Monk Costumes, Wearing Fancy Purple Dresses by Yourself, and a Reformation Party

We went to our 2nd Annual Reformation Party tonight that a family from church started last year. We were new to church and they invited us on a whim kind of last minute, we went without costumes, and this year we decided we needed to have costumes also if we were going to be doing this every year.

Poor Chatty. She ended up sick today with a fever and couldn't go. She was bummed because she'd been looking forward to wearing her fancy purple dress for weeks. Sparky was bummed because now she'd be the only one wearing a fancy purple dress.

I made the boys' monk costumes. My friend from church had some ideas for simple costumes, and this happened to be one of them. I purchased the fabric half price at Joann's last night. It's moleskin or muleskin or something like that. It's kind of like microsuede, but isn't, and it was less expensive than microsuede too.

I didn't finish off the sides since they were the edges of the fabric that weren't going to fray anyway. I did a double-rolled hem on the bottom since they were the cut edges of the fabric. I folded the fabric and cut a quarter-circle out of the center for the neck hole (easier than cutting a full or half-circle freehand). Finishing the neck off was a little tricky, but the easiest thing was when I did Caboose's second and put black double folded bias tape around it (I didn't plan ahead and didn't have any brown, and I did it today). We finished them off with rope tied around the waist.

I told my friend on the phone last night what I was planning, so she went and got fabric and did the same thing today too. All the boys were monks at the Reformation Party (the girls in black are nuns).

Here's our family, missing one purple dressed girl.

It was a fun night and a fun tradition!