"U" is for Unicorn

So I have a little secret. This post is just a little bit of a cheater. You see...today is "U" day in the A to Z Challenge. Yes, U is for Unicorn. In this case, a unicorn hoodie. But the secret is...the hoodie isn't technically a unicorn one. It's actually a pony. Yup. It's true. In order to make this a unicorn hoodie, you have to add the headband with the horn. And no pictures of that exist for this blogger. So...as you read through the project, just imagine a cute little white felt horn on a headband to turn this purple pony into a unicorn.



I originally saw the unicorn hoodie via Heather at Twin Dragonfly Designs. She made hers as a Halloween costume for her daughter. In her version, both the ears and the horn go on the headband. On mine, I wanted the girls to be able to wear a pony jacket any time...so I moved the ears over to the actual hoodie.

The supplies for this project are pretty simple. You'll need a hoodie (obviously). I decided on purple because I just flat out love purple.

You'll also need a total of about 1/2 yard of felt. I chose three different colors: purple, pink, and turquoise.

Beyond that all you need is a sewing machine, some thread, and a crap ton of pins. Crap ton is a technical measurement, right?

Start out by cutting your felt into long, 1" wide strips. My felt came in bolts that were 54" long, so I only had to cut a few of these in each color to have more than plenty.

You'll cut several of these strips down to 4-6" length pieces. You'll want all the pieces to be the same length, but you can make them as long as you like. It just depends on how long you want the mane pieces to be.

Leave at least 6-12 strips of longer length. This measurement will depend on the height of your child. These will be your tail lengths. For my girls (ages 1 1/2 to 3 at the time), I cut them to be about 12-16 inches.

Now comes the fun. You get to wrestle with an armful of pins and felt.

Start at the front of your hood and pin down the centers of your felt pieces to the center seam of the hoodie. Work your way backwards, layering the different colors. Extend the pinning all the way over the hood and part way down the center of the hoodie back. I went to about arm pit level.

Try not to stab yourself with pins along the way.

Now wrestle that pound of felt into your sewing machine and stitch down the center, pulling your pins as you go. I did a triple stitch to make sure that things were on there nice and tight.

When you finish this step, the mane pieces will be laying flat across the jacket. To get them to look like a mane, you'll need to sew them so they stand vertically. Back to the pins you go.

Lay the hoodie on its side, and pin the two halves of your felt strips together. Thread this through the sewing machine again and make a straight stitch down the length about 1/4" from the original seam, again removing the pins as you go.

Once your mane is done, it's time to sew on the ears. These were a little tricky. If you have your model present, it's a lot easier. If you don't, well then you rope your tween boy into being your model. And he'll hate you for it. But he'll be a good sport because he loves his cousins.

I took a piece of the purple felt and eyeballed a pattern. I used a roughly teardrop shaped piece. After cutting out two of these shapes, I stitched around the edges to give them a little dimension. I then pinned them into their estimated positions, tried them on poor Darian. I made my necessary adjustments so that I had them behind the seam, but not too far, and equally spaced from the mane on either side.

To stitch them on, I did three separate pieces. The initial stitch was a vertical stitch from the front edge of the ear at the center of the width, back into the center of the depth. This secured the ear to the hoodie, but the ear was left looking like a malformed circle. It needed shape. To finish it off, I did a "U" shaped stitch from one corner of the ear to the center and back out to the other corner. I then formed the ear with my fingers and hand-stitched the two front edges together where they met up with the hoodie. This permanently secured the ear down at the edges and kept it from folding back open (or so I thought).

Once the ears were finished, it was just a quick pin of the tail pieces onto the bottom center of the hoodie and a couple of quick triple stitches across. Unicorn (err...pony) hoodie complete!

Now...when I was putting this post together, I realized that I had no real decent picture of it from the front or directly from the back so that you could see the tail. The model in all of the above pictures was Miss K. Miss M just happened to wear it to Sunday dinner a couple of weeks ago, so I had Collin snap some pictures with his iPhone. Thus...the pictures are a little crummier than my regular camera tends to take. Also, she has a totally fakey smile because I'm bribing her with marshmallows to let us take posed photos.

There are a few of lessons in this. 1 - Take photos of the projects when you make them (dummy). 2 - Bribing kids is a solid plan. 3 - The sewing on these holds up pretty well after a year and a half...except for the ears. Right ear...kind of okay, only a couple of stitches lost. Left ear...blown wide open. Maybe throw a few extra stitches in those to keep a solid shape.

Thanks to all of you stopping by from A-to-Z Challenge! I love new readers. Make sure to leave me a comment below (including your blog address) so that I can return the favor by visiting you.