Night Fury Costume

Who else loves the How to Train Your Dragon movies?!?  My house is obsessed.  I had never thought to let the girls watch the movie because I thought it was a little intense for their age.  However after seeing lots of posters about the sequel movie, the girls begged to see the first one.  Then begged to see the sequel.  And then discovered that the library carried DVDs full of How to Train Your Dragon tv episodes (it's a Cartoon Network show) to fuel the fire.

I did not expect it to take such a hold on them, especially this girl.  She told me one day that Toothless is her best friend.  Like I said, obsessed.  So of course she asked me to make her a Toothless Costume (Night Fury Dragon) for Halloween.

The costume was actually a lot easier to construct than I expected.  I started out by tracing an existing hooded jacket and pants to come up with a hooded sweatsuit pattern.  I sewed the pants up like loose leggings and made the hooded top a pull over.  

I added some horns and spikes to the hood by hand.  I really tried to avoid hand sewing, but it was necessary to get the horns to stand up.  The side flaps are Toothless' ears, which I tacked down to the sides to prevent flopping.  The coolest part of the hood is the eyes - they are painted to be glow in the dark!

The dragon wings, body, and tail are all attached together and go on like a backpack.  

The wings were made first using this tutorial as a base.  Mine are a little different than the template so that they looked more like the Night Fury's (Toothless).  I used fleece and it was great to sew with, though I did get nervous though the thick parts.  

I constructed the body/tail next before attaching it to the wings.  I had strict instructions on what to include - there needed to be parallel spikes down the body part, then spikes in different directions at the bottom, just like her toy.  I was also told to add the saddle for Hiccup to ride, but I nixed that request.  She's still thinking I might add it, but it's not going to happen.

The body/tail was cut out as a triangle on the fold.  You can see that the spikes are sewn sandwiched down the seam of it.  The spikes took the most time to make and attach, even though it was straight forward.  I was happy to be finished muscling everything through the sewing machine at the end!

The tail was the most fun to construct.  Just two layers of fleece sewn together and some boning detail.  I love the pop of red - the symbol was hot glued on.  

She's super excited to Trick or Treat now, especially since I made her a quick felt fish bag for collecting candy.  Since dragons LOVE fish!  She could tell you all about it for days.  Seriously, ask her about dragons and you'll hear more than you thought could be said in the span of 5 minutes about them.  Many people have made the mistake :)  

Look at that face.  I'm so happy she let me make her costume!  One costume down, one left to do for her sis - and it's not a dragon but I'm ready if she wants me to make a Stormfly!