Easy and Adorable Personalized Dino Hoodies

If you have the cutest twin nephews in the world like I do then it isn't hard to want to make them really cute stuff.  These two are totally boys loving everything that has to do with farms, trucks, animals, sounds, jumping on things and wrestling.  Dinosaur hoodies were of course a perfect fit for them.  These are really easy to make with I guess the exception of sewing on the letters.  That part is a bit more tedious but not difficult.  Of course if you don't want to tackle a project like this I would be happy to make one for you.  I'll leave the details at the end of the post.

For this you will need:

1 zip up hoodie

1 old t-shirt (for the letters)

felt (for the dino spikes)-I used the rectangular crafting felt pieces

Thread that coordinates with the dino spikes (which I also used on the letters for extra effect)

Begin by making the spikes.  There are a few tutorials out there on how to make these.  This method is the really easy method but I have seen and tried others that I like too.  Cut a strip of felt 3 1/2 to 4 inches wide and then entire length of the piece of felt (I am using one of those rectangular pieces of craft felt).  What ever you want the finished size of the spike to be is how wide you will want the felt piece cut.  If you are making a coat for a littler boy you will want smaller squares and bigger squares for a bigger boy.  To save even more time cut a second strip of felt the same size and place one on top of the other.

To make squares fold the end of the strip up to meet the side to form a triangle (like so) and cut across the top.   

When you unfold the felt you will have neat little squares.  Now to get the triangle spikes cut these in half-corner to corner making 2 triangles. 

 Now before sewing anything I line all of my spilkes up approximately where I want them on the hoodie to see how much I will need to space them and if I have enough to cover the whole hoodie (keep them in layers of 2-you need two triangles stacked on top of each other for each spike).  Depending on the size you choose for spikes you may need more or less to cover the entire back and hood.  You also may need to cut them down in size slightly if you just can't make them fit.  My hoodies were size 4T and I needed 6 spikes.  

 Once you have figured out how many you will need sew the triangles together leaving the long side open.

 Now pin all the spikes back onto the hoodie.  It is pretty tricky getting the spikes on the hood to lay how you want them-so give them an extra pin or two.

 Now sew up the back of the jacket along the bottom of each spike-I just sew in a continuous line from the bottom to the top.  The spikes will lay down (but they will anyway when a kid wears the jacket and sits any place in it).  You can iron them to make them stand up for show but keep in mind that you will never be able to get them to stand up all the time (and man would that be uncomfortable anyway).

 Now for the name.  I took a few of the letters in their first name and added them to "saurous".  I just used my Word program and picked a font that would be big and chunky, and typed the name.  The full name is going to be pretty long so don't make the letters too huge but you also want them big enough so they will be easy to sew.  Print the name out and trace is backwards (I use my window to help me with this) onto Wonder Under (by Pellon).

 Now iron the letters onto a piece of material cut from an old t-shirt.  T-shirt material is my favorite to use for applique projects.  First it is super cheap when you can use your old shirts or buy them at a thrift store and second they don't fray at all.  After you have ironed then cut out each letter.

Before you iron anything onto the jacket play around with the spacing because with a long name you may have to offset the letters to make them fit.  You will have to sew over the pockets to make it work also. When you like the layout iron the letters in place.

 Now stitch over them with the same color that you used on the spikes.  I like the contrast it gives.  

 Here is a tip for appliqueing little pieces like letters-do not trim your threads in between each letter.  I sew one, then when my needle is up, I raise the presser foot, reposition my fabric and then put the presser foot back down and start sewing again.  I trim all the threads at the end.  This saves you time and it saves thread.

See it really was pretty darn easy don't you think.  I love how the yellow looks on the blue.

 And the name turned out PERFECT!!!!!

And my models look pretty darn cool in their dinosaur coats.

 You can see that the spikes don't stay up perfect forever but they still look really cute so don't let that stress you out.  What little boy wouldn't love to be their own dinosaur   And actually a little girl would look darling in a pink and green dinosaur coat.  

Now if you LOVE the dino hoodies but don't want to make one yourself then let me do the sewing for you.  The cost is $15.00 for a personalized dino coat (size 6 and under) plus shipping.  You can give me some color specifications and I will do my best to meet those.  If you are interested send me a message at smallfryandco@gmail.com