Playing with Food: Felt Pizza Costume

Suparna requested a tutorial for the pizza costume that Lila wore on Halloween, so here it is!

When I started toying with ideas for a costume for Lila, the requirements were (1) it should be quick and easy to make, using mostly materials that I already have on hand and (2) it should be very easy to put on and not be too cumbersome or she wouldn't want to wear it at all. 

The material I had on hand was lots of felt in an off-white color. It had been purchased for another project a few months ago which I never ended up doing. I also had sheets of colorful felt. The inspiration came from this post. I thought the costume looked adorable and simple to make. Also, it is food themed which is always a plus as far as I am concerned. And who doesn't love pizza? I much prefer these cute costumes to the scary ghoulish ones.

One way to make this costume is to have a front and back with a head opening, so the kid is sandwiched between the front and back of the pizza. Mine is a bib style which simply ties around the neck. This costume is very easy to make even for someone who is completely new to sewing, and really fun because you get to customize the toppings!

{Please click on pictures to see the larger versions}

My pizza slice had three layers. One was the back (plain felt), the top was the one you see with the toppings and to give some "body" to the costume, I added a layer of sturdy interfacing in the middle. In a pinch, you could use a piece of cardstock for the middle too. 

• Measure across the child's shoulders. 
• Sketch out a pizza-slice shaped triangle on a paper using this length as the base of the triangle. 
• Cut the pizza triangle from the paper to make a template. 
• Cut out one piece of felt and one piece of interfacing using this template. 
• For the third piece, the topping, cut a strip of brown felt, a wavy strip of red felt and the rest of the triangle from off-white felt and sew those together (machine or simple running stitch) as shown.

• Now the really fun part- make the toppings. The toppings can all be cut out of felt and glued to the pizza. Just for fun, I made some of them (tomatoes and onions) using crochet just to give it a more three dimensional look. I pasted the felt toppings using ordinary white glue (you might need to weigh it down and leave to dry overnight). A glue gun could also be used. The crocheted toppings were sewn on.

• Now the top layer is done. Sew the three layers together using blanket stitch on the edges. I used this video tutorial to teach myself blanket stitch- very easy and fun to do. If you don't want to sew, the layers could also be glued together. I personally love the finished look from the blanket stitch.

• Finally, sew on pieces of ribbon to be used as ties.

Wear your pizza proudly!

Another cute and simple felt costume: chocolate chip cookie.

And that concludes day 3 of NaBloPoMo. What are you doing this weekend?