Happy Halloween Harry!

It was a fluke whenI discovered Harry is the type of dog that actually enjoys wearing clothes.  When I impulsively picked up some choice pieces at the Fairmount Pet Shop and tried them on Harry, he had no qualms with sticking his head in the head hole and letting me maneuver his paws into the arm sleeves.  This was great news for me, since my Halloween plans involved dressing Harry up to extremes.

Halloween 2012 was inspired by the Internet sensation, Keyboard Cat, specifically the video in which Keyboard Cat is featured in the Hall & Oates music video.  So the boo and I were Hall & Oates, and Harry was Keyboard Cat.  I had so much fun making Harry's Halloween costume and I can't wait to debut it for trick or treating today.

Since Keyboard Cat is an orange tabby, I bought a Zack and Zoey orange hoodie from Fairmount Pet Shop to be my base.  These hoodies are legit sweatshirts, featuring a kangaroo pocket on the outside.  Keyboard Cat wears a blue t-shirt so Harry needed to wear a blue shirt over his hoodie.  I trimmed one of my own t-shirts down to Harry size using his sweatshirt as a guide as to how wide and long it should be.  

I cut my t-shirt to size by cutting it lengthwise, almost like you'd cut a muscle tee and width wise as if you were making a crop top, leaving the neck as is.  My sewing skills aren't the most advanced and I couldn't see myself making a new collar for the shirt.  I folded the raw edges down in preparation to sew the t-shirt into a tinier t-shirt that was Harry size.  

After pinning my shirt in place, I started sewing by feeding the shirt through my machine 1/4 of the way on each side of the shirt for the sleeves.  Then I sewed the two pieces together by running the remaining 3/4 of the shirt through the machine.

I followed the same procedure on the other side of my shirt and then moved onto the bottom.  Once the bottom was folded and pinned (yes, I did avoid pressing for the costume...just didn't feel like it) I arranged my sewing machine so that I could sew all the way around to create a neat hem for the bottom of the shirt.

The result was a little baby tee for my baby!  It could actually be a cute project to turn your favorite old t-shirts into dog shirts.

It took a bit of stretching, because I didn't measure the best, but Harry's shirt fit him!  In my opinion if I had done this with a white tee, Harry could have gone as Simon Cowell for Halloween.

The next step for Harry's costume was making him a cat.  The only necessity was adding ears to his hood.  I bought some orange felt, free hand drew a pair of ears on it, and cut them out.  I did the same process on white felt.  With my two pieces of felt and a glue gun, I attached the white inner ear on top of the orange ear.  Then I used my iron to press a crease into the ears.  This would be the part of the ear that I sewed onto his hood.

I really just eye-balled where Harry's ears should go on his hood and then hand sewed them.  Harry's hoodie is really good quality and I didn't want to glue his ears on in case I wanted to re-use his hoodie for another costume or just some gangsta lounging.  Glue would leave residue, while stitches can be torn out with a seam ripper.  The boo and I like to make Harry dance and rap while he wears his sweatshirt.

The last thing Keyboard Cat needs is a keyboard.  With three colors of felt (black, white, and red) I drew and cut out a keyboard.  Using a hot glue gun I glued the black keys onto my white keyboard and drew in pen with a ruler the ivories inbetween.  Then I made an on/off key with the red felt I bought.  The whole keyboard piece was attached with glue to the keyboard base.  I made the keyboard base by folding in half a black sheet of felt and sewing it on two sides.  

Then I turned it inside out and stuffed it with poly-fill.  After it was pleasantly plum, I hand sewed it closed.

The final step was figuring out how to combine the keyboard with the cat.  I didn't want Harry to eat his keyboard right away - it could be a fun toy for him to play with later - and I didn't want to damage his hoodie.  I decided to cut a strip of velcro and secure it to his t-shirt and the keyboard, and then stick them together once the costume was on.

I am pretty proud of the results.  I'm not sure if all of the trick-or-treaters will know who Keyboard Cat is, but Harry will have a pretty genuine and home-made costume just like all the best costumes out there.  Harry posed for some great pics.

I'm so excited to share Harry's costume with the neighborhood!  Hopefully he scores some extra milkbones for originality!