Pantone Color Swatch Costume

Can't decide what to wear for a costume party? Why go as some thing boring like a witch or princess when you can go as a color?!
I chose the 2013 Pantone color of the year for my Halloween 2013 costume.

Sorry there aren't more pictures. I decided on this at the last-minute since I'm incredibly indecisive.

- Oversize t-shirt
- White fabric - I used an old sheet
- Liquid stitch, sewing machine, or sewing kit
- Scissors
- Black paint pen(s)
- Straight Pens
- Printed Lettering to trace - I've attached the pdf & Illustrator files for the lettering I used. Don't forget to adjust the size of your letting to fit you & change the color information to match the color of your t-shirt.
- Ruler or straight-edge & pen/pencil/chalk

I really wish I had taken pictures while I was doing this step.

I cut off the sleeves of my shirt, folded the cut edges under, and liquid stitched them. You can also sew them if you'd rather. I don't have a sewing machine handy, and I was tired of hand-sewing when I did this. The liquid stitch held just fine.

After that, I turned my shirt inside out, laid it on the ground, and put a dress that fits me like I wanted on top of it (make sure to center the dress so that your neck hole is lined up correctly). Then I marked the outline of the dress, pinned the shirt along that line, tried it on to make sure that it fit like I wanted, and sewed up the lines to make the over-sized t-shirt fit the same as my dress. After that I trimmed off the excess fabric. I ended up trimming off about 3 inches on both sides.

Based on how long your shirt is, you may want a longer or shorter white band. I chose the length of mine so that the overall costume would hit right above my knee.

Once you figure out how long you actually want it to be, you're going to double that amount. So let's say that you want the end height of your band to be 10", you're going to need a 20" tall piece of fabric, which needs to be long enough to go around you.
Fold the fabric piece in half, so that 20" becomes the desired 10". Then sew it together. You can see where I had liquid-stitched my fabric in this picture.

After that, take your straight edge, and mark about 1/2" to 1" from your cut edge. This is where the bottom of your shirt will line up with the band.

Slide the print-out of your lettering into the middle of your white fabric tube. Then pin it in place. Then trace over the outlines of the lettering with your pen. Once you have all of the letters traced, take the paper out of the fabric tube so that it doesn't accidentally adhere to the fabric with the paint pen.

Then just go over your pen lines with your black paint pen & fill them in.

Let your paint pen dry until it is completely dry. It will probably take a few hours, but I recommend leaving it overnight just to be safe. You don't want it to smear because the crisp letting is important to the finished look.

With your t-shirt inside out, lay it on top of your white band like you see in this picture. The just sew or liquid stitch it to the white band along the dashed line that you drew before. I did a few inches at a time, made sure that it was holding well, rolled the t-shirt & white tube, liquid-stitched another few inches, and repeated until I got it glued all the way around.

Once you have the whole white tube glued to the t-shirt, while it's all still inside out, you're going to need to sew the raw edges of the white fabric tube ends together. If you're lucky, it will line up perfectly with the seem of your t-shirt.

Turn your new Pantone swatch costume right-side-out, and try it on.

A costume is all about the accessories, so here's what I recommend:
Hipster glasses - bonus points if you wear 3D glasses like get at the cinema with the lenses popped out
Black shoes - Tom's if you have them, or matte black flats
Hair pulled back into a bun