Louise Belcher Costume - Bob's Burgers

I really like the show Bob's Burgers, especially Louise Belcher. She is hilarious. I decided to be her for Halloween and was able to whip this up in a weekend (it could probably be done in half a day, but I get lazy and distracted easily). It's really great for a last minute costume since all you need is a dress and hat!

I went through my dress patterns for this costume and then decided to just use one of my shirts for the pattern and then just extend it down for the rest of the dress. I didn't want to have to worry about a zipper either so I made the dress into a simple two piece pattern and made it out of a stretch fabric so I could just slip it on.

Supplies:

• Hat Pattern
• T-Shirt (for dress pattern) or a short sleeve dress pattern
• Pink Fleece For Hat - 1/2 yard
• Green Stretch (t-shirt like) Fabric for Dress - 2 yards at 64 inches wide (I folded this over to cut out my two pieces at once so my t-shirt fit within the 32 inch width. If yours is wider than 32 inches you will probably need more than 2 yards) my fabric stretched from left to right, but not up and down
• Sewing Machine <-this is the one I have
• Pins
• Sewing Needle
• Thread (for the sewing machine and for hand sewing)
• Wire - for the ears in the hat
• Glue (that works on fabric)
• If you don't have black hair, you can consider getting a wig like this one (I'll talk more about it later)

Don't have time to make a dress? I found a green dress that would work nicely with this costume.

TL:DR - you need stuff.

I decided to use jessyratfink's Where The Wild Things Are hat for my hat with some alterations.

[Don't want to make it? You can also find a variety of pink Bunny Ear hats that are perfect and ready to go.]

You can see the changes in the images, but I mostly shorted up the back, excluded the rectangle that stuck off the front on the sides, and brought the bottom down to a point. I drew on the picture to give you an idea, but I really just went for it and it seemed to work out pretty well.

I also elongated the ear from the pattern to make the bunny ears more prominent.

The main thing for this step is to find jessyratfink and get her to help you make your hat.

But, for realz, you should be able to follow her Instructable to make the hat. Another change will come when you finish attaching the ears to the hat, you are going to bend the excess wires from the ears back and then glue a small piece of fabric over them. This will not only hide the wires, but having them bent back will help the ears stand while you are wearing the hat.

TL:DR - make a pink hat from jessyratfink's pattern, make ears bigger and add long skinny flap-like thing at bottom.

Time to make a dress or buy a green dress. Before using the shirt to make the pattern, while wearing it, measure from the bottom of the shirt to how far down you want it to go which should be about the knee (for me it was about 18 inches so I went 20 to be safe).

To make my dress, I folded my fabric in half and laid it out so the stretch went right to left.

Next, I laid my shirt on top of the fabric near the top and left room on all sides, especially the bottom.

I outlined all sides of the shirt except the bottom. From the bottom I drew out and down about 20 inches. It is kind of hard to see where I drew and explain exactly how it is so just kind of look at the picture. I made the bottom go out a bit so it isn't like a pencil skirt. I put pins right on my outline so you can see it.

Now, since I outlined the shirt perfectly, I needed to leave additional space for seams, so when I cut it out I left about half an inch or so around the whole outline. I left the pins on and used that for my sewing line.

I have only sewn stretch fabric once before and it didn't go great, so I pulled out my sewing machine manual before starting. I changed out the needle in my machine to the one the manual said to use for stretch fabric and the stitch I used was #2 for my machine which was the straight stitch suggested for stretch fabrics. I wanted to use an overstitch along the edges, but I tested that first and it just seemed to stretch the fabric out too much so I decided to not worry about it and left all the edges raw.

Okay, sewing. I first sewed up the two sides and the top parts leaving the bottom, neck hole and two arm holes open. After those were done I hemmed the sleeves, then the neck, and lastly the bottom. I only folded the edges over once for the sleeves and neck because that is all I left room for, but I doubled over the bottom edge because I had plenty there.

Things to keep in mind for the dress:

• Make sure the stretch goes left to right on the dress
• When you are outlining the shirt the neck hole is going to be like two backs if you don't bring a dip down on one side or the other. I did not so the neck of my dress is tighter. It is something you can alter later after it is cut out, but keep it in mind of how you want it.
• Again, make sure the shirt you use for the pattern isn't too tight

TL:DR - trace shirt on fabric, add extra for bottom of dress, cut, and sew.

PS: I'm sorry, this fabric looks different in different lighting, I think that last picture might be the closest to being accurate.

I used my black wig from my Vanellope Von Schweetz costume. All you really need is a black wig that is about shoulder length and preferably without short bangs, but you are going to brush the bangs to the side anyway. This one would work but you might need to cut it a little.

You can just throw on the wig and hat, but I decided to do a little extra. First I used my Instructable to stick my long hair under my wig. Then I put the wig in two low pigtails to keep it under control. Then I used two bobby pins to pull the bangs off to the sides. And that's it! Put the hat on and you are done.

The shoes are Mary Jane type black flats. Use what you can find. I actually had a pair of flat black shoes with a strap over them that I got at a thrift store years ago that worked out perfectly.

Now you can pull the whole costume together.

And try not to look like a crazy person.

The end. If something doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll try to help, but I don't know what I'm doing half the time :)