1. First, love your child enough (or be insane enough) to consider it A Good Thing when, after claiming no interest in the event, she suddenly, at 7pm the night before, demands a costume to take part in theChildren’s Maskerade at 11am the next morning. Also love your child enough (or be insane enough) to say “OK!” with a big smile when she further insists that the costume she wants is neither simple nor Discworld in nature.
If these two conditions do not apply, avoid wandering in to Chaos Costuming and letting said child rummage through the glorious pile materials. This is how they Get Ideas.
2. While child is racing back and forth bringing various material to you that she deems suitable for the costume, demand child’s other parent finds you a picture of Charmander on his Blackberry so you can actually try to make the costume look vaguely like what it is supposed to be. On production of picture, frantically turn mental wheels to work out how the %&**!”* you are supposed to achieve this given your limited time and skills. Refrain from mentioning that Pokemon are not usually considered denizens of the Discworld and concentrate on the joyous grin on beloved child’s sticky mush to aid your ability to rise to challenge.
3. Look through materials your child has brought you. Realise you need to help her in selecting appropriate bits as her 6 year old brain apparently has no clue about the sort of things relevant to costume making, such as: is it the right size to do the job? or: is the colour an accurate representation of the thing you are copying as well as pretty? Etc.
4. Find, and get child’s approval of, what appears to be the only large bit of suitably orange material left. Thank some minor god. Then curse same god as it dawns on you that you are Really Going To Do This.
5. Study material and try to work out best way of using it to make a costume that looks reasonably Charmaner-like in the simplest and quickest way possible. Decide a tunic with arms would work best after puzzling for a while. Avoid thinking yet about the tail or head to prevent panic causing mind to go blank. Also avoid asking anyone the time.
6. Fold material in half and hold against child. Cut off anything that is roughly below the knee. Wrap these pieces round child’s arms to check your desperate hope that they will go all the way round with enough room to sew them together while still allowing child to actually bend her arms. Discover that you are in luck and this is in fact the case. Also discover you need to cut a bit off the end so she can see her own hands.
7. Cut sleeve material down to size, then take material for tunic folded in half and, hoping you have halfway accurately figured out where the middle of the fold is, cut a semi circle across the fold to create a ‘head hole’, then cut a slit along the fold going out from either side of the head hole. Stick the thing over unsuspecting child’s head to ensure it neither refuses to move past the ears nor keeps going down until the whole thing is a pile on the floor. Be pleased with yourself when it sits neatly on shoulders like it’s supposed to. Do not yet give in to impulse to cheer wildly – the problems of head and tail are still lurking in background ready to flummox.
8. Wrap sleeve pieces around child’s arms again while tunic is on to work out the best way of fixing them on. Decide optimistically that you can do without pins as they will Slow Things Down. Eye sewing machine in corner with some trepidation. Previous experience of the things is that while they are faster than hand sewing (and easier on the fingers) they are also possessed by mischievous demons that ensure the thread will break and/or get hopelessly tangled, the needle will shatter, something will jam, the wrong bits of material will end up sewn together or, as on one memorable occasion with my mother’s sewing machine, the foot pedal will take on a life of its own before smoking and catching fire. They are also a pain to rethread.
9. Take deep breath and ask nice Chaos Costuming person for help with sewing machine. Nice Chaos Costuming person is very willing to help despite being busy with last minute preparations for the Proper Maskerade which is due to start in an hour. Even when you manage to de-thread the “**&!* machine after the very first seam.
10. Tentatively use sewing machine to stitch sleeve together. Realise this was a mistake when then attempting to attach the now tubular piece of material to the flat tunic using sewing machine. Learn from this and attach second sleeve as flat piece THEN stitch sleeve seam. Hope that you have worked out which bits need to be inside out and which don’t correctly so that no bit is inside out, upside down or the wrong way round once sewn together. Breathe small sigh of relief when it becomes obvious you managed to do so correctly.
11. Look at wobbly, extremely obvious stitching around shoulders which proclaims your lack of expertise with a sewing machine to the world. Decide that if child had wanted something better she should have given more warning and determine Not To Worry and that child should be Thankful For What They Have. Pretend the stitching is invisible and turn mind reluctantly to problem of the TAIL.
12. Look at material you have available. Realise that child has brought some material that is surprisingly suitable for the flame at the end of the tail if scrunched up. Also realise that there is enough orange stuff left to make reasonably long tail and still have some left over to completely cover child’s head (in anticipation of you eventually figuring out what the head is going to look like). Quickly banish all thoughts of the head from the mind in order to avoid panic attack. Foolishly ask someone the time. Learn you have 20 mins left before Chaos Costuming closes. Panic in a mild but philosophical way.
13. Look hopefully about to see if anything that resembles stuffing is lying around. Spot bag of stuff hiding on table behind large boxes of needles, threads and other such useful goodies and sag comfortably in relief. Cut very long, vaguely triangular piece of orange stuff. Consider the sewing machine suspiciously and decide hand-stitching will work better for this bit. Hunt around, and find, a needle and some thread that is miraculously the right sort of colour (orange). Sew away happily while chatting to other people, mainly about how sweet/active/loveable/evil your respective children are. Learn that this is not the first Pokemon to ever grace the Discworld Convention and that precedent was set by a Jigglypuff some years earlier. Remember to sew in a tuck about halfway along so the tail will look curvy in a poor light with a bit of imagination. Remember not to stitch over the very tip of the tail so when/if you get around to making the flame you can insert it and sew it in.
14. Get stuffing and, aware a losing battle is about to be fought, attempt to force a wad of it along a narrow tube of fabric with a bend in the middle. Fail hopelessly. Look about for stick. Spot an unsuspecting Sir Joshua Lavish holding a riding crop .....
15. After the judicious application of borrowed riding crop, tail should look pretty well stuffed. Return implement to owner before he panics that it is lost forever minutes before he is supposed to use it onstage. Forget to thank him profusely (but do it later in article for Chronicle – Thank You Sir Joshua!) Hear someone call out “5 mins before Chaos Costuming closes”. Panic wildly until given the affirmative answer to the question; “CAN I TAKE SOME STUFF TO FINISH THIS IN MY ROOM?”
16. Go to room. Attempt to put children to bed. Think wishfully of the times long past when it was considered acceptable practice to drug children with Opium extracts to get them to sleep. Consider outright murder. Think unkind thoughts of husband who has nipped out to enjoy the evening activities without you. Realise around 9.30pm that they are actually asleep at last. Wish you could join them. Get out needle and orange stuff instead. Try not to think about missing the ‘official’ Maskerade too much. Put nose to grindstone.
17. Think for a few mins about the head. Come up with absolutely no solution that will work when you only have a few hours and limited materials to hand. Give up and move on to creating flame for tail. Get out yellow material to cut and think in passing that the material looks like a headscarf. Have Lightbulb Moment.
18. Check orange stuff and determine there is enough to make a headscarf. Feel relief when there obviously is plenty. Cut a triangle out and stealthily place it across head of sleeping child to check it will approximately fit. Feel like genius when it seems to. Move away quickly when child shows alarming tendency to wake up. Decide not to do that again if you can help it. Put to one side with lightening of heart as next major problem has been solved. Turn back to Tail.
19. Scrunch up a strip of yellow material. Sew quickly, and badly, to hold together. Scrunch up and sew on as you go a bit of red material around the outside. Sew newly made flame to end of tail. Realise stitching is undoubtedly not permanent, but ignore on basis that at this time of night anything that lasts until tomorrow is Brilliant.
20. Hold up tail. Realise it looks very sad and floppy as flame is too heavy for end. Take deep breath, look round hotel room for inspiration and light on empty sausage roll packet containing plastic tray. Sparing no thought for room carpet, cut plastic into strips as quietly as possible (under the covers quite good for muffling sound likely to wake sleeping children).
21. Take bull by horns (or Charmander by tail) and cut stitching a short way from flame end of tail. Insert plastic strips and rearrange stuffing with fingers, then fight with material and cotton to sew the whole thing back up again. Extra hands would be useful here. If only 2 available, mentally cursing the costume, child, bedside clock and absent husband may assist in staving off desire to give up and go to sleep.
22. Hold up tail. See It Is Good. Realise it is unlikely to stick up tall and proud once attached to unsupportive tunic. Decide not to care right now. Place tail on back of tunic to find best looking position and consider best methods of attachment. Decide to cut slit in back of tunic and two slits up base of tail where there is a lack of stuffing. Hope slit is reasonably central and feed base of tail through. Secure with very poor ‘its 11pm at night, I’m knackered and frankly don’t care about anything but speed anymore’ stitches.
23. Hold up tunic. Watch tail droop to floor. Study for a moment or two and decide that a long length of cotton attached between the top of the tunic and tail, to be got from Chaos Costuming on the morrow, would probably keep it upright without being too difficult or time-consuming to achieve. Stop thinking of more elaborate and unachievable/silly solutions and move on to the headscarf.
24. Make two eyes and stitch either side of the headscarf. Two circles of yellow stuff with two half circles of black quickly stitched together work quite well even though not totally accurate according to what you remember from earlier glance at picture. Ignore the obvious and awful stitching. The child Won’t Notice.
25. Think about making big pointy teeth and claws to stick to sleeves. Decide to leave that til morning and collapse into bed.
26. After breakfast, settle in to sewing again. Get child to stand still long enough to try on outfit and check position of headscarf fastening and teeth. In lieu of actual fastening, decide to sew headscarf together where fastening should be. Think about making teeth.
27. Decide teeth need to be reinforced to stay upright, and hunt down the only bit of cardboard in the room which is already earmarked for other child’s wizard’s hat. Cut out base of hat and use scraps to produce small triangles. Place against yellow material and cut out triangles twice the size. Fold the yellow material triangles and sew along the opposite edge to make triangular pockets. Insert cardboard triangles, fold bottom up and sew along the fold through the cardboard to the ‘mouth’ part of the headscarf. Costume is now resplendent with big pointy fangs. Child is ecstatic.
28. Do bits to other child’s costume, cutting out material for hat and cloak (the original reason for visiting Chaos Chostuming in the first place) then get down to Chaos Costuming for 10am opening. There is now 1 hour remaining to finish both outfits. Charmander gets a large piece of cotton sewn between top of tunic and end of tail to hold tail up and claws cut out of yellow material attached with glue (Tip, PVA is not the most inspired choice with only minutes to go before official wearing of costume. For future reference, the glue gun glue dries much faster)
29. Madly finish other child’s costume while daughter shows off Charmander costume to a warm reception. Try sewing machine, struggle valiantly with one seam then resort to glue gun. Use lots of glue and pester nice Chaos Costuming people for miscellaneous items such as long strips of Velcro, more glue sticks, glitter glue and a working sewing machine. Finish with nothing to spare and run to join the Maskerade. Once you arrive, send husband straight back to Chaos Costumes for a couple of safety pins when it becomes obvious child’s pants are on show to everyone, you having taken the decision not to sew up the sides of tunic.
30. Sit back and bask in child’s pleasure in costume as she prances about accidentally hitting people and things with her gently waving tail. Refrain from mentioning that the hasty nature of the creative process means the costume is likely to have the lifespan of a demented mayfly but feel pleased it is complete and will at least last out the hour. Listen with concern and suspicion as child proclaims that “I love my FIRST Charmander costume!”..........
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