...which you flip inside out to find bear ears! The kids are going to go nuts over these :)
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Want to know the best part? I'm going to show you how to make them!
I used sweatshirt material for these and fleece for the original so if you're using something else you may need to finish your edges a little differently in places. The first thing you need is to make your pattern. Start by grabbing something of your child's with a hood and trace around it. Next, draw some animal ears in proportion to your hood. You obviously aren't limited to bears and bunnies! The measurements for your ties will vary depending on the look you're going for. You need to add the length of the hood plus however much length you need to tie your bow/knot. (I was using sweatshirts so I just cut a strip off just below the hem, hence why mine are a little long. You could easily shorten the straps so only a little bit on the front overlaps and add a button/snap/velcro, or even lengthen and widen it for a scarf-like look.
PLEASE NOTE: Obviously anything that ties around the neck is not recommended for babies or un-supervised small children. Use your own best judgement here.
These are what my super awesome pattern pieces looked like, drawn on a cereal box. Add your seam allowances around the shapes you drew.
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| If you can make your ties one piece, that's great. If not add just add an extra seam at the back like me. |
Fold your first colour in half (or lay out your sweatshirt for a refashion). Trace and cut out your hood, tie and do the ears TWICE (4 ear pieces total). This is what you should have when you finish:
Place the right sides together. If needed, sew tie seam. Sew curve of hood. Sew around ears, leaving the bottom open. Notch curves.
Turn hood right side out. Press. If your tie has a seam, match it with the seam on the back of the hood. Sew the tie to the bottom of the hood.
Turn the ears right side out and press. Top stitch around. Zigzag the bottom closed and trim any excess.
Next we'll attach the ears. This is the only part where things are slightly different for each side. Pin the ears to the hood, but make sure that the seam that attaches the ear to the hood won't be in exactly the same place on each side (ie. bear ear seam on top of bunny ear seam) or else it will be super bulky! See how the bunny ears hang down and are sewn high on the hood, and the bear ears point up and are sewn on lower down.
For the bunny ears just sew them onto the hood and that side is done. For the bear ears I did some shaping.
As you can see in this first picture I folded the corners towards the center before pinning. Sew down like you did for the bunny ears, then look at step two below.
Next fold it back out, pin, and sew down a second time. This makes it stand up a little better.
Now go back and do the exact same thing for with your second colour/animal! Done now? Good. Put the right sides of both hoods together and pin around. Sew around, leaving room open to flip it inside out. I left my space near the center back.
Turn right side out. Press. Top stitch around, paying special attention to closing the hole you used to turn it.
Voila! you did it! As a bonus for making it this far, here are some close ups of the two hoods I tried my fabric markers out on. These are the 10 pack of fine tipped Crayola fabric markers. As you can see, they apply really nicely. (I should also add that I bought come of the "bright" ones meant for dark fabric and was seriously unimpressed.)
If anyone tries making their own hoods and has any questions just leave me a note in the comments and I'll see what I can do to help you :)
I also have serious respect for bloggers who post tutorials regularly. It probably doubles the time of both the project and blogging!
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