This is my twelve year-old girl dressed in her autumn yarn homemade lion costume. She wanted to be a cute lion instead of a realistic fur lion.
Homemade Lion Costume Instructions
- I used tie died fleece for the head and body.
- I enlarged a vintage mask pattern for the head. She wanted a really BIG head.
- One half inch foam is sandwiched between the fleece and broadcloth.
- I sewed a pillow insert in the shape of the mask for the inside to help it stay on her head.
- I also made two small pillows to put on the sides of her head. This made the head stable and steady while wearing it.
- Fall colored yarn was used to make the mane and to line the costume and trick or treat bag.
- I wrapped different colored and textured yarn around cardstock and sewed a seam down the middle.
- I removed the paper and sewed the yarn sections onto the costume by hand.
- My daughter helped me make big pompoms using two toilet paper rolls. After we wound the yarn around the empty tubes, we tied a string around the middle and cut the yarn.
- After sewing the pompoms on the face, I added fall colored pipe cleaners for whiskers.
- I used an ordinary costume animal pattern for the body.
- I omitted the zipper down the front and put an opening in the back with a tie.
- The nose and circle on the body is made from dark brown faux leather.
- The eyes are lined in braided yarn.
- The paws are sewn from fleece and the feet are slippers.
- The bag was made by cutting a rectangle, folding it, and sewing up the sides.
- The handles are long rectangles folded and sewed close to both edges.
- The lining was sewed and cut the same as the bag (a seam was left open for turning).
- Yarn was sewn around the top of the bag.
This costume took about a week to make. It kept my daughter warm and toasty on a cold Halloween night. When kids stopped and looked, she would roar. She had a lot of fun trick or treating.
People gathered around their front doors to see her and sometimes took her pictures. She also took first place in a costume contest.
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