24 Hoodie Scarf: A Revised Ear Tutorial

Hi folks!

You may have seen my 'new and improved' hoodie scarf over at Tasha's blog (HERE) and I thought I'd share with you the changes I made to make the perfectly placed ears. Nothin' like a good set of ears, no? 

If you haven't read the original tutorial, please do so as this tutorial is a supplement. For hoodie lining, scarf and supplies  please refer to the original post(HERE).

Alrighty...

Let's begin!

Above are the hoodie scarf pattern pieces you will need (scarf pattern not shown). Pay particular attention to the cutting directions for the 'center strip' piece.

For the main fabric center strip piece, you will need to add 3/4" to the length. Measure 3" from either short end of the strip and cut. This short strip should be the same length as the top short edge of your 'front side pieces'.

With right sides together, stitch your short strip to the front side pieces.

Your front hoodie scarf piece should look something like the diagram above.

Next, follow the directions in my previous tutorial (HERE) to make the ears. From the center of the back edge of the front hoodie scarf, measure the distance you would like your ears to be apart. ***A 2" distance in-between worked best for me, but you can increase or decrease the measurement to better suit you.*** Pin and baste in place with right sides together. Set aside.

Starting from the top edge of the side pieces, take your long center strip of main fabric and with right sides together, stitch in place. This may be a bit tricky for some, so take your time! Trim off any extra fabric from the center strip.

With right sides together, stitch your front piece to the back piece. Flip front piece over.

Flip ears up and press seam allowance forward. Topstitch about 1/8" from the seam to secure the seam allowance in place. This step will help keep the ears upright.

Yahoo!

You have yourself a perfect set of ears!

For the remaining steps, just hop over to the previous tutorial (HERE)and you got yourself one purrrr-fectly sweet hoodie scarf!

Make someone happy... make a hoodie scarf!

***

P.S. Don't forget to share your creations on our Flickr group (HERE). 

23 Let's Make: Sunglass Masks

Hey there!

Let's take a little break from sewing (step away from the sewing machine) and let's do a little craftin', shall we? I had originally wanted to do this tutorial two years ago in October, but never got around to it. So I thought, "why not do it now in the summer?". Perfect! It's summertime, the kids are home, sunglasses are abundant and anytime is a good time to play make believe!

A couple years back, I was in the process of making Lala's Halloween costume. She was going to be an owl. The body of the costume was all sewn, but the face was my challenge. I remember being a kid and getting the costumes in a box. Remember those? The ones where it was a full body outfit (a one  piece) made out of plastic and it came with a mask that swallowed your face. Within 5 minutes of wearing the mask, your face is drenched in sweat and you begin to feel claustrophobic  because the holes for the nose and eyes were too small, remember?! So by the time you finished one block of trick-or-treating in your neighborhood, the mask was either in your candy bag or on top of your head. I even remember a couple of times, the mask ripping. Ahhh...good times.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Lala...

So I needed to create a mask that was going to be easy to make, easy to put on or take off and comfortable to wear. I was stumped. It wasn't until I saw a picture somewhere of the 2000 New Year's Eve glasses, you know the ones I'm talking about. Where your eyes are in the "00", between the "2" and  last "0". That's when it hit me... why not glue a mask to an old pair of sunglasses? And that's what I did! It was a huge success. Lala wore the mask with no problems and it got a lot of use. Even Sophia (my eldest) wore it to her school spirit day just last year. So if you're in the market for easy to make and easy to wear masks, pull up a chair and let's get craftin'!

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SUPPLIES:

-sunglasses(any sunglasses will do)

-hot glue

-Fabri-Tac glue

-plain white paper

-pencil

-fine tip sharpie

-medium tip

-felt

-foam craft paper

-scissors

-needle and thread (optional)

-*velcro

*If you only have one pair of sunglasses, use velcro to attach to the masks. This way allows you to make multiple masks and only using one pair of sunglasses.

***

First, pop out the lenses and with a pencil and paper, trace around frame. With the black Sharpie, go over what you traced. This will be your template.

Take your template and placed it underneath a plain white paper. Draw your mask. Make sure to draw the eyes within the frames of your template. Once you draw your mask, you will then need to create pattern pieces for all the details on your mask. Once you've drawn out all the pieces, you will need to cut them out.

Place your pattern pieces on top of the felt and trace the pattern with a fine tip Sharpie. Cut out pattern pieces.

Take your main pattern piece (the face) and adhere it to the foam craft paper using Fabri-Tac glue. Carefully cut around the felt. Make sure to cut an opening for the eyes.

Adhere details to the face using Fabri-Tac glue. Allow glue to dry. If you're feelin' extra crafty, you can stitch on the details.

Apply hot glue to the frames of the sunglasses and carefully attach to the back of the mask. Clean up any glue boogers. Once glue is cool... it's show time!

Only able to sacrifice one pair of sunglasses? No problem!

Attach velcro to the sunglasses and to the back of the mask using hot glue. Let it set and get ready to be anyone or anything your heart desires! 

Can you guess what the last picture is?

Pretty easy to make, huh? Now it's your turn!

Make sure to share your creations over HERE. I'd love to see what you make!!!

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44 Harem-Sareoul-MC Hammer "You Call It" Pants Pattern {pocket version}

It's here!!!

Hot off the press, the "You Call It" pants, pocket version PDF pattern with instructions. I had orginaly planned on doing a tutorial, but it would've been suuuper long so to save everybody from long post syndrome, I decided to create a PDF. Just click it, print it and sew it.

Now a lot of time and love went into creating this, so please... 

leave a comment and tell me what you think, follow this blog and share your photos HERE. I would really love to see what you make! 

Share the love folks!

So without further adieu, go HERE for the pant pattern. If this version doesn't tickle your fancy, I have one more to share with you...

Keep your eyes peeled for the nautical and basic version. I should have this by the end of the week.

Happy sewing!

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7 A-Frame Tent

When I saw Ruby Ellen's a-frame tent(here and here), I fell in love. It's a perfect little "getaway" for the girls to hang out, inside the house or out.

Who doesn't love bubbles?

Puka... the best dog I ever had, hands down. She has such the sweetest demeanor.  

We followed Ruby Ellen's tutorial and the only thing we did differently was drilling holes on the ends of the dowels and putting in screws to keep the flat pieces of wood in place. The frame work cost just under $20 and the fabric are blankets bought on our last family trip to the Philippines (here and here).

I had originally planned on making only one for the girls to share (knowing that the girls would occupy it at different times), but Lala thought otherwise. When Lily Moon wanted to hang out, it was like a scene from nature. A smaller bird attacking the bigger bird, because it was too close to its nest. Needless to say...the BIG bird won.

Hilarious!

So change of plans and it looks like I'll be making two more. Thank God I bought several blankets!

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0 Suburbia Soup Tutorials: you made it

Here are a few awesome people with their amazing creations using our tutorials:

Carrie's adorable hoodie scarf for her youngest one.

Churrl incorporated deep pockets to keep her little dinosaur warm.

Minna made teddybear heads using the cookie cutter tute. Check out her fun blog HERE.

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Have you made anything using our tutorials? If you have, post them on our Flickr group or shoot me an email. I'd love to see what you've created. Nothing makes me happier than to see what people make using our tutorials... it makes the time and energy creating them all worth it.

C'mon... don't be shy!

*wink*

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60 Hoodie Scarf Tutorial

You can feel it in the air... the change of temperature, the smell of wet earth and the sound of crispy fallen leaves on the ground. Fall is here and will soon give way to winter's grip.

***

With fall approaching and in the midst of KCWC, I wanted to make something to keep my girls cozy. So while I was poking around the KCWC Community Board on Pinterest, I found this:

Oh.my.goodness.

How crazy cute is this?! Now I can't knit to save my life so I decided to sew something similar to this. Thus, my hoodie scarf was born! After a few tries and some researching, I came up with a very simple pattern that is easy and quick to assemble.

So let's get started shall we?

***

SUPPLIES:

5/8 yard of main fabric

5/8 yard of contrasting/lining fabric

small piece of fusible interfacing for ears

coordinating thread

TOOLS:

scissors

pins

chalk or sewing marker

twine or yarn

sewing machine

iron

***

diagram 1

Here is a diagram of the pieces for your hoodie pattern (not including the scarf).

To make the hoodie pattern, take your child's hoodie and trace.

diagram 2

You will need to trace two separate pieces, one for the lining and the other for the outside. For the outside, you will need to measure 3 inches from the upper left corner edge of your pattern and draw a line from that point to the bottom left corner of the pattern as shown in the picture above.

diagram 3

Cut along the line, creating two pieces of the hoodie pattern.

diagram 4

Add a seam allowance to the cut edges. You should have one uncut hoodie pattern (for the lining) and two pieces of the hoodie pattern (for the outside). Set aside.

diagram 5

You will need to make a pattern for the band that goes down the middle joining the two sides of the hoodie pattern together. You will need to measure the length of the band and probably the easiest way is to use a piece of twine or yarn. Starting at the upper left corner of the whole hoodie pattern piece, trace the curve of the pattern with the twine/yarn to the bottom right corner. Add an extra 1/2 inch to the twine/yarn (just to be safe).

Now you have the length of the band. For the width, do 4 inches. So you will cut out a rectangle piece with a measurement of 4" by whatever your twine/yarn measures. Set aside.

 For the ears, it's up to you what shape and size you'd like. Just remember to add a seam allowance and a little extra (about 1/2") on the bottom edge. Also, make the bottom of the ears wide enough so that when you sew a dart onto it, it will be at the desired width.

Once you have your ear pattern, band, and hoodie sides both lining and outside patterns, you are ready to cut your fabric. Your pieces should resemble the picture above. Also refer to the Diagram 1 on how many pieces of what to cut.

Let's start with the ears.

Following the instructions for your interfacing, fuse the interfacing to the wrong side of your main fabric. Matching the main fabric with the lining and right sides together, sew ears together leaving the bottom edge open. Trim the corners and clip along the curved edges.

Turn right side out, iron and topstitch close to the edge of seams.

Fold ear in half with main fabric on the outside. Trace a slight curve with chalk or sewing marker and stitch along curve. Back stitch to secure. Repeat for the other ear.

Trim the bottom edge of ears to have a straight edge.

Open and flatten the back edge of dart and baste the flatten area in place.

When you sew a curved dart, it will give a nice curve to the ears. See? Oooo... Aaaahhh...

With the larger piece of the cut hoodie pattern, measure 1 inch down from upper edge and pin ears in place on right side of main fabric. Baste ears in place.

With right sides together, attach the smaller piece of the hoodie pattern to the larger piece. Turn over and iron the seams, having the raw edge face backward.

The outer sides should look like this.

With right sides together, attach the band to the sides. This may be tricky for some of you... have patience...

You can do it!

Once you joined the band with the sides, trim off any extra band fabric, set aside and do this step with the lining. With your lining piece inside out, iron the seams facing outward. Take your outside piece and iron the seams facing inward. It's nice to have the seams pressed so come time when the two pieces are sewn together, it lays nice and flat.

Take your two hoodie pieces and with right sides together, pin and sew along the front raw edge of the hoodie. Leave the bottom raw edge open.

Turn right side out and iron seam. Fold along bottom edge of hoodie to find the center. Mark it and set aside.

Now the scarf is a rectangular scarf. You can get fancy, but for this tutorial, we'll stick with the basic. If you're sewing for a toddler, I find the dimensions of 8" x 22" to be perfect. Not too long that'll get in the way and just wide enough to cover their necks and even tuck under their coat. For older kids, it's really up to you. Also, depending on the amount of fabric you have you may need to cut two pieces for the front and two for the back and attach together to get the desired length, which is what I did here.

  Mark the center of the back piece of your scarf. Matching the center marks of the backside of your hoodie to the backside of the scarf and having right sides together, baste in place. Roll your hoodie up and attach the front side of scarf with right sides together. Leave a 4 inch opening along the long edge of the scarf so that you can turn it right side out.

Trim corners before you turn it right side out.

Iron the seams flat and topstitch about 1/4 inch along the edge of the scarf and hoodie.

Woohoo!

You're done!

Now go wrangle your little animal and tie it on!

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If you made one of these lovelies using our tutorial, show us and post it on our Flickr group:

www.flickr.com/groups/suburbia-soup-creations/

I would love to see what fabulous things you make!

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