It was the year of the yip-yips! Bruce and his buddy wanted to go as the Martians from Sesame Street. (Easily found on YouTube if you need a refresher.) Luckily there were handy instructions on the Web.
We insisted that both boys take their turn at the sewing machine, and they learned to sew some fast straight seams, even with this fuzzy, stretchy fabric. We are happy to report that there were no fingers sewn into the costumes, although Dad couldn’t watch the action after imagining what he would have to do to “unsew” a finger.
As is usual with fashion, the costumes looked great but had some serious functionality issues due to poor visibility, being too hot to wear, and the fabric being too heavy for the delicate googly-eye balancing act. After the 2nd return home for maintenance, Dad got out a kitchen knife and hacked away a good bit of cloth, greatly improving mobility, which finally sent the boys on their way to score some serious candy.