My daughter wanted to be Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony this Halloween. Here's how I made her a costume...

Step 1: Build the Headpiece.

I asked my daughter if I could just chop off the head of her My Little Pony stuffed animal and sew it to a hoodie, but she looked at me horrified and said "No way!" so I used it as reference material instead.

Atop a styrofoam mannequin head, I pieced together a strip of 2-inch foam and 1-inch foam shapes (left over from my Seahawks head costume and my son's Gameboy costume) and hot glued them together in a helmet shape and covered it in a layer of quilt batting. Then I cut out pieces of fleece fabric and sewed them together and fit it over top.

Step 2: Adding the Facial Features.

The eyes are everything; they can make or break a costume face. There are lots of different variations of My Little Pony eyes. I studied them and broke them down into individual components, then pieced those components back together. I ironed HeatnBond Lite adhesive to the backs of each piece and ironed them all together (with a piece of cotton fabric overtop to prevent the fleece from melting).

Next, I pinned the eyes to the head, ironed them into place, and carefully machine-embroidered around them and lightly drew eyelash details with a pencil and machine embroidered overtop.

I also lightly drew the mouth with a pencil and machine embroidered overtop.

For the ears, I cut 4 rounded triangles, stitched 2 together, turned them inside out and stitched a line a 1/2 inch from the edge.

Step 3: Attach the Ears and Horn.

I found good positions for my ears and then cut slits in my headpiece, inserted the ears, turned it inside out, and sewed the ears into place.

Next I made a wide triangle, sewed 2 sides together so it became a cone shape, turned it right-side out and filled it with Polyfil and hand-sewed the base to the top of the pony's head. Next, I wrapped the thread around the horn from the base to the top and secured it with a few hidden stitches at the top.

Finally, I finished off the neck by creating identical neck shapes and machine-stitching them to the existing ones (inside out), turned them right-side out, and added a velcro closure and button.

Step 4: Make Pony Hair.

For the bangs, I wrapped yarn around a book, tied it together with a piece of yarn, cut one side of the yarn and carefully placed it on a strip of fleece which I then sewed together on my sewing machine. I hand-stitched that across the top behind the horn.

For the mane, I repeated this step 2 more times and hand-stitched it lengthwise down the back of the head. Then I colored the stitches with a marker. (I should have just used darker thread.)

Step 5: Make Pants and a Cutie Mark.

I took an existing pants pattern I had and shaped it to be more like bell bottoms

For the cutie mark, I printed out a Twilight Sparkle cutie mark I found online and used this as my template. I then ironed HeatnBond Lite onto hot pink and white satin fabric, cut out the star shapes, ironed them onto the fleece, and machine-embroidered them into place.

Step 6: Make the Tail.

For the last few years the pants I made for my kids' costumes became pajama pants they were able to wear for years after. My daughter even said, "I'm so excited to get My Little Pony pajama pants this year!"

I decided to make the yarn tail detachable so the pants would be easy to wash. I wrapped yarn around the lid to a storage box, tied the yarn together at one end and cut the yarn at the other end, then tied a string around the yarn about 2 inches from the tied end.

I then stitched a tab of ribbon to the butt and inserted the pony tail into it.

Step 7: Make the Top.

I modified a peasant top by making the sleeves longer and more bell-shaped and making it a few inches shorter in the back to show off the tail and cutie mark.

It was at this point that I ran out of fleece and time. It was October 31st and I had to go to work (I lead an after school program). When we got home it was time to go trick-or treating so I wasn't able to make her wings. My daughter told me it was okay though, because Twilight Sparkle doesn't have wings at first, she has to earn them. We decided she would be young Twilight Sparkle, before she earns her wings.

I promised her I would make her some wings when I can get back to the fabric store.