For a bit of fun, my husband Aaron and I decided that we are going to throw a mid-summer party in our enormous garden. Of course it’s going to be fancy dress with the theme being “A Mid Summer Night’s Dream”. Aaron has decided that he wants to go as “Bottom”, so in this page I am creating a visual diary on how I went about making the costume for him. Now, I have worked in foam and soft sculpture before but apart from one puppet’s head, had never made a face/head of anything so I didn’t have any idea of how to start going about making a donkeys head.To start with, I decided that i would make the human element of the costume. This was mainly to get my head into the space that I wanted to be in for this project.Since this was for a party and not for a play, I felt that I could have a bit of artistic licence. I  decided to make a velvet doublet for this – which would have been well above Bottom’s station, but for glamour i felt it would work.Using washed unbleached calico,  I cut the pattern pieces using a McCalls pattern. It seems to be ridiculous to me to draft a pattern for the purposes of this project so altering a commercial pattern will do for now.  I fitted the doublet on Aaron and then made the alterations I needed to and re-drafted the pattern pieces from there.I cut the velvet doublet pieces and then fused some very soft interfacing onto them. The velvet itself was not heavy enough for the finish of the doublet that I wanted to achieve.Before stitching the doublet together, I marked and then stitched the braid onto the doublet pieces, making sure I matched all of the joins. I then stitched the doublet together and fitted it again on Aaron.The jacket needed one or two small alterations but nothing earth shattering. Next I cut the lining pieces and stitched them together. I placed some padding in the shoulders and in the front of the jacket. Then I lined the doublet.