All Saints' Day Costume--Mother Teresa of Calcutta

All Saints' Day will be here soon and that means it's time for the kids to decide which saints they will dress up as (and hopefully emulate) for the day. Since we do not celebrate Halloween, we have a wonderful opportunity to pour our time and resources into some really creative costuming. I made this Mother Teresa costume several years and ago and it continues to be one of my favorites. It's super easy to put together but does take a bit of time so it's best to plan ahead. Or you can just do what I do and pull an all-nighter (every single year).

Why don't we celebrate Halloween? The full text of that explanation is for another post on another day but the concise version is this: We are often asked "Why don't you?".  The question we asked ourselves instead is "Why should we?" It simply isn't clear what the secular holiday is intended to celebrate and for all the money invested (costuming, candy, dental bills), we didn't feel compelled to participate.

The word "Halloween" is a derivative of "All Hallow's Eve" or the "Eve of All Saints". Instead of prioritizing the religious holiday second, we place it first. We don't have the time or interest to do both; so Halloween gets the boot.  The kids love our All Saints' Day celebrations and the adults always succumb to the temptation to include plenty of candy!

Here's a very basic explanation of how I put together the Mother Teresa costume. It was a while ago so I apologize that I don't have more detailed figures; but it's really not that complex and I think worth sharing.

To make the Mother Teresa costume:


I have no exact measurements to provide because few are needed and the ones that are used are specific to each child. 


First, I examined photos of the habits of Mother Teresa's order (Missionaries of Charity ) until I had a basic idea of the design. 


Fabric:
-I brought Cookie to the fabric store and headed to the muslin aisle. I found 33" white muslin for $.99 a yard and wrapped it loosely around her in the style of a sari in order to estimate yardage. 
-I found blue cotton in my stash that resembled the color of the blue stripes on the habits of the order. I have no idea how much I used but eyeballed it and guessed that I would have enough (sorry...I know that's not incredibly helpful!).


Sari Design:
- I decided I would need 3 pieces to the costume:

1. White turtleneck (had one in her drawer)
2. Veil -The veil on the the Missionaries of Charity drapes down the back, around the front of the body and across the opposite shoulder. This is one piece of fabric. To measure for size, I took the short end of the fabric length (33" width) and pinned it over her hair (as shown in the photo). I draped it down her back to the desired length, across her opposite shoulder, down her back, and cut it at the desired length. 
3. Skirt - I wrapped the fabric around her waist to determine fit. I measured her waist and cut elastic to that size (normally I would size the elastic smaller for a better fit but I wanted extra room to tuck in  the turtleneck and to allow the costume to be used the following year!). I rolled the waistband instead of hemming (hurrah!). I added the stripes to the skirt fabric before sewing the seam or waistband.

Adding the blue stripes:


The habit of the order uses 3 solid blue stripes along the edges of the sari material; One larger stripe and two smaller stripes. I eyeballed the stripe widths and went a little larger to make the stitching easier on myself. I sewed the strips (4" and 1.5") into tubes and pressed them so that the edges would be nicely finished and the extra fabric would add weight and better drape to the lightweight muslin. The finished stripes were 2", 3/4" and 3/4" wide. If you want a more authentic look, reduce the size of the smaller stripes.


Stripes are applied to the hem of the skirt and to all 4 edges of the veil cloth.


Then I pinned and sewed. Lots of strips onto lots of fabric! But well worth the effort.


To wear:


Put on the turtleneck and skirt first. Start the veil at the head. Pin it in place at the nape of the neck (we used a safety pin).  Let it fall down to desired length in back, drape it across the waist at the right side and bring up to and over the left shoulder. We pinned it in place with a religious medal.