Halloween George Washington & McCall's 8701 Pattern Review

Happy Halloween Everyone!  Today I'm sharing the last of the costume's I made for my kiddies this year:  President George Washington.  It was the only one where I used a store-bought costume pattern.  It's a bit unusual for me (some weird part of me likes the challenge of designing them myself), and I suppose I could have cobbled something together, but this was the most elaborate costume of the three I made (you can find my DIY posts on the other two here: Pac-Man Ghost & Cuddly Pumpkin).  By pure luck, my husband had already bought McCall's 8701 ages ago, in a $1 sale at Jo-Ann's, so no extra design time required.  Yay!  

The pattern is out of print now, but still available online.  It offered the knicker pants, long coat, vest and lacy cravat for a colonial look (as well as variations for Abraham Lincoln, the Statue of Liberty & Uncle Sam).  

As far as big 4 patterns go it was pretty simple to put together (I did it in a weekend) and had a lot of nice details like the little buckles on the cuffs of the pants:

The vest is actually just a faux front that ties in the back, which made it a bit faster to put together than a full working vest.  I just wish it was a little longer - you can see the waistband of the pants as he moves around because it's a bit too short in design.  If I were making it again I'd have added a few inches to the length.

I used golden brocade fabric for the vest and finished it with some eagle buttons I found in my grandma's old button stash.  They were nice & presidential looking:

The cravat is actually sewn onto the vest which is handy.  You can wear just about any shirt underneath and it won't show, which is nice.  The only challenge was it called for 4 inch wide lace and my local Jo-Ann's didn't have any.  Since I only needed a 3/8yd piece I wasn't about to order some (the shipping alone would have cost more than the tiny bit of lace), but I got smart and bought twice as much in the available 2 inch wide and stitched them together to get the right width.  When gathered, you totally can't tell it's not one wide piece:

We bought the wig on Amazon for something like $10.  Yes, I could have tried to be crafty and make some faux hair, but the wig was easy, cheap and accurate looking right off the bat.  

True Story Time: The kids all wore their costumes to a Halloween party this week and another mother, who doesn't know me (or that I sew at all) said something to the effect of "Don't tell me you made that" as she was looking at his costume.  When I said I'd made all their costumes she seemed really wowed.  I was so proud.  Then she burst that balloon by asking how I did the wig. When I explained that was the one bought thing, she was actually disappointed - that was what had impressed her.  Not that the rest of all 3 costumes were made by hand, just the wig part.  Gee, thanks lady!  At least it made me laugh.  Luckily the real reasons I make our costumes are to make my kids Halloween dreams come true, stay warm while trick or treating and save my wallet a little $ on costumes.  I think I hit the bullseye with those goals, so I'm happy with them:)