I wanted to make a fancy dress costume that was a bit different, eye catching but didn't involved being trussed up for the entire evening when I was ready to just have a good dance.
After a quick scan of pinterest.com for the best fancy dress costume, human Rubik's Cubes ranked rather high.
Having sewn for many years I still have great amounts of spare fabrics and notions knocking around so I decided to make my own!
What you will need:
Felt squares, bias binding, mount boards, gaffer tape (if your boards are the wrong size), mount board glue, elastic tape, glue gun, sewing machine, thread, tape measure, scissors and pins.
Start by deciding the colours you want in your costume. There should be only 6 colours to a traditional Rubik's cube but I added a few more 'artistic licence' to make it interesting!
My felt squares were a little on the large side so I trimmed them down. Keep hold of the scraps to make a hat and necklace.
Pin the squares ready for sewing
I used the stitch foot width to set the seam allowance to ensure all panels were the same size.
When the squares are stitched you can press them if necessary (although they will be held flat when placed when mounted to the boards).
Next use bias binding to give the shadow effect around the boxes.
And stitch in place
Next I had to prepare the mounting boards. Mine were scraps from another project so I had to tape them together to get the right size. The boards are about 1.5 cm smaller than felt that I sewed together, so you have enough overhang to neaten the edges
Then I took the project outside to spray mount the felt squares to the board. Unfortunately I ran out of spray adhesive so finished off with fabric glue
Use a glue gun to fix the edges to the wrong side.
Next I sewed the side panels. They were made in exactly the same way but instead of mounting on boards the top and bottom were neatened with a seam.
These were then glue gunned onto the back of the front and back boards.
I found the side panels gaped after I had put it together so I also ran a line of glue about 10 cm in from the edge to fix the side panel so they wouldn't gape.
I added shoulder straps
And finally copied the logo onto a yellow background and glued it to a panel.
I was very pleased with how it turned out! And it certainly got people smiling when I wore it.
It was very warm and sitting down was challenging but it was great fun to wear!
I even have a volunteer who would like to wear it this Halloween!
I hope you enjoyed this short tutorial and it encourages you to have a go making a fancy dress costume. If this has inspired you to have a go please send me a picture I would love to see!
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