Homemade Murder of Crows Costume

My oldest wanted to be a crow and after searching everywhere I realized I would have to make it. Then I got punny and decided to make crows for all three sons, a murder of crows. I got cheap fleece at Walmart. I used newspaper for my pattern pieces. I measured each boy from mid back to wrist as they held their arms out. Then from mid back to a little below their waist I drew out triangles using those two measurements, rounding out the bottom edges a bit. Then out of a soda box I cut a template of feathers. Four feather sets. A one and a half inch band with four triangle shapes attached. Basically a rectangle with four longish triangles.

I cut out two wings for each boy. Out of a shiny satin I cut out a lot if feather panels. Sewed them on the wings starting on the bottom and overlapping with upper rows so the fleece wing was covered. You can cut some panels to fit. When I was done I sewed elastic loops to the wingtips for their wrists, sewed a little tunnel for cord in the top few inched to tie around their necks. I had to sew the cord all along the tunnel because the wings kept sliding along the cord.

The hoods were patterned using sweatshirt jacket hoods. Fold in half and trace. Make long enough to have room for drawstring casing. The beaks were two triangles out of a scaly looking fancy fabric. Looked beaky. I darted the wider triangle in the middle and sewed them together. Stuffed them and hand sewed them on. Added two bobble buttons for beady bird eyes. Black sweatshirts and girl’s black leggings (cause birds have skinny legs) and they were done.

This cost a lot more than I expected and took many evenings cursing over the sewing machine and scissors. But they looked amazing. I would do cotton feathers next time and do the hats out of cheap knit hats and feather boas and felt beaks.

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