For Halloween this year Caleb decided to be Ash Ketchum from Pokémon XY. Specifically XY. Queue the sewing machine in 3……….2……….1…………
For each of the seasons of Pokémon, Ash wears basically the same colors, but the clothes vary slightly. It’s pretty easy to find an Ash costume for the original series of Pokémon, but XY is newer, less iconic, and therefore more difficult to find. Scratch that, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to find. Not that I have a problem with pulling out the sewing machine in the name of Halloween costuming.
This is not a tough one, if you start with the right baseline and, let’s face it, have some sewing skill. I began with the Blank Slate Patterns Zippy Jacket pattern, which coincidentally uses the same colors as the Ash XY jacket. My boy is a BIG 7 year old, so I needed to use the largest size for the baseline jacket and even add to that. I started by sewing the pockets as described in the pattern instructions. (These rounded pockets are such a great detail – even though Ash’s jacket doesn’t appear to have pockets, I opted to leave them in.)
Next I used a zigzag stitch to sew the front decoration to the jacket. I trimmed out the excess blue behind the white to make adding the zipper easier. I also used this step to add about an inch to the overall width of the jacket, which my giant of a son needed. After sewing the shoulder seams and attaching the sleeves, but before adding the collar, I added the shoulder decoration which are just white stripes along the shoulder seam. The next modification was the white gussets on the sides, which were added in as I sewed the side seams. I used the top of the pocket as a quick measure for my gusset size. This added another couple of inches to the circumference of the jacket. For the rest, I followed the instructions for finishing as appear in the pattern except adding the cuff, since the sleeves are finished short.
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Caleb was quite thrilled with his costume and the best part for me was that I only needed to make one piece – the pants are just his jeans, we picked up the gloves at a biking store and the decoration is fuzed to a red hat.
But where’s Pikachu? You can’t have Ash without his buddy Pikachu…
I figure I have a few years still to dress them as a set…
Erica’s costume is a super simple one piece I made by tracing a sleeper that fit her well. It closes down the front with hook & loop and has elastic in the wrists and ankles. I finished the neckline with yellow fold-over elastic. The adorable hat came out of the free Monster Hat Pattern from Running with Scissors, adding Pikachu ears instead of the monster horns, of course. The tail is soft and attached at the bottom and tacked on at the top so that it stays out of the way and the stripes are felt that I fuzed to the fleece. Halloween was a bit chilly, so the fleece was a perfect choice for the costume material. As you can see, Caleb had to wear long sleeves under his short-sleeved Ash jacket!
How cute are they?
