Blog Four: Four costumes, four days: Cait Sith head

Okay! Here’s the first effort in my “Four costumes, four days” campaign. My one definite Armageddon costume for this year.

How to make a human-sized Cait Sith head, Final Fantasy VII (and expanded universe)

My sources: I actually got a heads-up (lol) from Deviant Art user cloudstrife597 and his Cait Sith plush pattern: http://cloudstrife597.deviantart.com/art/Cait-Sith-plush-pattern-Head-199708422 .But that was just my starting point. Obviously, this is for a human head, so the dimensions are a bit different.

Also, if you’re going to be a pedant about which version of Cait Sith I’m being, I took the ears from the original video game Cait, and I took the scruffy side-hair from Dirge of Cerberus Cait. Original Cait doesn’t have side scruffs, and Dirge Cait has straight sticky-up ears. I have combined the two, because I thought it would look cute.

Material: black felt, light pink thin cotton, cardboard painted gold

The pattern: 

 

I started with the back piece, fitting it to my head and then cutting and sewing together the two upper slits to make it more rounded (just so you know, the lower slit wasn’t inserted til the very last! This is because obviously I couldn’t tell if it was tight enough until the front part was done.)

Then I put the whole thing together with pins. And by the whole thing, I mean the whole thing, ears and all. You may be more comfortable if you insert the ears later, but I was confident enough to do them at the same time (the ears go between the back and side pieces, by the way). Also, it may help if you sew the forehead piece onto the side pieces at this time too. The reason why I have three separate piece here is because they conform better to the head than just one piece would. So, you sew it all in at once, both outlining the ears as well as attaching them to the rest of the headpiece. 

Once that’s all together, and you’ve made any more slits you need to in order to conform it to your head, stuff the ears and then close them off with small circles inside the headpiece. 

Then get your pink material, and cut it into triangles to conform to the ears. I chose to cut little hair details into them to make original Cait Sith. Note the corners nearest the crown.

As for the crown, I painted some cardboard gold and cut it according to the pattern. I then stapled it and stitched it together at the back with thick leather working thread, and used that same thread to sew it to the top of the headpiece itself, looping with wide gaps until I’d sewn around the whole bottom of the circle. 

With the same piece of cardboard, I made my golden megaphone!

I’m happy with: the fit! It fits comfortably whether it is secured on or not. I can wear it all day and not even notice XD

I’m not happy with: the ears being slightly floppier than I would like.