pepperknit

There are no words. Just the best game ever invented, and the best Halloween costume I have ever made.

I am not a Halloween fan, never have been. But Katamari Damacy? That I love. And when my friend Nanda suggested I be the Prince of All the Cosmos and she be the Katamari? And she was willing to dress up like this on Halloween proper, her birthday? Oh. Yes.

There’s a pattern for the earmuffs, which I read but mostly ignored, “unventing” the earmuffs myself. The sides of the prince’s head are really quite straight, not rounded, and I wanted accuracy! There’s a disc of cardboard in there to stabilize the edges.

I’ll put the full details on Ravelry. . . . Getting the band across to be flat was stupidly complicated; the pattern recommends double knitting, which would have made sense and solved it, but I thought I was going to attach it to a headband, but that wasn’t working right. Ultimately, I interfaced corduroy and lined it with that. Um, there is interfacing on my costume, which was supposed to be just an off-the-cuff knit. I had to find the iron in half-unpacked boxes (not to mention the interfacing and fabric!). But it’s worth it.

No one knew what the heck I was—but everyone smiled or laughed at me. People at the bar came up to ask. I was sitting in the front window of the bar, right at a busy corner on the Lower East Side, with my back to the street, and all my friends kept laughing as strangers did doubletakes. I got a lot of props from people when they realized that I’d made the costume myself. I also had a little visual aid, so people would see the prince in full—the small felt toy my friend Melissa made me!

The best moment was on the subway home. I wore the earmuffs because, being 100% wool, they are awfully warm and totally functioned as earmuffs (throughout the night at the bar I was saying “I’m sorry, what?” because I couldn’t hear anything). Pulling into one station, a throng of about 10 teenagers on the platform saw me and burst out laughing; one stuck his head against a window and howled in joy at me. They clambered into the subway car I was in, stomping and laughing, and one finally was like “Miss!!! What ARE you!” And I showed them the tiny prince and said I was the Prince of All the Cosmos, of course! He was like, “not the princESS?” And I said, “no, there isn’t a princess. there’s a queen, but the prince is cooler.” he then jumped up and started dancing around in front of me (awesome popping/locking). They caused such a ruckus that other riders were stonily irritated, but I was just enveloped into their fun times. It was so nice!