My daughter loves dinosaurs. I love that she loves dinosaurs. So, I decided to make her this hoodie. And since I made one for Addy, I had to make one for Jed too [Of course!]. Thank you pinterest and
Handmade by Jill for the inspiration. By the way, if you enjoy sewing and have a moderate skill level at it check out the "Handmade by Jill" link to see how she did it. Hers is ADORABLE!
If you don't particularly enjoy sewing or aren't very skilled at it, here is a cheap, easy way to make a stegosaurus dino hoodie.
Materials:
Hoodie (Jed's is fleece and was $3.50; Addy's is Jersey-knit, standard sweatshirt material, and was $7.00; both from Walmart)
3 pieces of felt paper (1 white; 1 black; and one color of your choice for stegosaurus plates; only $.20 a sheet at Walmart)
2 wiggly eyes
Fabric Glue
Scissors
Pins
Pick out your color for the stegosaurus plates. I let Addy do the picking... purple hoodie and pink plates...can you tell she picked?? For Addy's 4T size, I folded the felt sheet in half and then cut it in half again so after I was done cutting I had 2 equally sized strips of felt (about 3" wide). (For Jed's smaller 12 mos sized hoodie I made strips 2" wide)
While I am sure you could make a more accurately shaped stegosaurus plate, I went with the super easy to cut triangle. Since sometimes I just want to get stuff done rather than be perfect, I free-hand cut my triangles. I cut my doubled-up strip of felt at a 45 degree angle.
I then took the piece I had just cut off to use as my guide for my next cut.
Now that I had my one triangle cut, I used it as a guide to cut the rest of the triangles.
After cutting all my triangles (I needed 2 sets of 7 for both Addy's and Jed's), I glued them together in sets of two. I did this to make them extra strong.
I placed an even, thick line of glue along the top seam of the hood and began placing my triangles one at a time.
As soon as I got one triangle placed, I pinned the triangle to the hoodie to make sure it would dry in place.
To conquer the problem of the tricky curve in the hood, I folded the hood flat along the top seam, placed the triangle behind it where it needed to be, and used the hood itself as guide for where to cut the triangle.
Place an even, thick line of glue down the center of the back and place your triangles.
I cut the teeth using a similar method to the stegosaurus plates. (Mine had a height of about 1 1/2" and a base of 2 1/4" on Addy's and a height of 1" and a base of 1 1/2" on Jed's). I made a thick, even line of glue on the underside of the hood opening (about 1/2" in) and placed the teeth.
I pinned them in place.
To do the eyes, I doubled up two pieces of white felt and free hand cut an imperfect circle. (Doesn't matter if its perfect...slightly oval looks good...just so long as you get 2 that look the same, hence the doubling.)
I doubled up 2 pieces of black felt and free hand cut the base for the eye, making sure Addy's had some eyelashes. I glued the wiggly eye and two pieces of felt together and then glued that onto either side of hood. (Note: I had my kids try the hoodies on first to ensure a "non-awkward" placement of eyes.) I pinned them in place.
Let glue dry for 2 hours and then they are good to go.
Because things are not always perfect in a crafting world, here are some of my notes:
- My very-cautious self went back and did a loose hand-stitch over everything. This took some time (but it was a great "breast-feeding" project). The glue seems to have a sturdy hold especially on the fleece, but I can't stand spending time doing a craft only to have it fall apart and I have no experience with fabric glue.
- I kid you not, the fabric glue made me high (my husband got a kick out of watching me crack-up laughing over nothing). And while it may be funny, the headache that followed was not. I got one word for you: Ventilation!
- I laid out the triangles and the teeth before placing them to see how much, if any, spacing was needed.
- The fabric glue got a little messy, and you can see it in some places if you look closely.
- I used fabric glue on the wiggly eye and so far it's it's holding strong. I thought I'd give it a whirl, mostly because I was too lazy to plug in the hot glue gun.
My overall thoughts on the project: It was easy. It was cheap (less than $10 per hoodie). And best of all, it was absolutely worth it when Adelaide put her hoodie on, raised her dino claws in the air, and started rawring. Heart is Happy!
