The Train To Crazy

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Welcome Amanda! Thanks for the wonderful DIY Viking Helmet Tutorial!

Hello there, I’m Amanda from Kitschy Coo. I’m an American ex-pat living in Scotland with my husband and two kids, working full time as a children’s clothing designer and maker. When I’m not making things and blogging about them (including more than thirty tutorials!), you can often find me looking suspiciously around my garden: Although I am normally wearing a sweater, because Scotland is cold. Regular readers of mine will know that I am passionate about Vikings, (or one Viking in particular), so today I’m sharing a tutorial on how to make a Viking helmet for your child. Freud spins in his grave.

I wanted the helmet to be sturdy and lofty to resemble a metal one, so I used heavy wovens and batting. If you want to forgo the batting or make it in a stretch fabric like fleece, make sure you use a larger seam allowance than the 1/4″ I’m using for this. The pattern pieces will yield a final hat circumference of approximately 22″, which fits both my four and nearly six year old. If you want to make a hat that is smaller or larger, grading 1/4″ to the inside or outside of each edge of the main hat body piece will change the total circumference by one inch. Remember you will need to adjust your band pieces too! Materials: 1/3 yd grey fabric (I used polycotton) 1/3 yd white fabric (I used twill) 1/3 yd lining fabric (I used twill) 1/3 yd batting (I used Thinsulate) something to stuff the horns with (I used Thinsulate scraps I hoard due to compulsiveness) 24″ trim (I used 2″ Celtic trim because that’s what I had, but thinner trim or braid would be nice too) Here’s the trickiest part, the drafting of your pieces. Lucky for you, I’ve done this bit and it only took me four attempts to get there. In the end I had to drape it on my son’s head while he watched television. Not my finest hour!

This is your hat body piece that you will use to cut four outer pieces and four lining pieces.

Draft a circle that has these dimensions. Fold it in half so it has a easy to see the diameter. You’re not going to cut any fabric with this, but you’ll need it later!

These are your horn pieces. Don’t worry about getting your pieces exactly the same shape as mine, but keep the straight line measurements exact (the 3″h from the horn, the 4.5″ from the wedge) and make sure the diagonal line of the wedge is the same length as the inner curve of the horn. You can also see that the top of the wedge doesn’t go to a sharp point, it is flat and 1/2″ wide.

These are your band pieces. There are two outer bands (one of mine is hiding under the other), and two batting pieces (same width but half the height).

While your batting is out, lay your four outer pieces right side up and pin in place.

Baste around all three edges and trim excess away. Repeat for all four pieces and then set them aside.

Right sides facing, pin the curves inner edge of the horn to the straight edge of the wedge. Use lots of pins to keep the wavy bit away from the stitch line.

Stitch together with 1/4″ seam allowance. Repeat for the other side, making sure that you have right sides facing again.

Now it should look like this!

Pin together the long curved edges, and stitch that too. Turn it right side out.

Use something pokey to turn out fully and then stuff it with filler just to the curve (where my thumb is). You want to stuff it quite firmly. Then finger press the raw edges to the inside of the horn by 1/4″ and pin in place. Repeat the whole process for the other horn, and then set them both aside.

Right sides facing, place one outer hat piece on top of another and stitch up one side. Leave a one inch gap starting one inch from the bottom edge. Repeat for the other two outer pieces, only sewing one side of each. Repeat for your lining pieces, but do not leave a gap. Unfortunately I didn’t take a single picture that showed the lining at any stage, I’m mysterious like that.

On the right side of your outer hat, pin the circle you drafted .75″ up from the bottom edge. The diameter line should line up with the seam so that it is centered. Trace around your circle with chalk and then unpin the circle. Repeat on the other side.

Carefully place one of the horns on top of the chalk circle so they match and pin all the way around. Make sure the raw edges are still turned under.

Sew as close to the edge as possible, all the way around. Repeat for the other horn.

Right sides facing, match the two outer pieces along the top raw edge and pin together. Make sure the seams meet evenly at the middle. Sew along this edge, and you have a three dimensional hat! Through the openings under each horn, stuff the rest of the filling to make your horns nice and sturdy and then sew the gaps closed. Set aside.

Baste one of your batting pieces to the wrong side of top half of a band piece. Repeat for the other batting and band pieces. Place the two bands on top of each other, right sides facing, and sew the sides seams.

Fold up the bottom edge to meet the top edge, with the batting now sandwiched in between. Pin to secure the layers. Optional but recommended: baste the top edge closed, it’s easier to catch at the layers.

Place your lining hat (you can see mine a little bit, it’s black) inside the outer hat, wrong sides facing and with raw edges aligned. Pin together. Place your band over the top, again matching all of the raw edges together. The side seams of the band should align with the side seams of the hat (below the horns).

It’s worth saying now that this particular sandwich has two layers of batting, three layers of outer fabric and one layer of lining fabric! Make sure you’re using a heavy needle, and go sloooooooooowly. If you have a free arm function on your machine, use it, and then laugh at me for not having my free arm machine serviced. The horns are a serious pain to smoosh out of the way without a free arm, but still it’s do-able 🙂 I also serged this seam to reduce the bulk and let it sit more nicely.

Aha, the band is on! Almost done.

Starting at the centre back seam, pin your trim along the bottom edge so that just a tiny bit of the band sticks out. My trim is scratchy!

When you get back to where you started, fold over to hide the raw edge. Then pin all the way around again, along the top edge.

Going very slowly, sew along the bottom of the trim, very close to the edge all the way around.

Because of the lack of a free arm, I then flipped the hat out to sew all the way around the top edge. It’s a little bit easier to maneuver those horns out of the way. When you get back to the start, pivot and sew the folded edge down. You’re done! Find a fierce child.

Or a not so fierce one 🙂

My kids love dressing up all year / day round, but Halloween is a big deal in this family (okay… at least one quarter of this family) so I normally go all out. I wouldn’t be able to sue you for slander if you said it was a vicarious pleasure of mine. Plus I get to blow pictures like this one up onto massive canvasses for the living room:

Halloween 2010: The campest superheroes in town

Halloween 2009: Toddler bleached skeletons

Thanks very much Andrea for having me!

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Welcome to the Handmade Dress Up Series! Please subscribe so you don’t miss the other 27 bloggers and their wonderful tutorials! Like what you see? Please PIN it or Stumble it! Thanks!

Are you ready for the MOST amazing Ruffled Tee Pee Tutorial ever? You didn’t even know your little girl needed this until now. So go make a Ruffled TeePee and watch her imagination flow! Thanks Kelly!

Hi friends! Kelly here from Sewing In No Mans Land. For those who don’t know me and my crazy blog I am a foreign service momma of three (in 3 weeks it will be four). This means I move around a lot with my hubby who works at American Embassy’s all over the world. We just left Dili, East Timor (hence the no mans land ha!) and are heading to Paris. I love to make my own patterns and give the digital files away for free on my blog. I would love if you would hop on over and check out Sewing In No Mans Land! I am thrilled to be a part of Train to Crazy Towns Hand Made Dress Up Series! Now, my tutorial isn’t a dress up persay. But I know there would be plenty fabulous tutorials for costumes and I could instead offer one for a “prop” of sorts. Something to spark the imagination. I love love love over the top dramatic things… um, well except for when my two year old goes that way, although sometimes that can be funny. But, when it comes to photo shoots and said two year old’s room the more over the top the better. The same goes for her dress ups and play room! I have been wanting a ruffle teepee for her for some time:

When I was invited to be part of this series I thought I would have to try making my own.

While it isn’t “difficult” per-say it is time consuming, and a bit of an exercise trying to harangue all that fabric while sewing ha! The secret to keeping this affordable is sheets. Yup, sheets. All of the ruffles you see before you were once a flat bed sheet from Pottery Barn.  

Um, cheap Pottery Barn sheets you say? If I weren’t currently residing in UT those sheets would be from Ikea or Walmart, but since I am here, I am lucky enough to frequent the Pottery Barn factory reject store. Whenever they mess up on a monogram or someone sends it back, it is destined for UT. This is how I have adorable monogramed stockings, tree skirt, trick or treat bags, PJ’s, Easter baskets etc for my kids for practically pennies. I headed to the reject store with the idea of a nice organic, white, beige and burlap tent in mind, but when I saw these awesome colors for 3 dollars a sheet I just had to go for it. After buying a plain white king sized sheet for five bucks that read “Muellller” on the top tab, the 4 flat twin sheets for 3 dollars each and the cute pillow case that you see in the pics for a dollar, I was out less then 25 bucks! (I totally didn’t even think to mention where this is in the original post. It is a Down East Outfitters Clearance center, NOT just any Down East, this is a special one that only has clearance items. It is located at 3505 West 3500 South West Valley City, UT 84119 , you will probably find me there with my head in a large bin riffling through ha! You have to hit it on certain days to get the awesome quilts, towels etc. I think they get in shipments on Wed but don’t hold me to that.) Of course things got busy and these sheets sat in the coat closet until this last weekend when I finally had time to whip it up and make Evie a new dress for the shoot. Note the shoes… yeah I had to wrestle them onto her. The only reason she finally wore them is she realized the ground was covered in sharp burs and she had no other option.

As I mentioned before this is not technically advanced sewing but it does take a good chunk of time to do. It is a hefty amount of gather stitching with a lot of pinning and re-pinning. If you are up for it lets make a Dreamy Teepee!

What you will need:

1. One King Sized sheet or two twin sheets sewn together.
2. Several twin flat sheets (the number depends on how fluffy you want your ruffles and how many layers you think looks good. I had extra fabric left over)
3. 6 PVC pipes (mine were the precut 5 ft. ones at Lowes for 1.30, if I did it over I would have them cut me 6 ft ones from the 8 ft poles, the ten is a bit squatty no?)
4. Thin rope or several strong rubber bands (which they do not carry at Joannes by the way, I found that odd)
5. Ribbon for ties and decor
6. One Package of the widest quilt binding available.
7. Optional: cute embellishments for the top of the Teepee

There are several great tutorials out there on how to make a plain ‘ole teepee and the choice is totally yours. Originally I planned on actually cutting several triangles and sewing them together but then I was concerned about how the square bottom would be with the ruffles. In the end I made my Teepee a lot like Meg’s on Sew, Mama, Sew. This used the least fabric and was super quick and easy. I used two twin sheets sewn together and ended up with a bunch of extra fabric. Once you have your “half circle” cut out is where I deviate from that tutorial. I had previously cut all my sheets into as long of strips as possible. I wanted my ruffles to be wide so that I didn’t have too many tiers (not that I don’t think this could be adorable, I would love to see one with 20 tiers I would just pull my hair out doing it). Once cut I laid made a long chain by sewing them all together. I would match up two ends, right sides together, sew down the edge then open them up and repeat the process on the new end until I had a looooong snake of fabric. After this process I did a gathering stitch all along the very long top. I did sew with one hand while holding the thread a bit taught as seen in this ruffling tutorial. I wanted it to REALLY be noticeably ruffled and the machine needed a little help with this. I did NOT hem the bottom. You totally can and maybe one day I will regret this decision AND if I were selling these I totally would. But since it will mainly be used as a photo prop and toy I really like the frayed unfinished look, plus it probably saved me a good hour of monotonous sewing. Once all your ruffle tiers are prepped, lay out your teepee half circle on the floor. (please excuse the horrible carpet in this picture. Our hotel room does not have the best crafting space, but you gotta do right?)
Letting the bottom of the ruffle overhang the bottom of your teepee slightly pin your gathered edge to your half circle alllllll the way around, following the curve. Do NOT skimp on the pins, it is near impossible to keep this straight otherwise. Once you reach the end reposition your “ruffling” and cut off the extra to be used at a later tier or for making embellishments 🙂 With the ruffle well pinned head over to your sewing machine. Now topstitch the ruffle into place. It can be tricky managing so much material in a small space. I pulled an extra chair right next to me so I could rest the extra fabric there and not have it hanging down pulling on the stitches as I went. Once you are done head back to your floor and spread it out. Remove all the pins (this can take a while but make sure you get them all). Grab your next tier. Again pin the gathered edge to the half circle only this time the bottom edge should over lap by at least 2 inches with your bottom ruffle. Again pin all the way around, remove excess then topstitch. Continue this process until you are right up next to your semi-circle at the top. You should have a very heavy, somewhat awkward teepee cover. I guess you could finish off the semi circle and call it done but I think this next part really adds a professional looking touch. Using pins, pin down the ruffles at the opening edge so that they stay nice and in place. Do this about 2 inches in from the edge. Now take your quilters binding and starting at the bottom of one side, slide it over the ruffles (it is already nice and folded for your) and topstitch it in place, going up one side, around the small semi-circle and down the other side. If you prefer you can stop at the top, cut the binding, sew a second piece down the other side then finish it off with a third piece around the semi-circle top. It is totally up to you. I then sewed on some fun puff ball embellishments, though I think a over sized ricrac would be pretty darn cute as well.

This gives it a nice clean edge and a great place to sew the ties for keep it together. In keeping with my “unfinished” look I sewed ripped strips of fabric one across from the other to tie the top of the teepee. I ended up sewing 6 strips so that I could tie three knots but again this is up to you. I then grabbed some ribbon and on the inside of the quilters binding, every 8 inches or so sewed some ribbon used to tie the edge to one of the PVC pipes.
I finished off the look with a giant oversized fabric rosette with birdcage netting over it. If I hadn’t been pressed for time this is the part I would have gone hog wild on with lots of rosettes and ribbon etc. I also had fun making the massive, over the top rosette head band and butterflies in a jar.   I had heard somewhere you could get these cool lightening bugs in a jar at Michaels where when you tap the glass they glow and fly but everyone here looked at me like I was nuts when I asked. I am a big fan of giving kiddos something to hold during photoshoots. We as adults have no idea what to do with out hands half the time, kids are the same 🙂 Plus then you get cool shots like this:   

So there you have it. Easy right? I am absolutely going to make the rustic, romancy white and beige one I had in mind and maybe a boys themed one? They are so cool and the kids LOVE them. I still had everything in the car from the shoot when we headed to soccer tonight and both boys begged me to put it up. Which any other time I would have obliged but I was snack mom tonight and seriously if I had to carry one more thing down the slope leading to the field I absolutely would have fallen over and with three weeks until Daddy gets home I am doing everything humanly possible to stave off labor ha! I hope you have a blast creating and using yours!! Thank you so much Andrea for letting me be a part of this amazing series!

Cheers

Kelly

PS The teepee does not stave off all crying during a photoshoot like I had hoped….. Lila was not impressed ha!

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Hello! I had another guest planned for today but as you know, our families are more importand than blogging so I’m stepping in for her today with a repost of some quick and easy wings I made for my daughter a few years ago. I’ve since used this method to make butterfly wings as well. So, if you have a little one that just MUST be a ladybug or a butterfly (bat?) this afternoon, go ahead and try this method!

My daughter changed her mind about her Halloween costume 3 days before Halloween. I searched for ladybug costume ideas and came up with a few cute examples. I couldn’t find anything that was quick and easy and used what I had around the house so I invented my own. This method could be used for any type of dress up wings and took less than an hour to make. Most of the materials were repurposed.

What you will need:

1 old red t-shirt (or red knit, felt or fleece fabric)

1 small piece of black fabric (or old t-shirt or sweater)

28″ of elastic (I used 1/2″ width)

Old cereal box

Heavy stabilizer, or something equivalent.

Wonder under or similar for applique

Making the wings

Trace the shape of the wings onto the cereal box. Cut out one wing then use that as a template to trace the other wing so they are exactly the same shape. My wings were basically a semi-circle with a bit of a change up at the bottom. You could use a plain semi-circle and be just fine though.

Then use your cardboard as a template for your fabric. Using a pen (a fabric pen is preferred but it really doesn’t matter) trace the shape of your wings onto your fabric. I used a men’s XL t-shirt and had plenty of fabric. I put the template’s straight edge on the fold so I only had to make one cut for each wing.

DO NOT CUT ALONG YOUR MARKED LINE! Cut at least a half an inch around your marked line. You will be sewing directly on that line you drew.

Trace 8 small circles onto your wonder under. I used a kids’ cup as my template. Iron the wonder under onto your black fabric. Cut out the circles and iron them on your red wing fabric. Note: The first time I did this I was not paying enough attention and put the dots on the front of one of the wings and the back of the other. Oops. Pay attention.

Sew around the edge of the circles with a zigzag stitch. I recommend using a tear away stabilizer on the back of the fabric if you are using knits to prevent puckering. If you don’t have a stabilizer any old scrap of fabric will work. Just cut out a piece a bit larger than your circle and put it on the underside of the fabric. 

Next, fold the wing fabric, wrong sides together and put the cardboard sandwiched in between. I sewed the wings up around the edges, sewing on my marked line) and then trimmed the fabric.

Next cut 2 rectangular pieces of the red fabric and 2 pieces of the heavy stabilizer. In a pinch, lightweight cardboard could work instead of the stabilizer. It won’t be as flexible but it will keep the wings from sagging. In reality, no kid would know the difference.

Put the stabilizer in between the red fabric and sew around the edges. Trim the edges close to the seam.

Next cut the elastic into two 14″ pieces. I made a casing for my elastic but that isn’t necessary. 

Now lay the wings down, dot side down and place this connector piece in between them where you want. Position the elastic and then sew it all together. This is how I placed mine.

That’s it! You’re done. Now you have ladybug wings!

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Next up, an IPhone or IPod costume tutorial from Jess! Such a fun idea!

Hey Train to Crazy Readers!  I’m Jess, and I blog over at If Only They Would Nap.  I have three boys [4, 1.5, and 8wks], so if you came to my house, you’d find a lot of noise, a lot of coffee, and a lot of sewing going on!


If any of you have kids like mine, they love technology.  My one-year-old absolutely loves to take my iPod [he could even say iPod before he could say his big brother’s name!] so I thought it would be so much fun to make him an iPod costume!  This tutorial is super easy and could even be completely no sew.  I made the costume so that it’s easy to get on and off, and could also be put over a winter coat if necessary… because in Wisconsin, you just never know!


Supplies:

• Black fabric – I suggest using jersey knit, felt, or fleece so that you don’t have to finish the edges.  I love to upcycle, so I used the back of a men’s T-Shirt. [If you want to make this a no-sew project, just use a black T-Shirt that your child will wear instead.]
• Sewing machine/thread
• Fabric Glue [I like Liquid Stitch]
• White and grey felt/knit/fleece for making the “screen”
• Velcro
• Fabric Marker – I suggest white/silver/grey – I used one with glitter!

1. Cut a rectangle of black fabric, and round the corners. The length will depend on how tall your child is.


2. Cut  a strip of the same fabric a couple inches wide and long enough to drape over your child’s neck – mine was about 11in.  Fold it in half and zig zag along the long side to sew it into a long tube.  Turn the tube right side out, like in the picture.


3. Attach one end of the tube to the top of the main piece of fabric with a zig zag stitch – near the corner.  This will be the strap to go around your child’s neck.


4. Attach velcro to the other end of the strap (you can sew it on or use fabric glue).  Hold it up to your child to see where the strap will fit comfortably around your child’s neck before attaching the other Velcro piece to the main piece of fabric.  When it’s done, it should look like the picture above.

**For safety purposes, I recommend using Velcro, not sewing on both ends of the strap. This will prevent the risk of choking.


5. Cut felt/knit/fleece pieces to make the screen of the iPod.  Sew them on or use fabric glue to attach.


6. I used silver glittery fabric paint to write the words.  You could also cut these out, but I don’t have many chances to get away with using some glitter on my boys’ clothes, so I went for it. 😉


This is one costume that I could probably even convince my hubby to wear!  Hmm… 😉

Thanks so much for having me, Andrea!  I love The Train to Crazy, so it’s a joy to be here today!  I hope you’ll hop over to my blog to see some of my own craziness.  If you’re feeling the fall weather like we are here, try my favorite potato leek soup and maybe sprucing up your sweater wardrobe with my pullover to ruffled cardigan refashion.  I hope you’ll join me!  See you soon!

Check out the other Handmade Dress Up tutorials!

Welcome to the Handmade Dress Up Series! Perhaps you’re ready to try your hand at sewing a costume from a costume pattern or tutorial? You’ll find a new tutorial for a dress up costume every day right here! Whether your an avid DIY’er or just looking for something fun to try, please subscribe or follow on Twitter or Facebook so you don’t miss the other 27 bloggers and their wonderful tutorials! Like what you see? Please PIN it or Stumble it! Thanks!

Next up, a N0 Sew Cape tutorial from Natasha at Little Pink Monster! 

Hello Crazy Train passengers! I was so excited when Andrea asked me to be a part of her handmade dress-up week because if there’s one thing we know how to do in my house it’s dress-up. My 2 yr old Samantha is OBSESSED. Her teachers don’t even notice anymore when she comes to school in full princess garb. Dress up clothes can be mighty pricy however my friend, not to mention they’re usually made of some crap-ola polyester blend. Ick. I think this no-sew superhero cape is a great way to venture into the world of creating your own clothes because as the name states, it’s no sew! Should take you 10 minutes, tops.

Here’s the easy, NO SEW, superhero cape I made for them:

All you need are a few basic supplies from your local fabric store.

1 & 1/2 yards of red knit fabric, (knit is like t-shirt material & the ends won’t fray) 1 yard of red ribbon & scissors.

Lay your fabric out & along one of the long ends fold the edge of the fabric over 1″. With your scissors make several snips in the fold, 1 inch apart, down the length of the fabric. Open the fold & you’ll now have several slits to weave your ribbon in & out of. After the ribbon is woven through all the slit gather the fabric towards the center. Take each end of ribbon & loop it back through the last slit & knot. To keep your ribbon ends from fraying you can quickly run the edge over a flame & it will seal them.

That’s it! Very simple, very fun & for a very good cause!

Thanks again for having me Andrea! If anyone is looking for some more dress-up posts here are a few more I have to share with ya… you can also click on the tutorials link on Little Pink Monster for tons more DIY & craft tutorials

No-Sew 10 Minute Tu-Tu, DIY Cinderella Dress, Pom Pom Stuffed Tu-Tu

Check out the other Handmade Dress Up tutorials!