My toddler had his heart set on being Spiderman this year, so I began searching for inspiration in the homemade superhero costume arena. This was challenging because the store-bought costumes are pretty good these days, but I still wanted to create something special. I came across a great tutorial and found the perfect fabric at an independent fabric store, a shiny knit with just a little stretch to it.
For assembly I largely followed the tutorial but used puffy black metallic fabric paint for the webbing and skipped the cuffs. I loved the effect but was glad I started early because you have to wait a day or so for the webbing on each piece of costume to fully dry before sewing the pieces together. The spiders on front and back are felt that is sewn on, and traced with glow-in-the-dark fabric paint.
For the mask I made a pattern from a sweatshirt hood, with a longer front to cover the eyes, and adjusted from there. I wanted the hood to be a little more form-fitting, but my little guy needed to be able to put it on and remove it easily by himself, so I left it loose. I also ended up cutting eye holes instead of using a thin fabric over the full eye shape as I didn’t want to compromise his vision during evening trick-or-treating. It was also important that the costume be a pants and shirt set, instead of a jumpsuit due to ongoing potty-training, and luckily miniature Spidey didn’t have any accidents.
Overall the costume took about three weeks of part-time effort given the required fabric paint drying time and fittings along the way. I was also rewarded with a bright smile and a “that’s COOL!” when I would show him the pieces as they came together. When everything was ready he didn’t waste any time going into character, running, jumping, and directing imaginary webs all over our yard with a “sfew! sfew!”
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