Yowie!!!!!...???

Yowie Costume

What: A yowie, an Australian ape-man legend, like big foot or sasquatch. Based on Simplicity Pattern 2853 with modifications.
Why: My boyfriend's final project student film

The Challenges:

• I don't currently have a sewing machine. I plan to sew it all by hand, which will make a relatively simple pattern take a heck of a long time. I've been doing a lot of research/reading about historical sewing techniques (in preperation for future projects) so I'm looking at it as good practice.
  
• I don't have a cutting table, or even a kitchen table, and the floor in our apartment is dumb uneven tile with wide grout lines that made altering the pattern a pain.
• The fabric store, which is an hour and half away by transit, only had 2.75 m of the fake fur we wanted, and the pattern called for 3.5 m.
• I have to figure out a way to make a believable mask, because there is no make up artist working on the film, and also "realistic" hands, which are going to be featured in a close up. I have a few ideas about how to accomplish this, but I'm making it up as I go.

This is the fur we settled on. My boyfriend asked if we could have the cardboard tube because he wanted to hit our roommate with it :p The store carried a beautiful long napped fur with a lighter under coat and a long, darker top coat, but it was 70 dollars a meter, which didn't fit in our budget of nothing. Considering we don't have a vaccuum cleaner, this is probably a better choice.

I originally planned to draft a pattern myself, but given my limited resources, time and skill in that area, I decided it would be less stressful to start with an established pattern. We went to the fabric store yesterday evening (got a ride from the director of photography on the film, bless him) and I started working on the pattern manipulations last night.

The pattern has very full sleeves and pant legs that are gathered with elastic. I want the yowie to have tight fitting sleeves to go over the 'glove' hands that I'm planning, and closer fitting legs. I did the sleeves last night, and then laid awake and thought about it and realized that I'd forgotten that the Simplicity pattern included seam allowances. I was already planning to put a little vent in the sleeves, but I ended up having to add seam allowance as well, or no one was getting their had through the sleeve opening.

I altered the pant leg pattern this morning, taking seam allowances into account, and planning a slit in the side seams there as well. The pattern includes spats, which I am going to attach to the bottom of the pant leg, and continue the opening to the bottom, rather then having separate pull-on spats. The plan is to use snaps to close the sleeve and pant vents, as well as the center back opening. The pattern calls for a zipper, but I have an irrational fear of installing zippers, compounded by the lack of sewing machine and the added difficulty of fake fur. Fur would get caught in a zipper anyway, right? Right.

After the pattern manipulations came the puzzle of figuring out a cutting layout when I was short .75m of fabric. I had already decided that I was going to reverse the nap, so we could fluff out the fur and have the yowie look as scruffy as possible. I ended up ignoring straight of grain all together to get all the main pattern pieces cut out. I'm hoping that this with add an additional degree of scruff, and maybe even look neat. I'm not worrying about the hood or spats right now - I think I have enough scraps left to patchwork together those pieces, again hoping that this will look cool and textured rather then stupid.


The pattern called for the layout to be done in a single layer, so I made duplicate pattern pieces from the free daily newspaper. You can see a bit of the floor that made drawing straight lines such a challenge. I finished the layout just as the boyfriend and our roommates got home from school, so I cut everything it out and joined them on the balcony for a beer. Will start sewing tomorrow.