Halloween is my favorite. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again! In the pre-sewing days I used hot glue guns and safety pins. Now that I know how to sew I use a sewing machine and hot glue guns. Dressing up just once a year doesn’t cut it for me, but luckily I’ve found many more opportunities to dress up.
Here’s a round up of some of my favorites over the years:
The Octopus: Oct 2017
Probably my favorite costume of all time, I got a couple t-shirts and a hoodie of the same color, then hot glue gunned octopus arms onto the hoodie. I tied up the arms to the main arms, so you could control all eight. This thing has seen it all – climbing, holiday parties, work. It looks great on everyone, and is a great fallback when I don’t have a costume pre-planned.
Shai Hulud: October 2021
In preparation for the Dune premier, my friend Emily suggested that we become the grandfather of all worms, Shai Hulud. We covered a kid’s play tube with a dropcloth from Home depot, then coated big cardboard triangles to create the mouth of Shai Hulud. Emily took it a step further and laser cut really sharp teeth (which were actually kind of dangerous). I just made mine out of printer paper. It was terrific, but the one downside of being a worm is that you don’t get to have arms or legs, so it’s not the most navigable costume. I discovered this when I tried to wear it to “Bring Your Own Big Wheel” in San Francisco and it was _not_ the right costume for racing a kid’s trike down a winding road covered in straw. I’ll stick to the spice fields of Dune in the future.
Where the Wild Things Are: October 2018
While living in Los Angeles, I organized the “Spooky Climbing Spectacular” which was a gathering of friends during Halloween in Joshua Tree. The rules were simple: you came, you climbed, and you had to dress as the name of a route in Joshua Tree. We set up blankets and a couch at the crag, went into the Chasm of Doom, and held a bonfire at night. Prizes were awarded for best costume, most belays, and most snacks consumed. It was a such a good time, and the creativity of our friends was spectacular!
Marty and I interpreted the climb “Walk on the Wild side” as Max and a Monster from “Where the Wild things are”.
Vampires at 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell (September 2018)
There is an absolutely wild climbing competition held in Arkansas every year called 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell. It takes place on a dude ranch with thousands of sandstone sport and trad routes. You get points for every route that you lead cleanly, and you have 24 hours (from 10am to 10am) to accumulate as many points as you can. Harder and longer routes get more points, and you can lead every route up to two times. The first time I did this I won the lottery to get in, and climbed with my amazing friend Lilly. Despite missing our flight and getting to the competition at 3am the day it started, we had a phenomenal time, and climbed enough routes to qualify for the next year! Unfortunately she tore her ACL, and so I had to convince someone else to suffer for 24 hours in muggy Arkansas with me. The only person I could convince was my new boyfriend Marty who liked me too much to say no. We climbed hard, we rejoiced, we felt every human emotion, we ate pickles at 3am in utter squalor and desperation, and we climbed all 24 hours long. He still loved me after that, and now we’re happily married. We dressed up as vampires to lean into the darkness theme.
And Many More to Come!
A major selling point for kids is that I get to make adorable little costumes for them. There’s one in particular that I cannot WAIT to make, look how freaking adorable this tiny hedghog child is:
So keep your eyes peeled for uhhh.. 5-10 years from now when I have a tiny spiky toddler running around <3. Until then, I’ll keep perfecting my costumes on me and Marty!
