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The LilMan was flipping through a party store catalog and saw a picture of a black bird, and declared “I want to be a black bird for Halloween! Can you make me one?”

Click here to see how I made the Black Bird Halloween Costume (you won’t believe what I reused for the feathers :) )

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The pattern was too large to include in a PDF Download, so here is what I did: 
  1. The Wings: with arms out, measure the child from thumb crease to thumb crease and from base of the neck to lower back.
  2. Measure it out on craft paper, cut it out into a square, then fold in half.  Then draw out how much of slope you’d like the wing span and cut.
  3. The Tail: measure at the width of the waist to the length from the top of the waist to the back of the knee.
  4. The feather is 4 inches.
  5. Once you have your pattern, cut 2 of the Wing and 2 of the Tail and a bunch of feathers.
Starting at the bottom, place the feathers to the material, right sides together, sew on.  Then fold the feathers down and top stitch.
Place the feather rows about 1 – 1 1/2 inches apart.  Continue to the top.
 
Add two pieces of Ribbon to the top, to tie around.  Sew in the of ribbon.
Alternatively (for Safety), measure the child’s neck and cut the ribbon to size. Sew one end of the ribbon onto the cape, add Velcro to the other end of the ribbon.  Then sew Velcro onto the right side of the fabric where the tie would attach.

Take 2 strips of elastic about 6 inches long, sew onto wrong side of the cape about a 1/2 inch down from the top.

Take the 2nd piece of the wing fabric and place right sides together. Sew all the way around leaving about 6 inch opening between the ribbon to turn.  (Fold the feathers, ribbon and elastic inward when pinning.)And the cape is complete! 

Follow the same feather placement for the tail.

Take the 2nd piece of the tail fabric and place right sides together. Sew all the way around leaving about 6 inch opening between the ribbon to turn.  (Fold the feathers inward when pinning.)

I took a pair of soccer shorts or similar, folded the legs up to put elastic inside the pant legs to make a bird leg puffy look. Once pinned, sew and leave an inch or so open to thread the elastic through. (I wanted to use these shorts again so I used a wider than normal stitch to make it easier when I rip the seam later.)

Helpful tip: To thread the elastic through, put a safety pin on each end of the elastic.  

Then pin and sew the tail feathers onto the back of the shorts at the top. (Again, wide stitches to make it easier later.)

 That hat, I used paper towel to cut out the pattern for the felt orange bill, half of an Easter egg for the whites of the eyes and a quarter for the center of the eye.
And cut section of a boa for the feathered top.

Did you guess what the base material and light blue material came from?  It was from LilMan’s old dust ruffle!  The material that goes under the mattress is super light and shiny :)   

 

 

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