Homemade Halloween
Finding Joy in DIY Costumes and Creativity
Halloween is around the corner, a time of drama and dread for parents of young kids. Between the candy consumption to manage (or not) and the costumes to somehow procure sustainably, the whole enterprise can spook us into resentment—yet another job piled on the usual demands of parenting. Can we find the magic along with our kids and, inspired by them, dip into our own creativity?
Rebeccah, one of my sister’s two sisters-in-law (can we create a word in English that denotes this family tie?) is a talented quilter and has made many of her own clothes by hand, but hasn’t made a costume for her two littles yet. She’s determined to do so this year, with the help of Bahala’s costume workshop at the reDiscover center on Oct 19.
Halloween sparked Rebeccah’s interest in sewing: “My mom owned a Singer and every year, a few weeks before the holiday, she, my sister, and I went to Jo-Ann’s fabrics and picked out patterns. It could be whatever we wanted, though she drew the line at ten-layer princess dresses.”
As a child, she felt empowered by the alchemy of watching a dream manifest before her eyes, without a lot of money or a trip to Disney. No matter how it turned out, she was “proud of my costume and my mom for making it.” The buildup and anticipation was even better than the costume, which…next day delivery doesn’t…deliver. Nor does it allow for the magic of watching a process unfold. One year she was a playing card! All her mom’s costumes had elastic waists, which accommodated last minute growth spurts, hand-me-downs, and dress-up.
Before Amazon, before Spirit Halloween, there weren’t many places that sold Halloween costumes. Party City opened in New Jersey in 1986, but didn’t expand throughout the country until much later. This explains why my sister and I both wore our dad’s white lab coat and stethoscope multiple years.
In her 20’s, Rebeccah was living in Philly and couldn’t find long skirts for her six-foot frame, so she began making them. Browsing bolts of fabric at her local sewing store, she noted the burgeoning trend of “modern quilts” stitched from a person’s old camp and sport tees—upcycling at its finest. The quilts staved against the chill, saved the unworn from landfills, and preserved memories, and decluttered closets to boot. “Besidess,” Rebeccah said, “any blanket is easier to make than clothes.” She’s made so many now she’s run out of beds!
As an entry point to tackling larger DIY projects, Rebeccah invites people to build on what they already make in their daily lives. “Transferable skills hold true for everything, including craft-making,” Rebecca mused. “I realized that if I could bake a cake, I could assemble a different kind of ingredients and make additional necessities of daily life.”
For those who feel they don’t have enough skills to transfer, Rebeccah recommends the plethora of inspiration and detailed how-to’s available online—Instagram reels, Tiktok videos, Pinterest. “If YouTube had existed when I started sewing, my skills and knowledge would have accelerated exponentially,” she posited. “Beginning sewing machines are under $100. Like most everything, once you know the basics and get past the hump of the unknown, there are a lot of possibilities.”
She laughed, recalling early mistakes. “Remember that everything is fixable. What can tip the balance toward a fun versus tedious challenge is a community and help.” In that vein, for further “construction instruction” after the Oct 19 costume workshop, look to Aristeia Needlepoint and Wildfiber Studio. Both located in Santa Monica, the stores offer classes as well as in-person assistance for snafus such as “casting” on and off knitting needles, sewing on sweater sleeves, and tacking.
Rebeccah’s sewing machine recently broke after ten years of heavy use. She’s going to upgrade to a heavy duty one. To make Purim—“Jewish Halloween”—a big deal for her kids, she’ll make homemade costumes for them and, yes, buy more candy.