St. Nicholas Complete Costume Pattern

Make a St. Nicholas costume for your festival or special event!

St Nicholas Miter with Tabs — Saint Nicholas Costume

St Nicholas Costume II — Saint Nicholas Costume made by Valley Community Presbyterian Church in Portland, Oregon, using our pattern

Complete patterns and instructions include

Miter, Cloak or Cape, Capelet, Stole. & Alb or Gown
All Pattern Pieces
Cuttiing Layouts
Complete instructions

Patterns require good basic sewing knowledge and familiarity with garment construction. Step-by-step instructions do not include construction diagrams. The original pattern is extra-large. There are suggestions for making smaller sizes; we believe they will work, but we haven't actually made them. So, please be careful, and measure the pattern pieces against your person before cutting the fabric. And do, please let us know how it works so we can make any necessary adjustments.

Do choose good quality fabric with sufficient weight to drape attractively. The better the fabric, the better the costume will be.

If you have suggestions to improve the instructions or other comments, please send them to info@stnicholascenter.org. Thank you!

Print Pattern PDF Files

General Information, Pattern Pieces, Cutting Layouts, Miter Instructions, Cloak/cape Instructions, Capelet Instructions, Alb/gown Instructions, and Stole Instructions or all instructions together as One PDF (not including pattern pieces)

If you are only making a miter, the miter pattern is included in the miter instruction PDF.

• Tips for accurate PDF printing:
For Adobe Reader 7.0
In the Adobe Print dialog box, check these boxes:
For Adobe Reader 8.0
If you are having trouble printing, try clicking on "Advanced" then "Print as Image."

For older versions
In the Adobe Print dialog box, make sure the boxes for Shrink oversized pages to paper size and Expand small pages to paper size are NOT checked. (In some versions the option is Page Scaling: NONE, click to find Fit to pages and Shrink large pages.)

• If you're having trouble downloading the file, right-click on the image below and choose "Save target as..." to save it. Then open the PDF with Acrobat Reader (free from Adobe's website) and print it following the above tips.

Pattern pieces are graphed. Enlarge patterns by drawing pattern pieces on lightweight non-woven interfacing, butcher paper, or brown wrapping paper. These materials may need to be pieced for the big cloak pieces.

Two ways to enlarge graphed pattern pieces

1. Overhead projector with transparencies

Print pattern pieces on transparency film Be sure to use transparency film made for your printer type
or print on plain paper and make transparencies with a copier
or trace pattern onto transparencies (this requires transferring the grid, as well, and is not recommended)
or purchase transparency set below
Tape non-woven interfacing or paper to wall
Project image so squares measure 1 1/8–1 1/2-inches, depending on size needed
Draw pattern pieces on interfacing or paper
Check to see that square size is consistent for each transparency

2. Draw 1 1/8 — 1 1/2-inch (depending on size) grid on paper or interfacing

A fine point black marker works well

Copy pattern pieces by marking where the lines cross the grid lines
Complete pattern by drawing lines inside the squares

A set of seven printed transparencies—to be enlarged— with all pattern pieces is available from the St. Nicholas Center.

Transparency Set $8.00

Tops to make a crozier easily are available in our shop.

Links

with tips for resizing patterns
Basic info from Scholastic
Resizing Historical Patterns

Barbara Kissinger is the author of two nostalgic Christmas books illustrated with postcards and other memorabilia from her extensive collection.
Christmas Past, Pelican Publishing, 2005. Richly illustrated with more than two hundred images from her extensive collection of Christmas memorabilia, the text gives Christmas celebration history and customs from around the world. Purchase from amazon.com, amazon.ca or amazon.uk.

Christmas Merrymaking, Pelican Publishing, 2007. This lovely gift book looks at past customs of Christmas celebrations, from merrymaking and feasting to Santa and special postcards from 1900 to the 1940s. Purchase from amazon.com, amazon.ca or amazon.uk.