Living Statue Costume

As part of our haunted house this year, we wanted a living statue out front as a "mild" scare and to help pass out candy. We also wanted it to be very cheap.

The dress was made from 4 yds of clearance gray fabric I got for $3/yd at Joann's. It was folded in half, and I cut the sleeves without any scrap. (see diagram)

Fabric is folded in half long-way, and draped over the shoulders.
Cut along the red lines, and sew along the blue lines, with the right sides togther.
Measure room for shoulder and chest before cutting.

The belt was then braided from approximately 75 yards of yarn left over from my wig yarn. (15 pieces of yarn, 5 yards each)

I cut off about 4" all around the hem, and added that to the wooden base (made from scrap wood) that I was going to stand on.

I set the dress, belt and candy bowl (which is set on an up-side down round trash can we had in the garage) on the stand and attacked it all with 2 different shades of grey spray paint. ($4 per can from Lowes)

The make-up was cheap grease paint from the halloween store. I had some already in my kit that I purchased last year.

Total Supplies: $12 in fabric, $8 in spray paint, $3 in yarn, scrap wood, make-up, and old trash can with old bowl to hold candy.

See my most recent post for the pattern on how to make the yarn wig.

Halloween Wig Pattern

I created this pattern in order to have an extremely inexpensive wig to wear as part of my living statue costume. I imagine this pattern would also work well for a Raggedy Ann type of wig.

Yarn: Caron, Red Heart, or other worsted Weight yarn (this was in my stash) approx 300 yrds
Hook: 5.5 mm
Supplies: sewing needle and matching thread

Special Stitch: V-Stitch (V-st)
triple crochet (tr), ch 1, triple crochet (tr)

Wig Base:
You are essentially making a stretchy hat. If you plan to leave the hair on the wig down, instead of styled, consider using a basic dc or hdc hat pattern to give you more coverage beneath the strands of hair.

Ch 4, sl st into 1st ch to forn a ring.
RND 1: Ch 5, tr into ring. (this represents a v-st) 5 V-sts into ring. sl st to 4th ch of the ch 5 that began the rnd.
RND 2: Ch 5, tr into the first V-st of previous rnd. V-st into the SAME st. 2 V-st into each V-st of previous rnd. sl st to 4th ch of the ch 5 that began the rnd.
RND 3: Ch 5, trc into the first V-st of the previous rnd. *2 V-st into the next st. 1 V-st into the following st.* Repeat from * to * until the end of the rnd. sl st to 4th ch of the ch 5 that began the rnd.
RND 4: : Ch 5, trc into the first V-st of the previous rnd. One V-st into each st around. sl st to join.

Repeat Rnd 4 until the hat is long enough to cover your hairline (and if desired, your ears). My wig base was a total of 7 rnds. Fasten off.

Once the base of your hat is completed, select a length of hair strands for your wig. Cut lengths of yarn that are approximately double how long you want the hair to be. Slip knot the strands of hair onto the tr sts that make up the v-sts.

The following pictures represent a top view of the hat, and the lines represent approximately where I knotted in the strands of hair. The blue pattern represents what I did for a braid/bun wig. The red represents what you might want to do for a pigtail wig.

Once all of your strands are tied in, place your wig onto a foam head, or lay it on a bent knee to give it shape. Using coordinating thread, stitch shut the center part of the hair. Lay the hair flat and loosely place it into a style. Stitch the strands to the wig base LOOSELY with a running stitch in order to help hold your style. Secure the style with scraps of yarn or hair bands. Trim as desired.

My wig was spray painted to match the colors of my costume better, but this wasn't totally necessary.