The Dino-riffic Polo

As part of the Flower in your hair challenge, I wanted to challenge myself to sew something for a boy as well. I have a boy, so it only seems fair. Being inspired by a flower to create something for a girl is easy, but when it comes to a boy, it was actually pretty easy. Flowers are pretty inspirational, the petal shapes, the natural colors, the layers. All of those inspired the dino"riffic" polo. Layered reverse applique and petal like spikes, this may be inspired by flowers but it is all boy. To make it all better it used scraps of knit fabric for the applique and an old polo of my husbands from the re-do pile. 

I started with an old polo. I tried it on my son to see how the neck and collar fit. You may be surprised how well the collar and neck will fit even if the shirt is huge. The shirt was a Men's Small and my son wears a 4T. 

Then I flipped the collar up so it wouldn't get cut by accident. I grabbed a shirt that fits my son well and turned it inside out and tucked in the sleeves so the seams were all exposed. I matched up the shoulder seams and made sure the shirt was centered over the polo.  

Then I cut away the extra fabric following the shirt as my pattern. I only cut one side.

Then I folded the shirt in half and followed the cut line as my guide for the other side. That way they are the same on both sides.

So you should have something like this. 

Now for the sleeves I lined up the sleeves from the polo with the sleeve from the shirt and cut around it.

Flip the shirt over so sleeve seams are exposed and continue to follow the line. 

Then you have your sleeves

Start by sewing your sleeves to the shirt. Pin them along the sleeve opening

When you are done you should have something like this. Fold it in half at the shoulder so the front and back line up.

Then sew from the edge of the sleeve turning at the armpit and going dow the side of the shirt.

Then hem the bottom and you have yourself a new polo for your little guy.

To do the reverse applique in layers, first I drew the picture on the shirt with a crayon (the crayon will wash off) I did a stegosaurus since it has such a floral reference.

Then grab your scrap knits and layer them up. The bottom layer will be the one that gets exposed the most.

Then pin the layers behind the picture securing it with as many pins as needed.

Then sew along your drawn on line.

Then flip over the design and trim away the extra fabric.

Then carefully pull up the top layer of the shirt and cut away within the stitched line. This will expose the layer below. Then sew along that layer outlining it.

Continue cutting and sewing till you get to the bottom layer.

Then I cut petal shapes out of felt to create the spikes, and I sewed them on. I also added a little button for an eye.

That's it the floral inspired dino shirt. 

And Jude was pleased as punch to have a new dino shirt.


Enjoy!