[There's a girl with a crown and a scepter]

In a fit of insanity I decided to make a Max costume for Halloween. (I started it before I saw the film, so it’s lucky that I turned out to be totally obsessed with it.)

Pictures of the hoodie, crown, & scepter, plus more than you ever wanted to know about how I made them, after the jump (or by clicking “view original post” on Facebook.)

First off, the hoodie, aka the raison d’être of the entire rumpus. A free pattern for a hoodie with wolf ears? Knit in bulky yarn, so I had a prayer of finishing it in three weeks? Bring it on.

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(Knitting notes live on my Ravelry project page, because who else cares, amirite?)

Once I realized I would actually finish the darn thing in time, I started obsessing over how to create the crown and scepter.

The crown is made from four pieces of gold felt with “We Love You So” embroidered in red. After Googling a bit I based it off of the Men in Black font. The WtWTA film titles are hand lettered, but there is a pay font worked up for it. I’m too cheap to pay for fonts, though, and I figured that some uneven embroidery would give it the same effect. Also, I considered adding “We’ll eat you up” on the other side, but in the end I decided I liked it better the way it was.

I worked up a template for the whole thing in Publisher. It’s hand-sewn, just a simple basting stitch, and perhaps my favorite part is that I sewed most of it at pub quiz. I figure this has got to be one of the few times that someone brought a pair of pinking shears (temporarily stolen from work!) to a dive bar. I wasn’t too busy sewing to win a free pint, though! (The winning answer? Bunnicula.)

Finally, the scepter! Here I took even more license. It’s made from a dowel, a Christmas ornament, and a cereal box. No, really. I found the ornament at the Japanese dollar store, and loved how it fit the DIY aesthetic of the film. Or at least it would once I took all the Christmas nonsense off of it.

I painted the dowel & a panel of the cereal box gold, then sliced the cardboard into half-inch thick strips, 4 ten inches long and 2 five inches long, the glued the whole she-bang together. I am ridiculously proud of the whole costume, but particularly that.

The dowel was too long really, but I didn’t have any tools for shortening it. It worked out, though, because I accidentally snapped off the end on the way to work Friday. That’s what happens when you’re trying to juggle a few bags, a coffee, and a scepter. And then it was the perfect length!

Let the wild rumpus start!