Simplicity 2506

The finish line is near... This is the last costume for this year, although I still have to put together Myra's "hair", it feels like quite an accomplishment to be so close to finished! 

But seriously, have you ever seen a cuter dinosaur?? That baby is ridiculously photogenic. Anyway, the pattern is Simplicity 2506. It is basically a jumpsuit, hood and booties. The pattern includes variations to make a dinosaur, angel, mouse, 2 bears and a devil, but it could be easily modified to be almost anything. I did make a few modifications, with the biggest being I made the suit out of fleece rather than felt. Really, who wants to wear felt?? I also skipped the fins along the hood and tail. They're really cute, but Duncan is supposed to be Rex from Toy Story and he doesn't have fins.

Instead of velcro as the back closure, I used a zipper. In retrospect (after wrestling Duncan into this for the pictures), I really wish I had made a snap placket across the inseam for diaper changes. It would have been really easy to do. 

I also modified to hood closure. The dinosaur hood is supposed to close with a tie, but that is a strangulation hazard, so I went with velcro here, so that it just pops off it it gets pulled on. Initially, I just stitched velcro to the corners of the hood, but it isn't quite long enough to close that way, so I attached velcro to either side of a strip of bias tape to connect the two. It isn't as pretty, but it does work. If I were making this costume again, I'd have used the hood pattern for one of the other views as all the others close with velcro.

I didn't have any of that cool gripper fabric that you find on RTW sleepers, so instead I used some dimensional fabric paint to paint some dino feet on the bottom of the slippers. Since the paint has a rubber texture, it provides some grip, and since Duncan is pulling up and cruising, I didn't want him slipping around.

The pattern calls for ribbing for the wrist bands. Since the recommended fabrics are all non stretch, I thought I'd just use the fleece, but it just didn't have enough stretch when I tried. I ended up using some black sweater knit, which looks kinda cool and should help keep the cold out. The tail is stuffed with fiberfil, but if you're making this, be careful not to stuff it too full. It exits the jumpsuit right at the seat, so if it's too full, baby won't be able to sit down.  Overall, this is a cute and versatile pattern that isn't particularly challenging to sew. Definitely a winner as far as I'm concerned!