Harry Potter and his best friend Ron Weasley Entry by Gloria Kukuk

I'd like to enter my two son's Halloween Costume in your contest. I am proud to say they came in third at out local Halloween Night Costume Contest this past Oct 31.

My son Kyle and Justin just love Harry Potter, so much so, they insisted on it for this year's Halloween costume theme. My son Kyle opted to be Harry Potter and my son Justin opted to be his best friend Ron Weasley. I used the movie for my inspiration and my sons' opinions and decided to use McCall's 9372 for the robe, no contrasting fabric and I modified the sleeves. For the robe's Gryffindor crest, I used my scanner and scanned a copy of the crest from a calendar featuring the Harry Potter movie, edited it, printed it on iron transfer paper, then ironed it on white muslin, cut it out and sewed it to the robe. The pants I used bargain fabric in gray and McCall's pattern 9206 for the pants and modified them just a bit. I also used the same pattern for the Grey sweater shirt (modified a bit too) worn by Hogwart students using two different bargain knit gray fabrics one on Harry's and one on Ron's. Just couldn't seem to find enough of the same knit fabric to make them the same. I used red and yellow ribbon for the trim on the sweater. The white shirts I picked up at a second hand shop. The tie presented the biggest challenge for me to find. No red and yellow striped materiel and no red and yellow striped ties to be bought. I looked high and low. I finally decided to try dying my own fabric. I went to Joann's and got spray fabric paint and used masking tape to mark the stripes. Worked better than I had thought; I expected more bleeding. Also the red didn't stay a true red and went more in the pinky range. I also had never made a tie before so I enlisted McCall's pattern 2524 for the tie pattern (I couldn't find any kid size tie patterns). I didn't realize that it was mostly sewn by hand. That was the most time consuming in my mind's eye. For Harry's famous scar, I copied a lightening bolt and printed it on tattoo ink jet printer paper for his forehead. And lastly, I purchased two wands, a red wig for Ron's hair, and of course Harry Potter's stylish glasses.