A gift of wings

My nature loving nephew turns 4 at the end of the month. The superhero cape I made him for Christmas went down well, so I decided to add to his dressing up collection, but this time with something that reflected his love of animals. There is no doubt in my mind that he can correctly identify far more species of bird than I can, so I’m hoping he’s going to love this owl costume at least as much as H did when she tried it on for photos and almost refused to take it off again.

I had been wanting to have a go at making bird wings since seeing a few versions on Pinterest in particular the beautiful pair Gail made for her daughter at http://probablyactually.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/halloween-sewing/. I took ideas from lots of versions and a few of my own to create a pair of wings in a larger size (my nephew is very tall) in autumnal colours for F.  There is a step-by-step guide of the methods I used at the bottom of this post.

To complete the costume I made a hood. I have not tried to create a step-by-step guide for this because (as I was rushing) my method was a little chaotic. The construction was a lined 3-piece hood/bonnet with darts in the side sections that allowed me to sew ‘ears’ between the darts and the seams. I then sewed on strips of feathers left over from the wings, adding felt eye details, a strip of faux fur for definition and a stuffed leatherette beak.

Here’s the method I used for making the wings: