Pitt Students Build Halloween Costumes From Yarn, Cardboard and Thrift Finds

Students at the University of Pittsburgh are putting together their 2026 Halloween costumes themselves, stitching, cutting and gluing the pieces at home in the days before this weekend's festivities. Several said the work takes days or weeks, and that building the outfits by hand suits them better than buying them.

Will Lowell, a senior psychology major, started crocheting a head, paws and tail for a Star Trek fursona in late July, before his class schedule filled up. He bought a foam head base, then worked out how to crochet fabric in three dimensions over it, taking notes as he went, and glued the finished pieces onto the foam. The full build took about four weeks. He said the character is a green dog, matching his own hair color, and that he is eager to wear it out.

Mckenna Smith, a first-year biochemistry major, spent about a week and a half assembling a Misa Amane costume. She cut and layered a wig herself, using scissors for length and an eyebrow razor for the layers, then heated synthetic strands with a straightener and held them in place while they cooled to hold the shape. For the prop book the character carries, she used the paper guillotine, scoring bone, needle and waxed thread at Hillman's Text & conText Lab to bind pages into signatures, then painted the title onto a cover.

Some students plan more than one outfit for the season. Ally McAdams, a junior law and criminal justice major, is making Catwoman, Toy Chica from "Five Nights at Freddy's" and Fawn from "Tinkerbell." She drew Chica's "Let's Party" bib onto a T-shirt with markers and cut and sewed a beanie into Catwoman's ear cap, work she said took a couple of hours of hand sewing. Laura Wolf, a first-year psychology major, is sewing zebra-print fabric onto fold-over shorts for a costume based on the girl on the "Sorry for Party Rocking" album cover, a task that required her to learn to sew.

Lindsey Letran, a first-year public policy and economics major, is attaching pipe cleaners to headbands for a butterfly's antennae and a Paddington costume's ears. Ava Wahler, a first-year on the pre-physical therapy track, has spent close to $300 on Frankie Stein, Poison Ivy and Lava Girl costumes and is taping orange material onto a pink top and bottoms for the last of the three, aiming for a broken lava look.

Karleigh Sage, a junior history and psychology major, bought most of the pieces for her three costumes at thrift stores to manage spending, including supplies for a medieval princess hennin, a cone-shaped hat she is building from a cardboard box wrapped in paper, fabric, lace and small decorations. Her other two costumes include a dog in a propeller hat, a meme character. She said she looks forward to flipping the propeller while carrying a large lollipop.