This blog has been very yarn-centric for quite some time, but it does say "three types of needles" in my description of the site, and so sewing needles deserve their rightful place as well.  

This weekend was my weekend to work on my Halloween costume.  With a few friends, this year, we are going to be Godzilligan's Island.  The inspiration is fairly simple, taken from Inherent Vice, the newest Thomas Pynchon novel.  I haven't read it, so I don't know the context, but the phrase was enough to sell me.

Now, I am the kind of person who owns a Ginger dress, but I think we all know who the funnest person to be in Godzilligan's Island is:

Through some lucky fluke, I found a children's dinosaur costume at Goodwill.  Because of my lack of height, I was able to put the thing on, however, it was not "ideal."  I recently got to spend time with a participant in Godzilligan's Island who owns a serger (a nifty machine that sews and cuts at the same time, giving a nice finished edge).  We serged off the legs, turning the bottom into a tails's coat.  This seems like a natural choice to me.  If you don't think so, just think about it for a minute, and I think you will come around.  

Today I put in some time working on the face.  The original dinosaur face looked like this:

It is pretty fierce for a children's costume, but it isn't Godzilla.  Using the left over fabric from the legs, I constructed what I thought were the salient parts of Godzilla's face: more prominent brows, ridges on the head, closer together nostrils, lips, and, of course, big old teeth and a lower jaw.  Here it is pinned: 

He looks a little like Mick Jagger or some too much plastic surgery housewife to me here.  Here it is with all the sewing complete:

I am most pleased about the new eye lids.  Also the head ridges, although they are a little hard to see in this photo.  They really give him a much meaner look.  I still have to work out the back spikes.  I'm not sure what material I could make them out of that would also not be annoying in regard to sitting in a car, being in a crowd, etc.  I think they are important though, for being recognizable as Godzilla.