Their costume choices this year didn’t really give me much to work with craft-wise. I had less than zero desire to craft a Spider-Man costume from scratch. I’m not big on character costumes anyway – this is the first year that either of them has wanted one, and he was set on it, so I got him one. I was going to make Tiny Dancer’s cape until Joann’s had one marked down so low I couldn’t resist. And seriously, he couldn’t have been cuter:

So I tried to get crafty in the accessory department. I thought Spider-Man really deserved a web. So I took this pattern and just made a smaller (and less accurate) version.

pattern: Spiderman-blanket
yarn: Cascade 220 Wool, in black, red, and blue, maybe 1/4 of a skein of each
needles: size 7
dates: October 28-30
notes: I am giving some thought to making the blanket from this pattern. I pretty much hate making blankets, but I know Little Buddha would love this. If I make it, though, I will double my blanket-making misery because I’ll need to make one for Tiny Dancer as well. If I do make it, I will use stitch markers and pay more attention to my increases and decreases, because I pretty much royally screwed those up in my haste. It’s a little hard to knit when you’ve got a 4 year-old checking on your progress every 30 minutes.
verdict: He adores it and carried it with him all Halloween. Actually, he plays with it every day. Yesterday he wore his Spider-Man mask and brought the web to the dentist.

I wanted to make Tiny Dancer a vampire bat to go with his costume. I knew he would be much less invested in the accessory, so I’m glad I didn’t invest the time in knitting him one – though I found a couple of super-cute patterns on Ravelry. (I pretty much hate making stuffed animals and toys as much as I dislike knitting blankets). So on Halloween morning, I whipped up this little cutie:

pattern: Flappy Happy
fabric: the pattern called for wool felt but I went with what I had, which was fleece
notes: It’s far from perfect, but for 20 minutes from first cut to last stitch (half of which was on the phone!), I’m happy enough with it. Tiny Dancer didn’t carry it much with his costume, but he is hoping to do a puppet show with it sometime.

I was also the snack parent for the boys’ preschool on Halloween, so I made this:

recipe: a double recipe of Rice Krispy Treats
pan: from Target
notes: Next year I need to at least double the amount of food coloring. It didn’t look particularly orange. But it did taste yummy! (next year I will also plan to do a little more with the face decorations)

It was a happy – but exhausting – day. I’ve been wanting to make my own pirate costume for the last two years, but it never seems to happen. So I just sucked it up and bought one. I failed to get a very good shot of it.

We had a great time. Hope you did too!

Now, if you haven’t already, go out and vote!