I steal all my good ideas.

Do you all read Craftiness Is Not Optional?  What???  Well, you totally should.  (Uh, unless you answered "yes" to that question.  In which case - good!  You should!)  I've pinned a number of her tutorials for later use... and we all know what that means.  Most of them have never been used.  But I have every intention.


However, when bug needed something yellow to wear for "Yellow Day" at school, I spotted an old yellow sweatshirt of mine that had kind of shrunk.  It was sitting in my stash waiting for new life and I knew I had the perfect tutorial from Jess.  It's this super adorable toddler sweatshirt tutorial.


Now, my sweatshirt ended up a little different because my beginning sweatshirt was a little smaller than I would have liked and it also had a big kangaroo pocket on the front.

It was not at all because I didn't print out the tutorial and take it down to my sewing machine for easy reference.  No, no.  That wasn't the issue at all.


Ok, perhaps it was a little of that one.


But I still love the way it turned out!

I'm actually surprised that I like it so much.  And that it really did turn out well.  Well, pretty well.

We're going to ignore the fact that I accidentally made the front the back by cutting the back neckline lower and slicing up the middle due to not paying any attention at all to what piece the large pocket was located on.  Whoops.  I then made a huge "E" in a huge circle out of knit scraps and sewed that on over the pocket on the back.  Now it covers up most of the goof.

We'll just ask him to stop raising his arms.

I had to do something.  I didn't want his teachers thinking I dressed him backwards.  Although the other day he DID walk around Walmart with his pants on backwards and I didn't realize it until we got home - and these weren't sweatpants, they actually had pockets and a fly and stuff.  I swear I'm not really a space case.

Anyway, he really loves "E's".  I'm going to assume it's because it's his first initial and not because he has an abnormal obsession.  Is it insane that I still think it turned out cute despite that??  Because I do!

So I laid out a sweatshirt that fit him and drew around it on the big sweatshirt.  I folded the arms to the inside of the sweatshirt and used the curve of the armhole to trace the outward curvature of the top of the sleeve.  I used the existing sleeves and just shortened and took them in - using the armhole curve and the sleeve of bug's sweatshirt to trace around.  I used the cuffs of the arms and the bottom band on the sweatshirt that were already there so I didn't have to worry about finishing edges on those two spots.

I also used the existing hood, which is a little big for bug, but I admit I think it's cute that way.

I just cut it off the sweatshirt directly above the seam, pinned it around the collar of the new sweatshirt I was making and sewed it on.  Easy shmeezy.  Oh, and it's lined!

I don't know what I did with the buttons/elastics.  Probably something very similar to Jess, but by that point it was getting late and I was pretty anxious to be done, so I have no particulars.

The next morning he was so excited to see what I'd made him.  Apparently he walked around class all morning telling everyone "Look what my mommy made me!  And there's an E!"

And THAT was enough to tempt me to make him an entire wardrobe.  That cutie patootie stinker.

PS.  Don't miss the Shabby Apple dress giveaway right here on this old blog!  It's the baciami! dress and it's darn cute.

*Be sure to check just below for all the fun parties I link to!