Rose City Comic-con 2019 announced that they were going to have Tim Curry as a guest! Naturally, the hubby and I wanted to meet him.
I could go into a long rant about not meeting your heroes and the terrible organization of the signage area of that convention, but at this point it really doesn’t matter. Honestly, Tim Curry is a champ for even attempting to meet his fans, and it isn’t his fault that things went the way they did. Do I hate the photo we got with him? Yeah, kinda, but that is my failing and no one else’s.
ANYWAYS you aren’t here for all that, you are here for this tiny adorable clown I made!
Husbeast asked if we could adapt the Pennywise costume to a baby outfit, and I was like, sure! WHY NOT!?
First, the fabrics. I found soft cotton flannel in the colors I liked for the main body and sleeves/collar. The fabric I chose for the body of the suit isn’t a flat yellow, its mottled a bit. Which was a bit of a hectic issue when I messed up the cutting and thought I needed more, and they didn’t have any at the store. But I figured it out and made everything work, so thats ok.
The sleeves and collar fabric doesn’t exist as-is. I was going to have to make it. I thought about getting satin to make it shiny, but again, I wanted it more baby-proof and soft and washable. So I bought the flannel in purple and teal, then I added pink ribbon for stripes and the bit of blue at the wrists.
Making the fabric: So first, I cut the flannel into strips, sewed it together with half-inch seam allowances, pressed the seams open, and then I sewed the ribbon down on top of the seams, which helped strengthen the fabric and kept it flat. I didn’t serge any fabric edges either, because sewing the ribbon down on top like this would keep the edges from fraying apart too. Serging can add a bit of extra bulk that I didn’t want.
I went back and forth on the vest fabric. I finally ended up with a one-sided minky fabric with stars on it, because I’ve read IT and the “Monster” comes from space and it worked in my head. Better for a baby costume than scratchy sequined fabric anyways!
The original vest is trimmed in pink so I used pink bias tape and edged the tiny vest that way. The vest wasn’t apart of the original pattern so I had to mock it up. Since I didn’t line it it was pretty simple to do.
I had some great orange yarn and made the pom-poms. I attached them to the costume with safety pins. Which is good, because Rodge-podge tried to eat them more than once and it was simple to remove them. It helps with the washable aspect of this costume too.
For the hat I just measured his head and created a simple pull-on out of white flannel. I sewed red yarn around it for a wig-style baby hat. But it was missing something. I put it on him and I was like, omg, the eyebrows. THE EYEBROWS. So I sketched a shape on paper until I liked it, used a Frixion pen to draw them on the front of the hat, then I used black sewing thread and my sewing machine and filled in the drawing.
It all worked! But I was running out of time, and with a 5 month old and no sleep, I really messed up the collar. I decided to use more white flannel and the last bits of my sleeve fabric and layered it just like the original costume. I DID NOT think that through. The flannel was wayyyyy too bulky. I should have used a bleached white Muslin so I could box pleat it and not have as much bulk. There was just not enough time to fix it after it was said and done. Oh well! You learn things as you go sometimes.
I think my fave part was trying it on Roger while I was making it.
Making this was a fun project though, over-all. I enjoyed making something for the convention. Our costumes were easy, since Rodge-Podge was Pennywise, we were in yellow rainslickers. We had a red balloon from Red Robin with us too.
I’m glad I could do this for Husbeast. He comes up with the best ideas.