Howl-O-Ween

I was invited to go out with a group of friends tonight, but I was informed, "You have to dress up." One of the girls is going to be Little Red Riding Hood, so I volunteered to be the Big Bad Wolf. I hit walmart late last night and no wolf masks. I wasn't about to start Halloween shopping at 6:30 at night so I remembered a Halloween many years ago when my nephew Rabbit was a freshman at ECU. He and I designed and built a dragon costume for him out of green and yellow posterboard and some green felt. It was held together with glue and staples. I remember finding Rabbit later that night with a group of kids dancing around him singing Puff the Magic Dragon.
I pulled up a Tex Avery cartoon wolf image in my mind and designed it from the outside in. For $10 I bought some fuzzy material, a piece of pink felt, a piece of black felt, some white spray paint and a new pair of scissors... Oh, and a 20 oz Pepsi. I had at home cardboard, spray adheasive, a big plastic cup, sewing machine, some black leather and popsicle sticks. I hadn't used the sewing machine in years and ended up sewing it all by hand. Trish, if you're reading this I need a refresher course.



First I made the muzzle. I cut the cup in half vertically, one side slightly larger than the other, cut a notch for my nose in the big half, sprayed it with glue and covered it with fuzzy material. On the bridge of the snout I wrinkled the material to give it a more natural look. Then I glued a piece of black leather cut to look like a dog nose to the end, and trimmed some popsickle sticks to look like teeth and glued them in. The bottom of the snout was easy, spray glue and fuzzy stuff, then sewed a flap on for the front of my neck.
Next came the hood. I folded and cut some fuzzy stuff in the shape of a crescent moon with a collar. I sewed up the forehead peak and discovered I cut the crecsent too small. It worked out well though because I cut a diamond shaped piece for the back of the head and it has a more "head shaped" head than it otherwise would.
For the tongue I cut the pink felt into a narrow rectangle with one rounded corner, sewed the cut edge, turned it inside out put the seam in the middle and ironed it flat and glued it to the inside of the bottom jaw. Then I sewed the bottom jaw to the hood and attached the neck flap to the collar sides. Damn, the jaw is way too low. That's what happens when you design on the fly. I sewed pleats in the cheeks of the hood to look like jowels and fixed the problem and added a dimension to the face. I attached the muzzle origionally with a rubberband, but wasn't really happy with the results. I sewed it to the hood and a couple of stitches to the jaw and it looks much better. I left the rubberband attached, just in case it needs to be fixed in a hurry. ( did the whole thing in just a couple hours including design, revision, and construction... I bought the materials at 6:30 and was done by 1am including eating out)
The ears are pieces of cardboard sprayed with adhesive, black felt on one side, fuzzy on the other, then sewn to the sides of the hood.
To complete the whole Tex Avery idea I may put on my tuxedo shirt and black tie, but that idea is pending.

Happy Halloween!