My Spencer, the same kid who wanted a Wizard101-themed birthday party this past summer (see post here), wanted to be a Wraith for Halloween. He likes to stretch my creativity.
The robe is pretty straight-forward. I used the Simplicity 5512 Costumes for Kids pattern and some black fleece. (This pattern is awesome, by the way. I've used it for a number of costumes for my kids over the years!)
The staff was also fairly easy. I already had a wooden dowel from Home Depot leftover from something. I cut a crescent moon shape out of cardboard and taped it to the top of the dowel. My husband reinforced it, and made it look cooler, with silver duct tape. We didn't have time to paint the dowel black, but it worked.
The wings were the biggest challenge. I'll try to explain how they came together the best I can!
The Wraith in Wizard101 seems to have wings made out of feathers. Well, feathers are expensive. So I used some creepy-looking fabric that I had snapped up as a remnant. The fabric came with "holes" in it already. (In retrospect, I thought that a black garbage bag would have worked, too. You could really shred it and it might look more like feathers than the fabric did. And it would be waterproof!)
For each wing, I took a strip of the fabric and sewed it on three sides like a pillowcase. I just stitched on the top of the fabric -- I wasn't going for neatness here. Then I snipped the edges with pinking shears. I draped the "pillowcase" over a black hanger with the open side at the bottom. I had left a gap in one side seam for the hanger hook to stick out.
My husband figured out how to attach the hangers to something Spencer could actually wear. He took an old backpack that we had gotten free from somewhere and cut off the backpack part leaving just the black straps and black back. He pierced a hole in the strap fabric to insert the hanger hook (which he had straightened) and held it there with a zip tie. (See photo below.) He also attached the hanger to the back of the backpack with another zip tie at the bottom of the wing.
To keep the wing tops separate, he stuck a wire between them. The wire was taped to the hangers and poked through the fabric. You can see the wire in the photo below, but it wasn't noticeable when Spencer wore the costume.
Once the wings were all attached to the backpack, I went after them with the scissors and made the fabric into more of a wing shape and I cut strips in the fabric to better resemble feathers.
Here's another look at the wings and the robe hanging on a hanger.
At trick-or-treat time, with the skull-like face paint, Spencer looked downright terrifying!
Loved this costume!
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