Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Dinosaur Sweatshirts


I loved Lucky's Lion Costume that I made out of a sweat suit last Halloween.  I spent some time on Pinterest researching what other types of costumes I could make out of a hooded sweatshirt.  When I found the dinosaur sweatshirts I knew that I needed to try to make one for myself.


I didn't want to make a "3" sweatshirt for Lucky, especially not after making him two shirts!  But if the day of his playground party is chilly I wanted to give him something special to wear.  (Rowdy's birthday is in January so I know sweatshirts can come in hand then.  I just have to hope that Rowdy, who is just starting 9 month clothes at 8 months, will still fit in 12 month clothes then.)


I had some trouble finding plain sweatshirts that came in both 3T and 12 month sizes.  Finally I found these raglan Jumping Beans sweatshirts at Kohl's.  When writing this post I realized that the sweatshirts aren't 100% identical, but they are close enough that they clearly belong together.  I love making my boys match and I intend to do this as long as I possibly can.  It will make for some fun throwback images once Rowdy grows big enough to wear them, too.


Since the sweatshirts already had two colors, I wasn't sure what color felt I wanted to use.  Maybe if the sweatshirts were all navy I would have picked yellow or orange, but I felt that the grass green complemented the two blues the best.  


Before I cut the felt, I ironed a crease into the sweatshirts so that I would know where to attach the dinosaur plates.  


The green felt was really cheap.  I purchased 4 sheets but I don't think I'll need that much in the end.


How can I cut symmetrical diamonds?  Well I cut the diamonds on the fold.  This way even if the angles are off they will at least fold into a good triangle.  Cut the felt on a fold.  two at a time. Roughly diamonds.  I made Rowdy's triangles even smaller.  I thought it would be cute for it to be scaled with the size of the sweatshirt.


The project did end up taking all 3 sheets of felt.  I have a lot left over and I could have been more conservative with my cuts, but I'm glad that I purchased the amount that I did.  The 4th sheet gave me freedom to figure out what shape I wanted the triangles to be.


I used stitch #6 on my machine which was a slight zigzag or back-stitch.  I wanted the stitches to be a bit stretchy so it didn't immediately pop when the kids pulled on it.


I tried the sweatshirts on Lucky before I closed the plates.  He was so excited!


Before sewing the plates closed, I pressed the felt with my iron and then pinned each plate together.


Lucky's sweatshirt has 12 diamonds pinned.  Rowdy's has 14 triangles.  My scaling wasn't perfect but I think it will still be a cute big brother little brother combo.



I sewed each plate together individually.  This meant that there were a lot of ends to snip off but should prevent the back from being too stiff on a stretchy sweatshirt.  


I finished these sweatshirts a week before Lucky's birthday (a week and a day before the party where he'll have special sweatshirts to wear.)  I was happy to meet my deadline, but unfortunately the weather didn't keep Lucky's birthday in mind so his party ended up rained out.  We moved everything inside, and Lucky still got to wear his birthday sweatshirt for a few minutes before the party started.


While these sweat shirts aren't technically on the Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see theme, I did make these for Lucky's 3rd birthday party.  I just knew that they could ALSO double for Rowdy's first birthday party which is going to be a dinosaur theme.


Hopefully the sweatshirt will still fit in a few more months!


Until January, we can have some fun brother dinosaur snuggles.


Now that Halloween is over, Lucky is already asking me to make other types of costumes.  I am going to wait a bit before I start planning for October 2017, but it is nice to think a little big so I can try to direct him into selecting something I can make!  


These dinosaur sweatshirts feel less like costumes than the lion sweatshirt.  These are much easier for the boys to wear on a normal day without people thinking they're in costume.  I sort of wish that I had made one for myself!