brobee costume

i ended up figuring out how to get stripes for my brobee costume for halloween - fabric paint.  i'm not sure why i only thought of fabric dye, but someone suggested fabric paint to me and it just made sense.  i ended up using this fabric paint and lots of masking tape.  i bought this romper from american apparel in white for the body and painted thigh high socks (also from american apparel) for brobee's long arms (i used the middle cardboard from paper towel rolls to extend my arms).  the masking tape was used to keep the fabric paint from spreading to make the stripes.  since the romper was so thin, i also lined the entire inside with 3 inch masking tape so it wouldn't bleed through.  this took forever.  i'm not sure what i was thinking when i took on this project.

for the legs, i bought an actual childrens' brobee costume and cut the legs off to put over a pair of boots i own.  the furry gloves from the costume were put over the end of my arms to finish the costume.  i also added the monobrow from the costume to the brobee hat i knitted.  below are some photos of the process and the final costume.  best part is the boo "deciding" to go as dj lance rock... 

we also got mentioned on a yo gabba gabba fan site!

dying stripes - FAIL

i decided on my halloween costume this week.  yay! so, of course, i got the crazy head and had to plan out the whole thing, buy everything i needed and start working on it immediately.

while on my baby tour 2010 last week i was introduced to the childrens' show yo gabba gabba.  following my favorite halloween costume theme "random and sexy" i decided to be a sexy version of one of the random characters on that show - brobee.  shown here:

since finding a sexy outfit in kelly green and lime green stripes is pretty impossible, i decided i'd look into buying a white sexy outfit and dying it in the kelly green and lime green striped pattern.

searching online for ways to dye stripes, i came across this post on RIT dye's website and decided to try the technique out on a onesie.  the technique uses elmer's glue on fabric to block out sections you don't want to dye.  based on the outcome of the project demonstrated, it appeared the glued parts did take on some of the dye, just a lighter version, which is exactly the effect i want.  so i went to the local (amazing) hardware store and bought myself some kelly green RIT dye. 

if it went well, this project would be a brobee onesie for yute.  but, of course, all did not go that well.  which i sort of expected since i ended up only putting the glue on one side of the onesie meaning the fibers on the other side (when turned inside out) did not have the glue so the dye could still stick.  i guess i just hoped it would still just make it lighter and it would appear lime green.  anyhoo...  here are photos of the before and after:

as you can see there are no stripes on the above photo (well super super faint ones that maybe only i can see). (i'm still hanging on a little to the hope that only the stripes will fade when i wash it, but that's a stretch)

onto the next experiment...  applying the glue to the onesie right-side-up and inside-out.  if that doesn't work i did find another tutorial online that i might try, although it doesn't seem as promising.  there is also a batik/wax approach i think i can take...

although i did not achieve the desired outcome, i'm pretty pleased with the shade of green that onesie is and can still make it into a pretty cool gift for yute...

more to come on this project!!