Dinosaur – Hopefully Creative

Dinosaur Dog Coat

Doggy coat for warmth

My dad just got a tiny little dog thing, but I’ve been told that it’s regularly quite cold. So in order to help the creature feel more comfortable outside, I was asked to make him a little coat. I looked online for a pattern and found one from Wholefully. Apparently commenters weren’t always super happy with it, but I decided to give it a try anyway.

Since my dad and Timmy (the dog) live quite a ways away, the dog was measured by Cathelijne and then I made the coat from some other leftover fabric I still had laying around. For the outside, I used the scraps of my first dinosaur coat, in hopes that it would also provide some protection from the wind and rain. For the inside, I found some fleece for extra warmth.

I put in the measurements and drew out the pattern on some paper, then placed it on my fabric where it happened to fit perfectly on the tiny bit that I had left. As this is the third thing made from that dinosaur fabric, it’s been used more than expected. For the closures, some Velcro was attached to the front flaps and the tummy flaps. I lined the Velcro bits with some extra dinosaur to prevent it from sticking to the fleece. Lastly, a hole was added in the back for the leash to go through.

The whole thing was snail-mailed and unfortunately the tummy flaps were a little bit too short. I seem to remember that it fits when Timmy is wearing the coat by itself, but not when he’s also wearing the harness. So I’ve made some notes on the pattern so that if I were to made it again, I can add some length to the tummy flaps. Cathelijne has made a Velcro solution to make it fit now.

Dress-up Tail

Getting a kid to turn into a dinosaur!

So, I just made the thing that I’ve been sort of vaguely but not really wanting to have for a while now. I’ve not made it for me though. It’s a *children’s* dinosaur (or dragon if you so prefer) wearable tail. With some fleece blankets, a lovely tutorial from Andrea’s Notebook that I only vaguely followed and a few hours and I’ve hopefully made someone’s new favourite item of clothing.

I chose some blue/green fleece that has been in the stash for the tail and some yellow for the spikes. The measurements from the tutorial were loosely followed, although I did sew a tail with a flat bottom and as such had fewer cut offs. The spikes were drawn and cut very loosely and then sewed together to be turned inside out. There’s an overlap on the spikes because I didn’t really measure and sort of eyeballed everything. The Velcro on the waist straps was some blue stuff I had left over and I thought it would look nicer than black or white. For the same reason, I didn’t zig zag topstitch the straps but just used a normal topstitch. I’m firmly of the opinion that it does indeed look nicer.

The last real change from the original pattern was to add a zipper to the underside instead of stitching it closed. I figure if this kid would wear his tail and then run around in the mud, his mum or dad would appreciate chucking it in the laundry. If the innards are removable, then that’s much easier. I didn’t have a coordinating zipper colour, but I did have a coordinating zipper pull. So I stitched in a rainbow zipper with a nice teal pull. All in all, a lovely quick project that was completed in a few hours. It also made me giggle when I put it on the 100+ year old mannequin. Somewhat.. anachronistic. I hope it’ll be enjoyed by the intended recipient!

Dinosaur Momiji

Manipulating origami dinosaurs into a new winter coat.

After breaking yet another coat zipper and clearly not learning my lesson, I set out to make myself a replacement Dinosaur Coat. I’d fallen in love with the Momiji walking jacket from Waffle Patterns and desperately needed one with dinosaurs on it. So the internet was scoured again for dinosaur printed softshell fabric and I landed on some from Takoy. I wasn’t fully sure what the colours would turn out to be, but when it arrived on my doorstep I really liked it. Off to the haberdashery for some new zippers! I tried to line up the dinosaurs so they went around the entire coat and almost matched along the zipper. That seemed to work out quite well.

The pattern works in such a way that you pick the elements that you want to include and follow the relevant instructions for those. I chose to use A: Hood, C: Chest pocket, E: Kangaroo pocket + hand warmer and H: Knit cuff. There are only four adaptations from the original pattern, I think. One is to have larger eyelets on the hood because the ones that were the right size just kept coming loose. The second was to do the pleat on the front pocket to the outside instead of the inside, mainly because I couldn’t find a way to have the dinosaurs show nicely with the inside pleat. Three, add some elastic to the inside of the chest pocket to keep my wallet in place, because I didn’t measure it beforehand. And lastly, to add a hanging loop to the inside when attaching the lining hood to the neckline.

The coat is lined with some fairly thick and smooth orange-y fabric that was a close enough colour match to the outside dinosaurs. The pattern comes with separate pieces for the lining. All in all, I’m very impressed with the pattern. The pieces all match up and the instructions all made sense and were very clear. While the project wasn’t even that difficult, it did take me a fairly long time to complete. That was mainly because I was very unsure on how long to make the sleeves. So the two pieces of the project sat on the back of a chair and on the couch for weeks before I decided to just follow the pattern and make nice long sleeves.

There are a few things I would do differently, if I make it again. The first is are to decrease the height of the hood. It’s too big, so I have to scrunch it down a whole lot for it to stay on my head. Second, the pocket opening for the hand warmer pockets is too far down, which means that I never feel secure in putting something else in there as it would probably fall out. The outside pocket pleat also means that if I put stuff in there, I get a massive tummy, but I guess that was all my choice. Lastly, the zipper doesn’t really comfortably close all the way up so it generally ends where the hood attaches to the neckline. The first time I wore the coat, I wasn’t convinced. But it’s been in stable rotation for weeks now and I really love it.

Paper Dinosaur

Just spending a day cutting and gluing a dinosaur

While scrolling aimlessly through Facebook the other day, someone posted an image of a dinosaur cookie jar on ‘Dinovember Community’. Apart from the gold, that shape of dinosaur was extremely appealing to me. Since the original seems to be composed of geometric shapes, it reminded me a lot of papercraft objects. I made a papercraft Idefix before and it was an interesting experience and with another week of holidays, I had the time for a new papercraft project. So I proceeded to google for any (free) papercraft dinosaurs. There are definitely a lot around, but I settled on one from Polyfish that required an account on some Korean site (google translate for the win), as it reminded me of the cookie jar.

Since there were no instructions, I didn’t know if the pattern needed to be printed on regular printer paper or cardstock. So I decided to try both and started with cardstock. When I tried to glue it together though, it didn’t really fit as it was too thick, so I settled on regular printer paper. The pattern has numbers that I assumed indicate in which order to stick them together. The difficulty of using regular printer paper is that those numbers are still quite visible even on the wrong side of the paper. However, that didn’t stop me from starting on the project.

It started from the top of the head and sort of worked its way down. Then at some point the first foot got attached, then the second one, then continued with the body. It was all fine up to until number 230-ish, as I could still reach inside before that time. However, those last 30-odd steps were very difficult to reach, so the pins and wooden skewers came out to play. I really enjoyed most of it though, it’s meditative in a nice way. It also took just about my entire Sunday, but I didn’t mind that at all either because it resulted in a super cute paper dinosaur. I just kept laughing at the thing as it slowly but surely came together. I love it so. Now to find a place for it to live…

Dinosaur Coat Version 0.86

Making a tiny dinosaur coat for a little human.

I still had about a meter of my dinosaur coat softshell fabric left and really wanted to use it for something useful. Luckily, friends of mine have produced a little human and I decided that he needed a dinosaur coat too. The pattern used was a free one called Schnabelinas Softshelljacke that came in sizes 74-146 and three different versions. I chose size 86 and the ‘Gerade Teilung’. Yes, this pattern was in German. However, I managed it because it has extensive instructions with photography and google translate was a great help. I also made my life a little easier by not putting in pockets.

This Gerade Teilung has straight seams at the front instead of the curved ones from the other versions. The pattern gives the option for a short and a long version – I chose long. There is also a possibility to remove the shoulder seam by creating a back pass (?), so that happened too. The sewing went pretty smoothly apart from the finishing. The snaps in the hood were not having it at all. So I think this is no longer a removable hood, unless you want to pull the snaps off too.

I really like the zipper guard that’s made from a contrasting fabric (blue with white dots). I chose to use a separating zipper and put in dark blue cuffs. It’s a bit big for the recipient but he’ll likely still grow, probably a lot faster than I ever did! It feels nice that the fabric went to a lovely new home where it will be used instead of staying in my hoard languishing forever, as so many lengths are currently doing.

Fluffy-Toothed T-Rex

Feathers are not fleece, but who knows, maybe T-Rexes really were this fluffy?

I think this one is the cutest so far. He doesn’t look like much from the front on account of his eyes being invisible, but from a side angle, very adorable. It’s the free T-Rex pattern from Sew Desu Ne/CholyKnight. After finishing the Turtle Duck, I was supposed to finish a turtle. While the turtle has its eyes by now, it’s not completed. So why did I start on this one, you ask? Because I had blue thread in the sewing machine from completing the not denim pants. I was simply too lazy to change it out so I grabbed my previously cut pieces and got to work.

I’ve still got at least 4 more cut out plushies, since I decided to cut the free plushy patterns that I’d been eying for a while on the same day. All the bits are now waiting in plastic wallets with their appropriate paper pattern pieces. With the cutting out of the way, it took about 3.5 hours to complete this little critter. I’m just never going to be a fast sewer I think.

Of course I have a weakness for dinosaurs, so it’s not a surprise that I like this one. I do find the teeth quite challenging. Fluffy teeth seem wrong in some way. That doesn’t make me want to hug him any less though!

Dinosaur Shirt and Scarves

Who loves to wear dinosaurs, helicopters, surf boards, planes and sharks on their body? Me!

Summer Graduation 2020 feels like a lifetime ago in some ways and the blink of an eye in others. During the set-up for that ceremony, we were still able to go out and enjoy the market with its fish and its fabric stalls. While waiting for my colleagues to buy their fish, I perused the fabric stall and soon found the fabric that I just NEEDED to buy. People, it had dinosaurs and helicopters on it and was a jersey, the perfect new t-shirt!

Dinosaurs, helicopters, surf boards, planes and sharks, what’s not to love?!

While at that market, one of my colleagues remarked that she would be interested in a scarf with the dinosaurs, so at the end of 2020 I set out to making this dream (and/or throw away comment) come true. The scarves, I made two, are just simple infinity scarves, very quick and easy to sew and done within the day. So why did it take me so long to write up this post, you may ask? Well, her birthday was end of January so I waited to gift it until then and second, I’m lazy.

Next to the scarves, I also made a t-shirt. This one was made with my tried and true Free Fun Summer Tee pattern (exhibits A and B). I tried to match the stripes along the side seams and that seems to have turned out pretty well. The hems do curl up a little, but that’s probably got something to with some stitching errors I made. All in all, I’ve just got a tiny bit of this fabric left and finished three projects in a day. Success!

Dinosaur Tag Toy

Making a tag toy in the shape of a dinosaur for a little one.

With the friends’ spawn officially entering air-breathing life, time for a visit. One cannot show up empty handed, so I sewed a little gift. Found this project and decided that would do. Not only was it a dinosaur, but apparently tag-things are much fun for tiny humans or something. So I printed the pattern and got out some of the leftovers of making owl pajamas many years ago. I definitely don’t keep leftovers in my hoard for too long, nooooooo. I also found some ribbon-bits from eons ago and set to work.

It’s very straightforward, just pin loops pointing to the dino tummy along the backside, and sew those down on the right side. Sew the other dino-side to the loopy-side while leaving a section open. Turn, stuff and sew the hole closed again. Easy peasy lemon-squeezy. It’s also funny how all the ribbons feel just slightly different. In conclusion, easy and quick project that was fun to make!

T-rex Hat

A little knitted Christmas hat!

Just to give you some joy this Christmas, I recently made a hat for my Tyrannosaurus Rex. Here he is, just ambling along with his slight preference for going left. He’s got a turning circle of about 2 meters. There’s no pattern to the hat, just increased from six red stitches until it was wide enough and then added in a few rows of white fluffy stuff. I also made a tiny pompom for the top. I get a lot of joy from this little thing.

*If you click the dinosaur, he’ll open up a YouTube window and walk around with his little hat!*

Enjoy your Christmas if you celebrate!

Come Rain, Come Dinosaurs!

When the world still doesn’t think adults should wear dinosaurs, you make it yourself!

I finally, finally (!), managed to cut into the most expensive fabric that I’ve ever bought a long length of. This softshell fabric with dinosaurs has been hiding in my hoard since September 13, 2017 when I bought it at the Stoffenspektakel in Goes. The 13th of September 2020 was coincidentally the day that I started cutting out a new rain/fall coat. I only found this out when I went looking for the date when I bought the fabric and was pleasantly surprised.

On to the coat. The pattern is the Pattydoo Susan with optional add-ons of a concealed zipper in the hood and cuffs. One teeny, tiny problem with this pattern is that it is in German. My German is nearly non-existent. Why choose this pattern then? Well 1. Because it’s awesome and only 3 euro (HOW?!). 2. Google Translate exists and 3. They made an instruction video in which they show all the steps (still in German though). I hoped that with the video, I’d manage to figure out how to make this thing. So about 296 replays on – I kept repeating every second sentence they said to figure out what to do – and I have my coat!

Finished inside neckline and hanging loop, neck protection and hood snaps, concealed neck zipper, double sided zipper.

I’ve never made as many trips to sewing stores as I have done for this coat. That’s partially because I kept forgetting that I should bring the fabric if I wanted to colour match. I’ve gone for thread, and then for elastics, and then for velcro and then for zippers, and for more zippers and for cuffs and for the adjuster-things on the hood.. Let’s just say that the local shops must be fed up with me and my stupid German project. Anyway, once I’d gathered most of my materials, I had to start cutting into my precious fabric *Gollum noises*.

Hood with adjusters, hood back adjustment strap, concealed zipper and pieced center hood piece.

Once I had nearly all pieces cut out, I had about a meter of fabric with both selvages left. However, I also had a pattern piece that would need to go lengthwise and therefore would steal a further 40 ish centimeters from that rectangle, just by itself. For some reason I couldn’t bear the thought of cutting into my pristine fabric and therefore cut it from a bit that was too small. My hood thus has two extra seams in the top where I pieced the ‘Kapuzenstreifen’ together. It’s not noticeable at all, so I’m quite happy with this solution. Next to the hood thing, I only made minor changes to the pattern. These include a hacky swayback adjustment (taking in the back seams from armpit to waist by a up to 2 cm) and shortening the sleeves by 3.5 cm or so. Apart from that, I pretty much followed the movies exactly.

Pocket opening, pocket inside and sleeve cuffs.

While the pattern has pockets, they are quite shallow, so I can’t stuff them full of whatever my heart desires. This is unfortunatly a feature of the pattern since the pockets are set in the side front seam and extend to center front, which isn’t very far. However, the way they have you sew them in is ingenous. There’s a built in zipper and it is automatically concealed. I also really love the concealed zip at the neck so you can remove the hood. This version is much nicer than the one I cobbled together on my red coat.

All in all, I enjoyed working on the project. The cutting and sewing stage only took three days, but the gathering of materials and taping the pattern together added another couple of hours. I seamripped maybe three bits in total? The pattern itself is completely glorious in its markings that all fit together absolutely perfectly. I’d already bought another Pattydoo pattern for a sweater that may be jumping ahead in the queue a little. For now, I’ll just continue to swan about in my dinosaur coat and be quite proud of myself for finishing this thing!

Tag: Dinosaur