch opening closed.

The hardest part of this is measuring Liam’s waist! He just won’t stay still. I hope the measurement is correct.

Make leg casing as View A, B, see step 22.

What? With the help of my husband we figured out that they want me to use the directions from the other costumes at step 22, which is the exact same directions as the waist but for ankles. Why couldn’t they just say that. Any way I do this, sort of. My machine decides to be a pain. Needless to say I need a seam ripper and I can’t find it. My husband uses it all the time and this time he forgot to put it back. Neither of us know where it is. So I have to buy a new one but the stores are closed. I will buy it tomorrow. On to the vest…

With RIGHT sides together, stitch front and back at shoulder seams.

Very simple.

Stitch shoulder seams of lining.
With RIGHT sides together, pin lining to vest, matching centers and shoulder seams, having raw edges even.
Stitch lining to vest, leaving side seams open for turning. Trim seams and corners; clip curves.

A little more complex but not very hard.

Turn vest RIGHT side out by pulling each front through shoulder and out one of the back side openings, as shown; press.

Not fun to do but not hard. Why do I have to keep pressing? I didn’t know an iron was part of sewing!

With RIGHT sides together and raw edges even, pin vest and lining at sides, matching armhole seams and lower seams.
To stitch, begin on lining 1″ above armhole seam; stitch vest seam and end on lining 1″ below seam edge. Press seam open. Turn seam allowance of remaining lining edges and slip stitch together.

I’m not sure what they wanted me to do but I do it the way I think it should be done and includes no slip stitching which is good because I don’t know how to do that.

The only thing left is putting on the buttons and Velcro. They have some very complex directions on how to do this. I do it my way instead. The vest looks great.

Well that’s all I can do until I go shopping or redo the collar (which is not what I want to do) but I did complete the vest!