Rooster Costume: The Comb

It’s Easter weekend, and a rooster is on the loose! He is running around in my apartment and loves to pick corn from the floor with his beak… 😉 Like probably every other young kid my son loves farms and farm animals. Currently, he is fascinated by the idea that a rooster is the first animal awake on a farm and that it wakes up all the other animals with its Cock-a-doodle-doo (or Kikeriki as we say in German). Thus, I decided to make him a very basic costume consisting of a comb and a beak (with wattles). The comb is made from felt and comes with two flaps, which spread on top of the head. This stabilizes the comb so that it does not flip to the side. The longer end of the comb sits on the back of the head. Here is how I made the comb:

List of materials:

1. Red felt
2. Pin needles (optional)
3. White tailor’s chalk or magic marker
4. Red embroidery thread and embroidery needle
5. Hole puncher (optional)
6. Elastics
7. Standard scissors
8. Stuffing material
9. This Comb Pattern

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Directions: 

1: Cut your pattern and transfer it onto red felt using white tailor’s chalk or a magic marker. If your felt piece is big enough, you can fold it into halves (secure with pin needles). Cut the felt and you will have two identical red comb pieces. If your felt is not big enough, cut two times from two felt pieces.

PS: As you can see in the picture below, my son helped me cutting the comb I drew using his pinking scissors… 🙂

STEP 2: Sew both red felt pieces together using a blanket stitch. Leave the bottom part (the flap) open.

STEP 3: Stuff the comb with stuffing material.

STEP 4: Sew the flap opening closed as shown in the picture. I used a simple running stitch. First, I sewed into one direction. Then, I stitched into the other direction while stitching exactly into the spacings created during the first round of sewing. This gives a nice and neat line of straight stitches.

STEP 5: Using a hole puncher, punch two holes into each flap as shown below. Optionally, you could use embroidery scissors and carefully cut all four holes. In the end you should have created 4 holes in total. Do not make the holes too close to the outer edge.

STEP 6: From red felt left overs, cut 2 elliptical pieces (1.8 inches long and and 1.2 inches wide; i.e., 4.5 cm and 3 cm). This, you can simply do free hand. This is going to be a chin pad.

STEP 7: Take an elastics and lay it on top of one of these pieces.

Lay the second felt piece on top of the elastics…

…and sew around it with an embroidery needle and red embroidery thread using a simple running stitch. Secure the thread with knots.

STEP 8: Attach one elastics to each hole of both flaps. Next, knot them onto the elastics from step 7 as shown in the picture below. The knots of this construction will sit below the ears in order to better stabilize the comb on a toddler’s rapidly moving head… 😉 When done, cut all elastics overhangs (as can be seen in the first picture of this post).

And tada: You are done! 🙂 Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and good luck with your comb creation. Please stop by again soon in order to learn how I made the beak with wattles. And if you have not followed this blog yet and liked Me & My Veritas on Facebook, please do it right away. Thanks!

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I am linking this to Kiddikram, Made4Boys, fuersoehneundkerle, Threading My Way, and Talented Tuesday.