Baby's first RenFest

I had the CUTEST idea for a mom & baby costume for James' first Halloween!  I'm sure that I'm not the first person to think of it, but I really want to do a Little Bo Peep and sheep costume.  If I had time (which I don't), dad would dress up as a wolf, but that will have to be another day.  We probably won't be doing anything cool for Halloween (weekend) proper, but we are going to be going to the Texas Renaissance Festival the weekend before with my in-laws, so I figured that's as good of an excuse as any to get dressed up.

I am going to use Simplicity 2788 for the lamb costume (since I have never done a baby/child costume, I will be using the full pattern and doing a complete review on patternreview.com).  I am at a loss for what fabric to use.  I'm afraid anything but single-layer cotton will be too hot, but the woolly looking fabric is so cute.  I think that I will probably end up doing plain cotton muslin lined with the same.  I'm not sure if the head piece is attached or not, but I would probably not attach it anyway in case it happens to be 100 degrees that late October day.  You never know.

For the Bo Peep costume, there are no extant patterns that are not "slutty Bo Peep," which I am not the least bit interested in.  Nobody wants all this hanging out, least of all me, so I'm going to have to get creative.  I just wanted a cute, authentic-looking costume, so I went to the story books.  I found this adorable illustration and the thing I love about it is that it's not PINK.  Although I have no qualms about wearing pink, I think that pink is overused.  I love this one!  I will have to do some dyeing to get the colors right, but I think I can achieve it.




I went through my pattern stash and found several costumes that I can pick apart and put back together to closely resemble this picture.

Let's review the candidates:

For the blouse: Simplicity 3809, View A.  Leaving off the portion of the sleeve below the first elastic channel, I should be able to achieve the cute short sleeved blouse.

 For the bodice:  Simplicity 3623.  The bodice on this pattern has a point in the front which the illustration does not, but I don't think I'll be changing that.  The difference is negligible.  I doubt that this pattern requires any boning for the vest.  Even so, I will definitely be adding 2 pieces of boning inside the grommets to prevent any wrinkling when it's laced up.

For the drape:  Simplicity 3723, View C.  I will use only the drapes from this pattern (maybe even cut them down a little) to get the blue pieces in the drawing.

I probably won't use a pattern for the skirt (if available).  I'll just cut a length of full-width fabric and gather it at the waist.  I'd also like to use a cute ruffly cotton petticoat, or maybe a hoop skirt, but I'll probably borrow that and a hat from the costume shop where I work (lucky me!).

I really hope I can get this done in the next 2 weeks.  I've got a lot on my plate right now, but I really want to do this!

Abby