Last year, the Things were both Grim Reapers. Apparently that never made it onto the blog. But it was a quick, easy costume (with the minor detail that JAF's cheap costume satin can make you swear). This year, Thing 1 was still up for being the Grim Reaper, but Thing 2 decided (after a pirate-themed birthday party he attended in June) that he was going to be a pirate.
I waited until October to begin the costume, wanting to be sure that he was really going to stick with it. Yep, still a pirate. So I chose M4952 as a pattern and went to work. All of the fabrics came from JAF - mainly because they had a good sale going the week that I was ready to collect fabrics and get started. :) The shirt is a thick white linen - added bonus that it was thick, so add a long-sleeved shirt under it and Thing 2 didn't need a jacket. The vest is a "picante" linen blend, lined with muslin. (It was supposed to be self-lined, but muslin's cheaper, and I knew the lining wouldn't be seen!) The pants are a striped costume satin - those just cracked me up. And the headscarf and sash are both a "costume sheer" - not what was suggested, but I thought it would work well.
As it turned out, the costume sheer gave me the most grief, until I realized that I didn't care about the fraying - that was just an added bonus for a pirate costume. I ran a line of stay-stitching about a half-inch from the edges of each piece to control the amount of fraying, and that was all the finishing I did. The sash required two pieces joined together, so I used french seams for that. Worked great! I would suggest for the sash - use the lengths given, but then be prepared to shorten after trying it on your child. I think I ended up shortening the sash around 6 inches or more for Thing 2.
The thick white linen of the shirt only gave me trouble with the sleeve bands. It was too thick to ease well, and I'd have to say that I'm not totally happy with those bands. But otherwise, I'm really happy with how the shirt turned out. I installed small eyelets and then used a shoelace for the lacing (I think I got that idea from a review on PR).
We just had to add some dirt and scars with face paint (he was a "dirty" pirate), an eyepatch, and a play knife, and he was set! Thing one wore his costume robe from last year - unfortunately we didn't realize ahead of time that he didn't have a black shirt that fit anymore - and they had a blast! (The Grim Reaper costume is M2854.)
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