How to Create Childs Hedgehog Costume in 9 Easy Steps

In Need of Fancy Dress Ideas?? 

I was recently tasked with creating a childs hedgehog costume for under £30 for my friends daughters' school play. Below is my step by step guide on how to do this...

You will need:

• 1 beige hoody 
• I chose an adults small hoody. This can vary depending on the size of the child or even adult! just pick a hoody that is large and will cover the body so that it can be just worn with leggings or tights
• Coloured felt sheets (A4)
• I chose cashmere brown and cocoa brown from Hobbycraft: felt sheets
• I also picked up a couple cheetah print ones to as a design feature
• Glue gun and glue sticks
• Again, good old faithful hobby craft do a bundle for cheaps: Glue gun bundle
• fabric scissors
• pins
• needle
• Beige or cream bias binding
• Beige/hoody coloured thread 
• Sewing machine 

STEP 1: prep your felt

• I folded the A4 sheet in half to get an idea of where the middle was in order to cut in half
• then cut zig zag line down the middle of that (please see below) to create strips of hedgehog quills.
• I also folded a couple of the sheets widthways into 3 to create smaller zig zag strips for the head.

 

STEP 2: Arrange your 'Quills'

• I firstly aligned the zig zags in a steeped fashion in alternating colours to create a depth of texture
• Make sure that the spikes are off centre from each other to build up the quill section as show below 
• Add in a row of the 'cheetah' felt every 3-4 rows for colour depth.

STEP 3: Glue the Quills on

• Once happy with the positioning dispense a line of glue onto one side of the straight edge of the felt and glue directly to hoody
• Continue up on to the hood and leave the arms free
• At the mid-point of the head lay the quills face the opposite direction so that the point face towards the head

STEP 4: Creating the Ears (easy)

• To make an even simpler version of the costume follow these section then you are done!
• Cut an ear shape out of the light felt and a smaller inner ear shape out of the dark felt. These need to be bigger than the quills so that they are distinguishable.
• Pinch the bottom middle of the ear with the inside on the inside and glue at the bottom to create volume
• glue the ears in to place
• Et voila! you're done!

STEP 4: Creating the Ears (professional)

• Firstly cut inside the line where the sleeve meets the armhole to remove the sleeves
• Keep these bits of fabric to cut the ears out of
• Create an ear shaped template like the one shown below, approx 10cm in diameter or whichever size best suits the size of the head. This is so that the ears are the same size.
• Pin to the arm fabric and cut 4

STEP 5: The inner ears

• Cut a smaller ear shape out of the cashmere coloured felt to create an inner ear. I zig zag stitched  this into place but you could also glue this on 

STEP 6: Assembling the ears:

Easy option: glue the front ear piece (piece with the inner ear section) to a back piece and repeat for other ear

• I made a small dart in the centre of the ears to give them some volume.
• Start the dart at approx 0.5cm in and finish just below the centre of the ear
• Repeat on all four pieces
• Pin a front section to a back piece with the wrong sides together as shown
• Stitch around the outside at 1cm seam allowance
• Make small incisions at the curved edges to allow a smooth curve when turning in the right way

STEP 7: Affixing the ears:

• Lay the hoody out flat in front of you and pin where you want the ears to go
• Glue or stitch into place
• To stitch:
• Using a zig zag stitch first lay the ear facing towards the front opening of the hood and stitch one line
• lay the ears back and zig zag stitch one line
• this should allow the ears to stand up

STEP 8: Finishing the sleeves:

• Take the bias binding and lay use it to cover the edge of the sleeve opening
• create 4 tucks at evenly spaced intervals around the armhole
• These tucks create volume in the body of the costume whilst making the armholes smaller
• This will give a more professional finish.

STEP: 9 Finishing off

• Give the costume a good shake and using your fingers, brush upwards through the quills to create a slight curl.
• If any of the felt pieces feel or look like the might come loose glue back in to place.

There you have it! A finished hedgehog costume in an afternoon!

The pheasant xx