It’s time for the annual costume recap! Every year I spend entirely too much time making costumes for Shadowboy and one or two friends, then have professional photos taken. Sometimes I’m lucky and can talk them into matching costumes, and sometimes…not so much.

This year Shadowboy and one friend wanted to go as Mario and Luigi, and the other friend steadfastly declined to complete the trio by being Princess Peach and instead wanted to be Bloody Mary. Which, y’know, props for originality but you’re killing my costume photos, kid. Last year it was Doc Brown, Marty McFly, and…a frog. This year it’s two videogame icons and a hellspawn. Stahp.

The boys’ costumes were made by modifying a simple “loungewear” pattern, Simplicity 1605. The shirts were made from cotton jersey and followed the pattern with no alterations. The overalls were blue twill; I made the pajama bottoms according to the pattern and before inserting the elastic at the waistband I stitched on a front panel with straps that I made freehand (the big yellow buttons are nonfunctional). I toyed with making the hats from leftover jersey but found some online that were cheap, and since I get no joy from making hats I decided to cheat. The gloves were plain cotton parade gloves; Shadowboy complained that they lacked the cartoony black lines on the back, and since I was afraid that a black marker would bleed I wound up hand-embroidering cartoony black lines. Oy. The mustaches were cheap party favors and stuck about as well as you’d expect cheap party favors to stick; on Halloween I’ll be using spirit gum.

Despite being fairly simple, the costumes turned out pretty well. Here are the boys posing: Mario | Luigi. And here are a couple of “action shots” that the photographer managed to capture: Mario | Luigi

Bloody Mary’s costume was Simplicity 3725, view “C.” I omitted all of the recommended trim and instead used embroidered ribbon on the bodice and sleeves. The fabric was chosen the way I always choose fabric when I’m not entirely sure what the costume is supposed to look like: In a frenzy of indecision, throwing everything that looks vaguely promising into the cart and hoping I can figure something out. I wound up using everything; I had a yard of two different fabrics that I didn’t use in the dress, but I decided that she needed a veil and they worked perfectly. I stitched them to a fabric headband and then sewed a row of little silk roses along the top. After I finished the dress I realized that completely by chance I’d chosen a pattern that’s pretty similar to what Princess Peach wears so at least she can sort of match the boys’ costumes. It’ll be Mario, Luigi, and the malevolent ghost of Princess Peach, back from the grave and hell-bent on vengeance.

Here she is, with and without the veil. The photographer also did some action shots of her, running toward the camera and (my favorite) posing with a mirror. She’s definitely selling the spooky.

So that’s this year’s collection wrapped up. Maybe if I start lobbying now I can convince them to let me do something challenging next year, like Labyrinth or Beetlejuice or just about anything more interesting than overalls. Sigh.