How to Make Native American Costumes for Kids

Video Transcript

"In this clip we are going to show you how to make Indian costumes that are quick and easy that you can use for Indian children's party. The materials you will need are feathers, some sort of raw material; we chose a suede imitation, scissors, tape, and some paper. First thing I'm going to show you is how to cut the pattern. You're going to take a piece of paper and on the folded edge you're going to cut a circle. The circle is going to be for the neck of the child. When you're cutting it you have to remember that the paper is actually going to open out. You're going to want to cut it down and then up, thinking of a half circle, because you've got to remember that it's going to open up to be the neck. You don't want it to be too wide so the straps will fall of the children's shoulders. Then you're going to cut an arm sleeve like so, down, and another half circle. Looking like this. You're going to want to make sure that it goes low enough that that it drops underneath the arms. I'm going to take another piece of paper because I want my skirt to be long and you're going to cut it in a small v, which will make the point. Now, once you get your pattern cut out and you open it up. You're going to want to makes sure you leave enough room for your hem. When the pattern's all done being cut, it should look like so. When you fold your material you're going to want to put the pattern on the bias like this. Actually, you can open it out and double your material, lay your pattern down, you'll have both your sides cut. You're going to want to turn the outside of the material, facing inward, and you can either stitch it or, if there's enough time in the party the kids can use hot glue guns. The stitching goes across the shoulders, down the sides, leaving enough room for it not to unravel. Through the V you don't stitch. You leave this open but you may want to put a hem in it if your material starts to run. And, then you stitch up the sides. So, the finished product would like as so, open sleeves, open neck. If you want to dress it up some, you can stitch on fringe or sequins, and, as you can see, we chose to add a feather to the dress just to accentuate it a little bit. If the outfit runs short, what we do is we bought little underwear and dyed them brown so they were bloomers to match and they could actually go over the girl?s underwear. For boys costumes we just have them wear shorts and we'll show you how to turn them into Indians in the next clip."