This wicked cool dinosaur shirt was one of my first ever major refashions and still one of my favourite. Unfortunately the majority of the "during" pictures were lost in my old computer. So, I have a few from the beginning and a few from the end. I'm going to have to describe the middle part.
First thing I did:
Originally I had planned to do this with a dyed t-shirt and a giant hunk of felt. Unfortunately I don't really have the energy still to correctly dye things. I attempted it though, and thus, the unfortunate result:
Not the dye's fault.
Not sure if you can see it but there's red and black spots in there that confuse the heck out of me.
So I pitched that idea and moved on (the shirt is going to become the base for my next form waste not!) Why make more work for myself right? I found a men's grey polo at Value Village that was a much thicker material. I realised something heavier will hold the weight of the felt much better.]
The shirt, being a polo, had a really low collar that I had to get rid of so I ended up having to cut it really low. It definitely needs to be warn with a shirt underneath, otherwise it doesn't keep the ladies under control. To make the racerback I just layed my favourite raceback tank top (from Joe Fresh) over top and cut out the same shapes. I did have to do some alterations as the fabric was making the cut hang all weird but it all worked out in the end.
I bought a big chunk of black felt at Michaels for around 7$. Here is the part that I really wish I had those pictures for. The dinosaur! I found an outline of a t-rex that I really like online. Then I just held a piece of paper up to the screen and traced it lightly. I wanted to make it huge without going anywhere, I like my house :) and my artistic talent does not stretch so far as drawing. So, I drew a grid over the little dinosaur, then increased the scale of the grid until it was shirt sized and copied what was in the little boxes and...bam! I had a shirt-sized dinosaur (onomatopoeias make everything better).
I cut out the super huge dinosaur and had a pattern piece. I pinned it to the felt and cut out my giant dinosaur for the shirt. Sew one to the other and...pow! (seriously, its fun, you should try it) I had a super cool dinosaur shirt.
A word of caution however: If I ever make a similar shirt (I'm considering a robot) I'm not planning to do it with felt. It's finnicky to wash and seems to collect my white cat's hair intentionally.
The rawring shirt:
The pretty kitty:
Make. Make. Make.
That shirt is awesome!
ReplyDeleteI just found your blog through your post on Refashion Co-op, and I love your style and sense of humor.