How to make a homemade Oswald costume, step by step.

For Halloween I decided to make an Oswald costume for Jack since you can't buy one. (Or any sort of good octopus costume, for that matter.)



To start, I bought a hooded navy blue sweatshirt in a size up, and a pair of plain navy sweatpants. I took the sweatshirt to Target and found a package of socks that matched in the same color navy. There were 2 pair in the package.

Supplies:

-navy hooded sweatshirt
-navy sweatpants
-navy socks (Adult, 2 pair)
-wrapped, heavy duty floral wire
-batting/stuffing
-navy thread
-navy felt
-white felt
-black felt
-Styrofoam bowl (I got mine from the school cafe)
-Velcro (optional)

Step 1: to make the "body" a little rounder, I hand sewed with a quick running stitched panels of navy fabric. I cut 3: one for the back, and one for each side of the front. I stuffed them with batting and sewed them up to give him the "plump" look.

Step 2: I took each sock and put one wire of the wrapped floral wire (I got heavy duty, thicker gauge at Jo.anns) and stuffed each sock, leaving the wire in the middle. I tucked the sock edges inside and sewed them onto the sweatshirt with a running stitch. Octopuses have 8 legs, so I counted the pant legs and 2 arms of the sweatshirt for 4 of the arms, and the socks made up the other 4 arms. I sewed 2 to the back, and 2 to the front just behind the arms.






Step 3: I cut out circles of felt bigger white and smaller black for the suction cups. I sewed these on, 3 per arm, and 3 on each leg.





Step 4: I sewed 2 eyes, bigger oval white and smaller circle black on the hood.

Step 5: To make the hat, I used a black sharpie and colored a Styrofoam bowl black from our school cafeteria. I sewed a small black felt pillow and glued it inside. I pinned it to the hood via the pillow. I originally tried to make the bowlers hat out of felt, but it ended up looking silly, so I used the bowl instead.



Voila! Instant Oswald!