Getting ready for Hallowe'en

A few weeks ago Frederick announced that he wanted to be Superman for Halloween. This being a Marvel household, it was a shocking and unsettling situation. Nonetheless, we decided to respect his (frankly, bewildering) preference and I set to thinking up how to make the costume. In years past I wasted a lot of time hunting down the foundational pieces for his costumes at various stores around town but this year, with plenty of time to spare, I did the smart thing and bought the sweatpants and sweatshirt online. They were the perfect size and color for Superman's suit. I bought felt pieces to make the chest S and plenty of shiny red acetate to make his cape. The only tricky part was his red boots. Apparently no company in the world makes red boots for men (Frederick wears a size 10.5 men's shoes) except for specialty costume boots for "cos-play" purposes--and those were almost $100 a pair. No thanks. I tried spray painting a pair of cheap wellies and that was an unmitigated disaster as the paint never dried and, after about two weeks, simply crackled off. So, I hunted down a giant pair of generic rain boots that were in European sizes. They took their sweet ass time getting here, but arrived in good condition and fit just right. Today I set out to put the suit together. The main thing was the S on the chest, and I roped Simon into drawing up the pattern. He did a really good job and it was easy to cut the pieces to fit together just right:

Frederick was super excited about the costume as is going to have a tough time waiting for Tuesday to wear it to school.