My Little Scarecrow

I was a bit lazy this year and did not make my own costume. Instead, I wore my Dorothy Gale costume from the eighth grade. So, all that was required was a matching outfit for Tino. I decided on the Scarecrow, since Toto was way too obvious.

All of the materials used (with the exception of the jute rope and yellow yarn) were already in my stash.

For Headpiece:
*Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn in yellow
*Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn in ecru
*Off-white cotton flannel (tea dyed a darker shade)
*Craft felt in brown for hat
*3 ply jute rope

For Tunic and pants:
*Dark Green cotton flannel (remnants from the underlining of this capelet)
*Burgundy cotton sateen (remnants from this outfit.
*1/4" elastic
*3 ply jute rope
*Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn in yellow
*Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn in ecru
For headdress:
*Off-white cotton flannel (tea dyed a darker shade)
*Craft felt in brown

The cotton flannel that I had on hand was too light for the hat/headpiece so I let it soak in some water and black tea bags. Tea dying is a wonderful quick, easy, and non-toxic way to darken natural fibers!

Using Simplicity 2740 as a base for the headpiece and Simplicity 3939 as a base for the tunic and pants, I constructed my own doggie scarecrow outfit.

It may seem counter-intuitive to add a step in order to save time, but in the long run, a muslin is a real time saver. Any fitting mistakes show up before you spend all that time and energy, not to mention fabric, on the final product.

For this project, I only had remnant fabric to work with and not enough time or energy to get to the fabric store if things did not work out.

I tried the muslin on Tino (and gave him a couple of treats for positive reinforcement, and it works, he ended up staying in costume for about 3 hours without complaining!) and marked his "waistline." I cut the muslin at that point, and added a 1/4" seam allowance to both pieces when cutting out the cotton flannel and sateen.

Using a couple of still images from the film as a reference, I decided to gather the leg openings with elastic. I made a casing for the elastic with a some seam binding I had on hand.

I also added a rectangular flap at the "waistline" for a tunic effect. Jute rope was whip stitched to the seamline, and also tacked to the neck opening as a tie closure.

To add a few extra scarecrow touches, I sewed a patch in the tunic and some yarn masquerading as straw was sewn into the leg openings.