The Jumpsuit of Furry Goodness
Many of my local friends will recognize this, or at least have heard me yakking about it incessantly :) This is my halloween costume, and it’s taken me all week to make it… you can click on the image for a larger version. So what am I? My most common answer was a wild thing from "Where the Wild Things Are." I also liked saying I was an undomesticated teddy bear - before they file the horns off to make me safe and acceptable for the children of the bourgeois. I’d originally planned to be a rabbit and then a monkey, but I’m too skinny to be a good rabbit, and I didn’t want to ruin this lovely jumpsuit with a long annoying tail. I can also carry around a string of leaves and call myself a tree! So versatile… 
It’s a one-piece furry jumpsuit that I made from a new material I found at Jo-Ann (at crossroads, surprisingly, the best fabric store in the area). Unlike most fake fur, this stuff is incredibly soft on the outside (it feels like a super-soft teddy bear), but very smooth and comfortable on the inside. Typical fake fur is horribly rough on the inside, so you end up having to make a lining - which would have been a huge pain for a suit of this size/complexity. Unfortunately, while comfortable, the inside is also super-slippery, which makes sewing with it an incredible pain. Of course, as with other fur, the long strandy hairs keep getting caught in the machine as well, which made the making of something less than a joy.
As for how it’s put together, the body is a narrow tube construction with pockets added in later. Since pants are generally a V-construction and I wanted to save material (this stuff is expensive), this made the crotch area something of a bunchy mess. Thus I made a little flap panel from back to front (an H-cut) to fit that area and then closed the leg tubes. This left a small gap in each inner thigh, which I was initially going to cover up with more fur, but the suit is so warm I left them in for ventilation. The top is fitted with three velcro closures, which worked very well for this material. The arms are separated tubes. There are also pockets, which are from a different material. By mistake, the right pocket ended up around the knee, which I was initally really unhappy about it, but it turned out to be super-convenient - when I’m driving, it’s really difficult to access ordinary pockets, since the seat belt is strapped over them, but the knee pocket works perfectly
I’ve worn this to parties the last two nights, and may actually wear it to work on monday (Halloween). I realized that I’m teaching that day - but maybe that’s all the more reason to wear it! If you think I should/shouldn’t, drop me a comment, perhaps you’ll motivate me…
