Full Time Frugal : DIY Dino hoodie- $8 childs birthday gift

Good morning, gentle readers!

This upcoming weekend is jam packed with fun. Among other activities there are three birthdays this weekend. One of which is my daughters second birthday, the other two are friends of my kids who have birthdays. So I basically decided to take the easy way out and make all three children the same birthday gift. I made them each a dino hoodie. These things are so cute and take less than an hour to make.

Here is what I used:
- one solid coloured hooded sweatshirt . You can get them from either Giant Tiger or Wal-Mart for $8
- up to two sheets of craft felt (the smaller the hoodie the less you need)
- iron on interfacing (I imagine sew on interfacing would work even better, but I did not have that on hand)
- sewing machine
- straight pins

First things first, take your sheet of craft felt and cut it in half lengthwise. Now fold one half in half again, still lengthwise. You may want to pin it so that it stays folded.

cut felt in half lengthwise

I used a piece of scrap card stock (but any paper would do) to make the template for my spikes. I just kind of guessed at it. The spikes should fit onto the quarter sheet of craft felt. Any bigger than this and they may start flopping over when the hoodie is worn. Because I am the furthest thing from artistic I just made a shape that didn't look too far from a dino spike or scallop, then I folded my card stock in half and trimmed so that I was sure everything was symmetrical. Hold onto your template.

Using a pen or a felt tipped marker trace your template as many times as you can onto your folded felt with the base of the spike at the fold. Repeat on as many felt halves as needed (I found that hoodies sized from 2-4T used only one sheet of felt - both halves-, and anything over that used more)

tracing the template onto the felt

Next step is to cut out the spikes. Be sure when you are cutting that you do not cut the fold! Just cut the "top" of the shape and not along the bottom.

Now we pin our spikes to the hood and down the back. I do recommend unzipping and opening the sweater from this point on or you *might* pin and sew through both the front and back by accident..... If you think you will need help lining everything up straight just grab a piece of chalk and a ruler and draw a line down the back to help you out. Place your spikes with ends touching but not overlapping.

ends touching but not overlapping

Next just run one quick and continuous seam down your sweater on your sewing machine. The seam should run right through the center of all your shapes.

stitched down the center

If you are using iron on interfacing you will need to take your template and cut it smaller. Iron on stuff is not good to run through your sewing machine so you will need to leave enough room on the craft felt uncovered by interfacing that you can stitch your spikes shut without the needle coming into contact with it. If you are using sew on interfacing you should be good to just trim your template down a hair. Use your template to cut your interfacing. No need to cut on the fold this time, so cut around your whole shape. Interfacing should not go over the center seam you just sewed so that your felt can fold sharply - interfacing would prevent that. You will need twice as many pieces of cut interfacing as you needed for the craft felt.

adjusting the felt template for interfacing

Lay your interfacing down onto your open spikes and break out the ole iron. Just a quick pass on a steam setting will do just fine.

interfacing ironed down

Now, we just sew each spike closed.

spikes sewn shut

The first time I made this I figured I was done at this point. But the hoodie kept calling me back. It just didn't look finished. I finally decided I needed to pull the colour of the spikes to the front of the sweater for a more complete and unified look. So I decided to cut mini spikes out of some of the left over craft felt and hand stitch it to the front pockets. I feel like that was exactly what it needed to look finished.

pocket detail for the front

With my daughters sweater I made scallops instead of spikes for a bit of a softer look (shes just not a spike kind of a girl) and then, using fabric paint, added some quick polka dots. Finally I hot glued together a little felt bow onto a safety pin and added the pin to her hood. The pin can be removed for washing.