How to Make a Bear Costume for Adults

Sew an Easy Parrot Costume

September 8, 2015 - By Crystal 21 Comments

To kick off a REALLY fun couple months of HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, Crystal from Stitched By Crystal is sharing an absolutely darling costume that she made for her little girl! A vibrant fleece and felt PARROT! The feathered wings, the darling hat, the tail…..so in love with it ALL! The best part — it's a simpler costume that most skill levels will enjoy making!

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Halloween is less than two months away! Have your kids picked their costumes yet? I am Crystal, from Stitched by Crystal, and today I am sharing how to sew an easy parrot costume that would work for boys or girls of any age!

I love Halloween and I especially love Halloween sewing! Sewing costumes, you can really let your imagination go crazy and create something over the top, sometimes the crazier the better! My kids are slowly narrowing down their costume ideas for this Halloween, but in the meantime, I am bulking up their dress up box with some quick and easy costumes that would be great for Halloween, but are also fun for any day dress up play.

For this easy parrot costume, I took some inspiration from the adorable flamingo costume Ashley made last year. Seriously, that flamingo hat is too cute! Using the same hat template, I created a parrot version and made up some fun bird wings and a tail to pair with it.

My daughter had a great time running around flapping her parrot wings and the feathers look really neat flapping in the wind! This tutorial makes a really fun parrot, but could be used for lots of other bird wings too; blue wings for a blue jay or blue macaw, white wings for a swan, brown for an owl, or just throw in a mix of feather colors for a really fun make-believe bird!

Want to make a parrot costume for your little one? Great! Let me show you how!

You will need…

Felt in parrot colors. For my 3 year old I used about 1/2 yard red and 1/4 yard of each of the yellow green and blue
Fleece for the hat, 1/4 yard of red and scraps of white for the eyes and yellow for the beak.
1 yard of 1/4″ elastic.
1/2 yard 3/4″-1″ elastic OR ribbon ties OR safety pins to attach tail
Hot glue gun
1.5″ googly eyes
Ashley's hat pattern and flamingo beak pattern found HERE
Basic sewing supplies
Recommended – rotary cutter and mat for cutting lots of feathers!

tutorial-1

Start by measuring you kid's wing span, err….arm length. Measure from the edge of their shoulder to their wrist, then add a couple inches to that number. From your red felt, cut out wing shapes like the ones below that are as wide as you want your wings. My daughters arms are 11″ long so I cut the wings 13″ wide and about 8″ tall.

Cut a piece of 1/4″ elastic that is a comfortable length for your child's wrist. I used 6″ for my 3 year old. Sew the ends of the elastic down about 1″ from the edge of the wing to create a loop for the wrist.

Cut a small rectangle of felt and sew it over the raw edges of the elastic.

Next cut a longer piece of 1/4″ elastic for the shoulder strap. I used 9″ sew the elastic in place on the other side of the wing, with the edges of the elastic about 2-2.5″ apart. Repeat the last three steps to sew elastic loops on your second wing.

Cut 2 rectangles of felt that are 7″ x 3″. Use one rectangle to cover the shoulder elastic on both wings, it will connect the wings in the middle. Place the second rectangle directly behind the first, on the other side of the wings. The two rectangles will sandwich the wings between them. Pin in place, then sew around the edge of the rectangles.

Cut feathers from all four of your felt colors. My feathers are 5″ long and 1.5″ wide in the middle. you can make really quick work of this by creating a feather template and using a rotary cutter. Use the rotary cutter to cut through 2 layers of felt at the same time. For my costume, I used 45 blue feathers, 31 green feathers, 25 yellow feathers, and 17 red feathers.

Starting with the blue feathers, pin them along the bottom of your wing, line the feathers up about 1.5″ from the edge of the wing, the bottom of the feathers will hang off the edge of the wing. Sew the feathers in place, making sure to move the elastic out of the way.

Repeat that step to add the rows of green and yellow feathers.

Use the hot glue gun to add the top row of red feathers for a nice finished look.

Next, cut your tail. I cut a triangle shape that is about 10″ wide and 10″ long at the point. Decide how you want to attach the tail to your parrot. I chose to simply safety pin it to the back of her shirt, but you could sew ribbon ties on both sides, or a piece of elastic to the sides so they can wear it like a belt, just make sure it is snug enough that it doesn't fall down with the weight of the feathers.

Add your tail feathers just like you did the wing feathers, pinning and sewing the first three rows and hot gluing the last red row.

Now for the hat! Print Ashley's flamingo template. Cut the biggest eye circle out. Because parrots beaks are fatter than flamingos, I added about 1″ to the top of the beak template and 1/2″ to the bottom when I cut it out. Use the templates to cut 2 blue circles for the eyes and 2 yellow fleece beak pieces.

Cut out your hat pieces using Ashley's hat template, I added about 1/2″ to all the sides of the hat to make the 6 month hat fit my 3 year old. From your white fleece, cut 2 kidney shaped pieces for the eyes and sew them on the front of the hat. Then hot glue the blue circles and googly eyes on top of the white. Then sew your hat pieces together.

Sew your beak right sides together, turn it and stuff it. Then hand stitch to the front of your hat like in the flamingo tutorial. Then giggle about how adorable this parrot hat is! Your costume is done!

I paired my costume with a long sleeve red shirt and some yellow shorts and shoes. But I think yellow tights under red shorts would be really cute! The costume is adorable and easy for her to put on for dress up play!

Want more Halloween inspiration? You can find lots on my blog, including some of my favorites shown below…a Superman costume, a fireman costume, a shark trick or treat bag, and a little red riding hood costume!

Thanks!

-Crystal

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