Peggy Sue's Gypsy Costume for Halloween

At this time of year, there's a certain energy in the air.  With the first of October, comes an excitement for decorating with autumn leaves and pumpkins, Halloween decorations old and new, perhaps plans for a party for the children.  The energy zips through the air with the cooling temperatures and the scent of leaves turning while breezes carry them about the land.  I love autumn.  There's no better time of year for me.  All my fondest memories are wrapped up in the 'bers from yesteryears.

If you were reading my blog last October,  you might recall that I'd been sewing for the UFDC's Peggy Sue for a couple of months, and made her a Halloween costume from a 1950's Woolworth advertisement.  I had such a good time making it, as it reminded me of the costumes my mother never bought me, but ones that I would yearn for in those colorful boxes.  They came with cellophane windows showing the costume beneath, with, often, a mask in the 

center of the window.  We made our own costumes.  My mother had a "costume box" out in the garage, which was pretty much full of her old skirts and heels, and any other clothing discards.  At the bottom of the box might be strands of Mardi Gras beads sent to us from the relatives in New Orleans.  We put on circuses in the garage on rainy days dressed up in whatever we could scrounge up in that box.  

I think I was in love with "dress up" from the time I can remember, so Halloween was particularly special as I got to be someone different than a little girl growing up on Grape Avenue.  While my childhood was in the early 1960's, Peggy Sue's been a doll I delight in because the styles she wore were still in fashion  then and television hosted a series of rerun shows like I Love Lucy, where the fashions were feminine, with large skirts and pretty high heels - hats, gloves, purses to match - oh, heaven!

We were not poor, but we had just enough, and while my parents did their best, we never got subscriptions to magazines like Jack and Jill, which were only enjoyed at the dentist's office.  I would have gone nuts for them back then, but today, I can collect them as I do vintage and antiquarian children's books.  I began collecting Jack and Jill's from the 50's when I started sewing for Peggy Sue, and soon began to collect just the October issues going into the early 1960's.  While this era may seem like ancient history to some of you, for me, its only yesterday.

So when I found the center pull-out of the Jack and Jill October 1960 issue last fall, I was excited and thrilled to have something wonderful to look forward to this year.  Costumes!  And, the page was titled Who Will You Be?  

As most of you know, I love sewing gypsy costumes, so this one was definitely getting made for Peggy Sue.  I found out something interesting doing a Pinterest search recently.  If you type in "gypsy costumes", a gray bar pops up and states that "Pinterest isn't a place for

hateful images, contents or activities."  Well, wow.  My ancestry on my father's side was Bohemian, so I was taken a bit back, but if you type in "fortune teller", you can browse gypsy images, and beautiful ones.  Its  here where I found a couple of darling vintage pattern covers for costume (see below).  However, as a paper doll lover, I enjoy most creating from illustrations for children.  Which also brings to mind the artists that illustrate for patterns!  Why do we never think of them?

So Peggy Sue was going to dress up as a gypsy this year.  Like scrounging through the old "costume box" in the garage, I rummaged through my stash for fabrics and notions for her costume.  I didn't have a print with large roses on it for the scarf, but I did have a Lecien cotton that I'd intended for a dress for Lettie Lane long ago.  I had the polished cotton in green from Kitty Hudson's travel outfit (my favorite), some red velveteen (the same used for her Christmas coat last year), a ton of this gold silk dupioni for the sash, and was lucky to find (I knew I had some), pin dot vintage cotton for her 

blouse.  I may have made a dress for tiny Chiffonette from it since it is light and thin.  There was a time when I could count how many doll costumes/outfits I had made,  but that time is long gone now.  

Last year I'd decorated a pink gingham dress with red rick-rack for Peggy Sue, and hated the rick-rack.  It was polyester and thick and strange.  So I went on Etsy and found a card of unused "vintage" red rick-rack from 1979.  Seriously.  The Wright's card had the date on it.  It was perfect.  So now I had to opportunity to use it.  What became of the pink gingham dress is a good question, but I rarely keep outfits that aren't "good enough" for my dolls.  Out they go!

I did have to dye the rose print cotton a bright yellow, and this was a long and tedious task. A darker dye may have given me better results, but again, I used what I had on hand.  Michael's provided me Peggy Sue's beads, and large gold sequins with a hole punched in them became the faux earrings, or scarf embellishments. I had red cotton knit jersey for the socks, and I'd bought the slip-ons last year.

Honestly, the hardest thing I made for this costume was the paper trick-or-treat bag.  No, I take that back.  Sewing that narrow rick-rack on was quite a task!  Trying to sew down the center of it was something else entirely.  But, yes, the paper bag took several tries and its still not perfect, and I'm okay with that.  I looked up several Youtubes on this, and they all gave the same instruction - and you know how I am with instructions.  Can't follow them to save my life!  The key was accurate measurements, but they were all of large bags, not miniature ones, so with my passable math skills, I did my best to miniaturize one.  

Lastly, I went on Fenderskirts on Etsy, and bought a new download for a mini costume box to keep the costume in when Halloween is over.  I love making these, and do add cellophane to the center window for authenticity.  

I'll be making one more costume for her this month and I'll let it be a surprise.  Can you guess which one it will be?  The full pages of Who Will You Be? are shown below.  And, while I was at it, I did some digging and found the photo my mother took of me at 4 years old, in the gypsy costume she made me.  I thought I was so dressed up in this simple skirt and vest.  What on earth was I wearing on my head?  Some kind of crown or band?  I guess this was my mother's version of "gypsy".  The funniest thing about these old photos was that we were always squinting because my mother took them with the sun to her back - and the sun in our faces!

Since I photographed Peggy Sue with a contemporary honeycomb pumpkin, I did some more digging and found the truly vintage mini honeycombs I purchased for doll displays years ago.  Such a difference in creative effort they were.  Precious treasures.  As I mentioned, I included a couple of vintage pattern fronts that I found this morning.  I just love gypsy costumes!

Enjoy the autumn days, and if you're like me, a Halloween Hound, get those decorations up!

Love, Melissa

Me at 4 years old?