Star Trek Uniform

We all know that all babies look like Winston Churchill. But making a Winston Churchill costume seemed too complicated, so I decided to dress my new baby niece, Alex, as another bald icon - Captain Picard.

Just to be clear, I didn't deliberated make this as a Halloween costume. I made it because I thought it would be funny to dress a baby as a Starfleet Captain. It was pure coincidence that it was about the right size for Alex to wear on her first Halloween.

I started with a pattern for pants and a long-sleeved one-sy. In the interests of comfort and ease of diapering, I went with elastic waist and ankle on the pants, rather than the slim leg with the boot slit that adult Captain Picard wears. It's not as if Alex was going to be wearing low-healed ankle boots with her pants. I made a mock-up of the one-sy on muslin first so that I could draw in the appropriate pattern of red and black sections, which I then cut apart and used as a pattern for cutting the real pieces. The communicator and the pips on the collar are hand-sewn.

I have a friend who was appalled that I deliberately branded my niece as a Star Trek nerd at such a tender age. Of course, my friend is an alumna of Cal Tech, so I don't think that she has any right to talk about anyone else's nerdy-ness.