Saguaro Cactus Costume

I love the saguaro cactus. Interesting facts: the super tall ones are around 200 years old, and it can take 10 years for a baby saguaro to grow one inch. Cacti aren't in a hurry, and I like that about them. In honor of the noble saguaro, I decided to dress up as a cactus for Halloween this year.

However, this idea only came to me about a week before Halloween, so unfortunately, I did have to hurry to make this. But I'm happy with the results. It's a very comfortable costume to wear, especially on a chilly night, because it has long sleeves and a hood. Also, you've even got a front pocket for storing your money and whatnot.

• Green sweatshirt
• Off-white elastic ruffles
• Off-white thread
• Off-white matte ribbon, about 1" wide
• Scissors
• Pins
• Sewing needle
• Dressform (optional)
• Sketches of your grand plans (optional)

As you can see, I had planned to make more elaborate flowers. I had even dreamed of sewing a little stuffed Gila woodpecker companion, to sit on my shoulder or on my head. They are commonly found nesting in the holes of saguaro cacti, so I thought it would be a nice touch.

Saguaro cacti have vertical ridges, so I used ruffles to simulate the look.

Wearing the green sweatshirt with the hood up, I began pinning the ruffles on the top of the hood, starting on the front right and working all the way down the hood and the right front of the sweatshirt. I wanted to plan ruffle placement and spacing with the sweatshirt on so I could get a better sense of how it would actually look. It's a bit challenging to pin straight-ish lines of ruffles on a garment you are currently wearing, so if you're having trouble, enlist the help of a friend.

After I pinned the right side hood and front, I took off the sweatshirt and mirrored the same ruffle spacing on the left side. The job went more quickly when the sweatshirt was flat on an ironing board.

You can use a sewing machine to sew a few parts of this costume, but I ended up sewing nearly the entire thing by hand. I alternated between a really basic straight stitch and a back stitch.

Be especially cognizant of the front pocket. If you're like me, you don't want to carry around a bag all night on Halloween, so take advantage of the built-in pocket and make sure you don't sew the top layer of the pocket to the bottom layer.

At a certain point, someone pointed out to me that my thread was pretty thick. You don't need thick thread for this project! It just slows down the sewing process.

Now that the hood and body were fully (or mostly) sewn on, it was time to work on the arms.

I found it really helpful to use a dress form for this part. After I finished the right arm, I could quickly hold it up for comparison when pinning the left arm.

At this point you might be a little tired of pinning. A beverage of your choice and some awesome companions can help make the somewhat tedious process a lot more fun. Pictured here are some of the other folks at the Pier 9 workshop who were working alongside me to get their costumes completed. Making Halloween costumes with other people is a lot of fun!

Finish sewing those cactus ridges on the arms, and you're almost done sewing. Almost.

For those dressing as a saguaro cactus, you either want to add accents of red fruit or flowers. I chose flowers. As I mentioned in Step 1, I had grand plans for creating a very realistic-looking flower, with pistels and stamens. But in the interest of time, I scaled back my design to a simple gathered ribbon flower.

Gather together the ribbon in a way that looks appealing and stab the needle and thread through it, sewing through the base a few different ways to make sure the design stays put. Saguaros bloom on the ends of their branches, so, sew the flower onto the top of the hood. I thought three was a good number, but you could probably do a few more — and even some on the wrists of the sweatshirt.

This is how far I got with the stuffed Gila woodpecker. I began working on it in the early evening on Halloween. After making a small amount of headway, I finally decided that, given the late hour and the fact that I had never sewn a 3-dimensional plush animal, my smartest move was probably to abandon the bird idea.

Still, it would have been awesome!

Go out and have a blast! The costume works pretty well on the dance floor, because you can hold up your arms in a dance-y way and you'll be staying true to cactus form.

Riding home on the subway, I looked around and saw lots of drunken, tired people wearing uncomfortable-looking heels, costumes, and face paint. I, on the other hand, was still feeling great in my costume, which, when all is said and done, is just a sweatshirt with a few small things sewn on it. It's fun, simple, and very wearable.