Last night as the sun went down….bats were spotted in downtown Austin, hanging out under the Congress bridge.
Whether looking for food, flowers,
or just plain having fun….
One thing is certain.
They’re the cutest little bats I’ve ever seen.
and they take their job pretty seriously.
They wait patiently all day, for just the right moment.
When dusk meets the bridge.
and someone yells GO!
Then they fly off in millions, into the sunset, leaving thousands of spectators behind them.
They’re the Austin City Bats.
I promise, I don’t have an obsession for bats…though I did always love the original Michael Keaton Batman. And Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan really took it over the top with The Dark Knight. Fabulous film. And…we do have bats all over our living room wall…and on a pillow.
But hey, we live in the city of bats!
If there was ever a year when the kids couldn’t decide what they wanted to be (Owen mentioned a red cherry from Sonic? And Lucy kept talking about Mother Gothel again. No)…well, this was the time to do it.
I actually spotted the kids playing ‘bats” in the house last month and it just all came together.
The costumes were pretty easy to make. Black clothes, wings, and a hat.
The wings are made of black felt and lined with poly satin. Measure the length of your kids arm-span and make it a few inches longer than that. Fold the fabric in half as you cut for symmetrical wings:
I used contrasting thread and double-stitching to give dimension to the wings and then sewed four arm straps to the wings, with velcro attachments (try them on as you go along to make sure you’re placing straps in the proper place). Then sew a small piece of elastic to the wing-tip for their middle finger to link on to.
The hats took me a bit to figure out but then they came together fairly quickly.
Cut a hat shape similar to the image below. I actually held the felt up to Owen’s head and sort of traced the curve of his head. For the ears, cut a shape similar to the pattern below, on the fold.
You want to cut black felt pieces and satin lining pieces for both the hat and the ears.
Sew the satin and felt pieces with right sides together, turn them right-side out, and then bring the ends of the ears together and pin them onto the hat. Use your machine (and strength of two hands) to carefully sew the ears in place. Sew them in a few spots to make the ears open a bit on the hat.
And you’re set!
Simple little bat costume!
Ready to dart into the night.
Thank you Austin for sharing your sights, music, yummy food, people, and amazing bats with us.
We love living here.
