DIY Roach Costume

Yes, you read that right! My son wanted to be a roach for Halloween and I said yes :)

A few months ago I was throwing around group costume ideas for the three kids. Nothing was sticking then my oldest said, “what about bugs”? I immediately liked the idea because my daughters name is Bee so naturally she could dress as a Bee. Then my four year old got super excited cause he wanted to be a lizard. Who am I to crush his dreams and tell him that a lizard isn’t actually a bug? A Bee and a Lizard, done. But then my oldest son said he wanted to dress up as a roach?! I tried to talk him out of it because how does one even go about sewing a roach suit?? But he was determined and I like a good sewing challenge so I said let’s go for it!

There is very little roach costume inspiration out there, which is good and bad haha. I didn’t have anything to live up to in the era of Pinterest expectations but I also didn’t have a clue how to make it! After a good ol’ google search, I did find one awesome “cape” that a legit costume designer made and I pinned it HERE. After I saw that I knew a cape was the way to go. I found some brown jeans and a brown tee  from the mens section so I just cut it down and sewed up the sides) for the body and got to work on the roach cape.

I bought brown suiting for the legs and ironed a very stiff fusible interfacing to the wrong side so they would be extra stiff. I used hot glue to attach a thin strip of brown faux fur to each leg… creepy right? For the antenna I used the suiting with some jewelry wire inside and a little brown pom-pom glued at the end.

Then I freehanded roach-shape-wings on to some brown satin. I used quilt batting inside them and sandwiched it between. I also sandwiched the legs between the wing layers before sewing right sides together. Then I flipped them right side out and top-stitched. The wings are two separate pieces but sewn together at the top where they connect. Then I added a neck hood/cape part with double batting and a layer of felt in between so it would stand up a little more. It was so thick that I really would have liked to hand-sew it so there wasn’t a huge line down the middle but, it was the day before Halloween and mama only has so much time.

I added a neck piece made from the suiting and used velcro to attach it.

Overall I’m really happy with the way it turned out, and he was super excited about it! I also learned that some people have quite the aversion to roaches… even when the model is a cute six year old haha! Stay tuned for the lizard and bee later this week :)