Sock Monkey Costume Tutorial (the refashioned way!)

Since last year, I never got to blog about the costume I made my little girl for Carnival, and since we are already celebrating it again this year, I thought I could bring home, the Sock Monkey Costume tutorial that I first shared over at Get Your Crap Together for her 31 Days of Halloween Series. Enjoy!

Hello! My name is Magda E. and I blog over House of Estrela. I live in Portugal, and we don't have a strong tradition on Halloween. It might have become popular to celebrate it from 10 years to now over here, mainly school parties, bars having themed parties, etc. Trick or Treat isn't that common, and the costumes are mainly witches, vampires, zombies... We called it "Dia das Bruxas" (Witches day) and I love it. It also happens that my birthday is just two days before Halloween, so I get to make wonderful themed parties if I want to. I actually only made one great Halloween themed party, but it was huge and I had a great time preparing it and having it. 

Back to the costumes, around here, they are more popular around February, for the Carnival. And this year, I have made a sock monkey costume for my daughter. Don't know why, I never blogged about it so far, but with Halloween approching I think it is a wonderful time to not just blog about it, but to share a tutorial on how I made it. 

Following my self challenge of not buying any new fabric for the year, I tried to work with what I had.

I made the little one a sock monkey and it has become her best friend, which she carried all around, so we all thought it was a great idea to dress her up in a sock monkey costume.

The sock monkey I made her was this one HERE, and I wanted to make her one that would look the same. I visited a second hand market in search of some used clothes with similar prints but I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, so I had to stick with plan B instead, and just find a shirt we all liked. I came home with two shirts I was able to use. They both, together, costed me 1€. So, if you want to know how I made a sock monkey costume out of one euro only, then keep reading!

I used a grey shirt for the main body and a red one for the details.
The first thing I did, was to use a shirt that fitted my daughter to draft a pattern for the top of the monkey outfit. Then cut a front, a back, and two sleeves on the grey shirt. I started by sewing the shoulders together and added the sleeves, as shown on image above. 

I then closed the sides and attached the original collar, resized, which I had previously cut from the shirt and saved.

The next step was to make the pants, and for that matter I, again, used a pair of existing leggings (in this case) to cut the leg pieces (2 of them). I pinned them together inserting one inside the other with the right sides facing, and then sewn it. Since I reused the original sleeves from the grey shirt to cut them, I didn't have to worry about making a hem.

For the monkey's tail, I cut a long stripe from the grey shirt and a rounded edged (on the fold) piece from the red shirt. Then I sewn the grey into a tube and sewn the red all around leaving an opening on the opposite to the rounded edge. I've inserted the red piece into the grey tube (right sides facing) and sewn them together. Turned it around and stuffed it.

I've grabbed the pants again, and handsewn a red patch that I've previously cut from the red shirt - no measuring and no pattern for this, just followed what I thought to be the rightsize. I've zigzagged the edge of the seam, folded it and inserted an elastic at the waist. To finish it off, I handsewn the tail to the pants, right on the seam line, on the center of the back.

The last thing I made was a matching hat. Used an existing one for size. Cut 2 red pieces for main hat part, then cut 4 ear pieces from the grey shirt.also cut two smaller ear pieces from the red shirt. I've sewn one of the red pieces on one of the grey ones. The grey was right side up and the red has wrong side facing the right side of the grey. Once it was done, I've put one of the other grey pieces facing right sides together over the pieces I had just sewn and pinned the ears on each side. Put the two reds together, right sides facing, with ears sandwished in between, and sew. Turned around and my monkey hat was ready.

Here's how to cut the two shirts in order to get the best of existing seams and keep the hemming away.

This is a very quick project, so if you've been waiting until the last minute to make your costume, just start now and you'll have one in no time.