Each night I work a little more on my Wonka Halloween costume. Right now I’m trying to make his shirt, a red dress shirt with a blue paisley print (a pretty decent approximation of which I found at the fabric store) and… well, I ran into a bit of a snag last night working on it.

First, it took forever to cut out all the pieces. There are like 25 pieces to this thing.

Once I got that all done, I sewed the first bit together and started wondering why it didn’t look like the picture. Then I searched around and found that one of the pattern pieces had this random “cut on this line if this is the left piece, but don’t cut on it if it’s the right piece” crap on it. I didn’t see that discussed in the instructions. Argh!

Out came the seam ripper, removing all the work I had done. Cut along the line, then re-attached everything. Now it looks like the picture.

That was just the first seam. I have the whole rest of the shirt to go. This is going to be quite the project.

Stu found a good approximation of Wonka’s coat at the local Hot Topic. I went to check it out and tried on an XL. The arms were okay, but the width of the thing left something to be desired - I could barely raise my arms before the back started pulling. I emailed the company to see if they offer a 2XL. The arms might be a little long, but the rest would fit better. Plus, it might be a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than making my own.

I’ve also started working on the cane. I took the bottom of the finial that will serve as the handle and I have slowly started filling it with Shoe Goo to even it out (there are hollow spots in there that need to be solid so I have something to attach the pipe to). Once that’s set up, I’ll bond the pipe to the finial with more Shoe Goo (seems to be pretty good stuff, and it dries clear). I ordered a package of cane tips that fit a 1” diameter cane. The pipe is 1.05” in diameter, so I’m hoping I can fudge the tip on. If all else fails, I can sand down the area the tip needs to fit on until it fits - the pipe walls are pretty thick.

UPDATE 10/02/05: The costume came out well. Here are the details.