How to Make a Horse Ears and Mane Headpiece, Shabbily and In a Hurry!
Approximate time: 3 hours
Difficulty: BWUH? I can has make a needle threaded.
Cost: $10, for ears, felt, and yarn, with loads of yarn left for another project.

Well, as I have mentioned, Strudel decided she was going to go as Bad Horse for Halloween this year. Display and Costume could give me no love on the plain brown horse ears or a mane, so I was forced to make my own. This is very bad, because I am the shoddiest seamstress in the world. There’s no quality control, no pride of work. Only “CRANK THAT SHIT OUT, YEAH.” I am conversant with the deadly art of the sewing machine, but I prefer to handsew. I sew fast as HALE, too, WHAM WHAM sewing ninja!

Bad Horse is just some brown horse that Joss Whedon rented from somewhere in Hollywood, so my main objectives were to provide brownness, in the form of suit and ears, with a black mane and tail. I am going to paint her face night of, if she holds still.

I started with these ears because they looked the horseiest in shape. I decided to use them as a “frame” so I didn’t have to stuff ears (buy fluff) or attach them to a headband. Plus they were like two dolla.

As you can see, I already started sewing brown felt to them. I sewed white triangles to the inside of the ears and WA-BAM, done. If you look too close, though, it looks like Horse Ears of Frankenstein, so, err…don’t look too close.

Then it was time for the mane event. HO HO HO, Lame Giant. Okay, I was puzzling how to make the mane. I wanted something that would kind of cascade, but not just be strings hanging down from the headband. Ultimately I decided to cut a piece of brown felt to about 12″x3″. I made black yarn loops to sew onto the felt piece. I left a space on the felt piece for the headband, which I would need to attach when I was done.

Yarn loops!

I cut the yarn about 14″ long.

I was doing this part while I was watching Dexter, so I was sitting on Hester Prynne. Please admire caps lock, the most used BUTTON ON MY KEYBOARD!

Then I doubled the yarn twice…

And tied it in the middle with a piece of yarn that was the same length as the loop. Yarn Loop! This means that some ends were loopy and some were straight. I liked the texture, but once sewn on you could cut all the loops in half to make all the hairs straight.

Then I took the loops and sewed them to the felt by their middle knot in rows of twos and threes, alternating rows until it was jammed and your couldn’t see the brown. About a half an inch seemed like enough room between rows. I made sure that I was securing the knot by sewing it down well.

Then it was done, lurking like an unholy keyboard mirkin!

I sewed it to the headband, and voila! Quick and dirty horse ears and mane! I sewed the felt to the underside of the headband, and then sewed in a couple of rows of yarn loops on top of the headband so it was not a brown gap in the middle of the mane. I did not make the length of the yarn loops shorter, though the headband stuck up in the middle. It didn’t seem to matter.

I hope she will use it for dress up after Halloween. Pictures on the kid later.

Now go kill someone!

Signed, Bad Horse.