Hello everyone,
I hope that you are all having a great October. I love this time of year!
Well as promised, I am going to write this post about altering Leatha’s old Witch costume into a Vampirate costume. A Vampirate is a cross with a Vampire and a Pirate. It is a book series that my daughter is loving right now, and what says Halloween more, but a Vampirate?
Here is what the Witches costume looked like before. 
You can see that the costume is way to short for Leatha now and needs to be changed up a little to look like a marooned pirate/vampire. The trick is she wants the Marooned weather-worn frayed pirate look.
To get the weather-worn look, I cut the hems off of the skeleton skirt and the sleeves.
I then went around the skirt in a jagged zig-zag patten, to make large triangle cuts.
I then took the fabric and sewed a straight line following this new zig-zag patten. When sewing this line, decide how much more you want the fabric to fray to give you the weathered look. I wanted about one inch of fraying, so I sewed one inch away from the edge of the raw fabric.
To help with the fraying, I then cut the fabric up to the new sewed line, all the way around each zig-zag about 1/4 to 1/2 inch apart. see attached examples.
After I washed the outfit the fabric frayed up to the sewed line giving it this great weather-worn look. I repeated the zig-zag cutting pattern on the sleeves. However with the sewing the support line around the zig-zags, I made just a straight line around. I wanted the entire zig-zagged portion of the sleeves to fray. The sleeves look great after they were washed.
The next project for me was to make the skirt longer and more modest. I decided to add an under layer to the skirt that went under the skull fabric and the black netting. I took the costume to the fabric store with Leatha and allowed her to choose any color fabric she wanted. She wanted the shiny silver costume fabric. Which was great for me, for it was only $2.00 a yard. I also had Leatha pick out a contrast color for her belt/scarf, and her head scarf. She choose a wonderful dark purple in the same costume fabric.
I took the silver fabric and sewed up the side of the fabric, so the fabric was one large tube shape. I then cut off the extra length from the bottom of the fabric. Next I sewed a long straight stitch around the top and used the bobbin thread to gather the silver fabric until it was the same size as the existing skull fabric. I then layered the silver skirt under the netting and the skull fabric so all the rights sides of the fabric were facing the same way. Next I pinned, then sewed the silver fabric in place on top of the already made seam from the skull skirt.
Leatha put on the dress and I cut slits in both side of the skirt up to her knee. I then sewed a straight stitch around the silver skirt about 12 inches from the bottom of the skirt. Next I went around the bottom of the silver fabric and cut some long slits all around the skirt up to the 12 inch sew line. After Leatha put on the skirt I realized that I needed two slits on the sides of the sliver skirt to give her more room when she was walking. These slits I cut went up to the side of her knees. At the top of the log slits I sewed a small straight stitch to help control the fraying of the fabric. After the new Vampirate costume was washed, it had a wonderful worn frayed look.
Leatha wanted a lace up top look, so on the top of the dress I sewed a small purple ribbon back and forth in a cross pattern from her waist to the neck line. I left enough ribbon at the neck to tie a bow. It was a great addition to help tie in the purple color she wanted to add.
With the dark purple fabric I purchased a yard for $2.00, I cut it from one corner to another, turning it into two large triangles. One triangle I tied around her waist to make a belt/scarf and add a punch of color to her dark costume. I then took the other triangle and I tied it around her head as a bandanna. This will help to hold on the wig that she wants to wear with the costume.
To finish the look, I placed a pirate hat and wild wig, I already had on her head. I also gave her a eye patch to wear (That is tied on with purple ribbon) , added a purple ribbon choker necklace and gave her black stockings.
Leatha looked great! She loved the look and was excited that she was going to be the only Vampirate at school! I loved the fact that the entire costume change from a Witch to a Vampirate only cost me $8.00!!!! and some creativity.
Well I hope that you enjoyed this post. Halloween is a wonderful holiday that can also be affordable! Just use your creativity! you can do it!
