Pattern: Instructable's Where the Wild Things Are hat, + printable pattern
Fabric: Faux fur, cotton or other soft material for liner (we used leftover lycra), scraps for horns, eyes, nose, etc.
Cost: $30 for five hats

OK, it's Bay to Breakers time in San Francisco. And while I generally enjoy running a good road race, there is no other way to do this event except in costume. To go along with the theme, my boyfriend and I mass produced four bull hats using an Instructables pattern for the running of the bulls, with a fifth friend as the bull fighter. While instructables makes you pay to download attached documents, luckily this "instructor" posted an alternative link to her printable pattern. We stayed up past midnight, but got the job done in style. And I must say, he makes me wish I had a sewing assistant all the time (especially to calm me down from my fits of frustration).


And to complete the look, Sean made some great tails from the fur scraps:

This would be a great pattern for just about any animal. You could even make a lion or crocodile and have your head coming out of its mouth. The horns were a little tricky to keep upright, and the liners were a bit bigger than they should have been, but I didn't never follow directions all the way through so maybe I just did it wrong anyway. The thing that makes this race costume so great is that it requires minimul effort for coordination, doesn't inhibit your movement or beer drinking carbo loading unlike some other costumes we looked at, and is easy to take in to the bathroom (just remember to lift the tail). We only made it four miles, but we had a great time doing it.