Sonic the Hedgehog

Cuss helped me make him a Sonic costume at the spur of the moment - a speedily, somewhat shoddily made fun project in the middle of my careful summer dress project (which is almost done, but involves silk organza underlining, clean finished and frenched seams, etc. AKA a true palette cleanser fun thing!

So Cuss is in love with Sonic comics and we play a lot of Sonic (usually I get to be Amy Rose, who is objectively the best, a true femme cutie with a giant hammer and extremely strong organizational skills, I stan), and one fateful Sunday he asked if we could make him a sonic costume. This started with pulling out kids patterns that I’d wanted to try and him commenting whether they were the right colour, so we drew a version of the pattern I had in mind, but as he noted it did not have a sonic head.

So I threw out the idea of a new to me pattern and hacked together my go-to Brindille and Twig Ringer T with the Twig + Tale Traveller’s cape animal hood. I basically use the Ringer as a block for kids stuff.

The hack process: Trace off new bigger size of Ringer T (sz 4), give it the neckline from Traveller Cape (sz 1-3). Trace off Traveller cape hood pieces, fox ears and large dino spikes. Altered shape of Ringer to have a wider bottom (1/2” on the side of both front and back, so 2”) and longer (1”) back hem, to be left unhemmed for casual roll finishing. Added a center back seamline instead of a fold when I cut out of fabric, but didn’t add it to the pattern.

I cut all this out out of his fabric selections, which were various blue scraps/cheap fabric finds. He selected a super-stretchy bright blue organic cotton lycra from my more prolific baby clothes making days, and we really used evertything that was left of it. He also wanted to use a “perfect blue” 80s era maternity skirt my friend had given me to make other things out of, a woven.

Cuss helped me sew the spikes, guiding the fabric (ish) and lifting the presser foot. Mentioned how he wished he cvould be big enough to drive the machine like a big real sew-er but his legs were not long enough. Helped me snip the tips for turning and snip the threads (so of course, he’s three, I had to re-do both of these things but he’s very diligent). He also opened the triangles so I could turn them and tested if they were hot once I pressed them.

Cuss placed the spikes along the back pieces at the spacing he wanted, then helped me pin them in. He really did the putting in the pins himself, and I didn’t double check, so a couple sorta peak out of the seamline but who cares. We sewed em up and then fronts to backs at shoulders then he started to get impatient - I suspect the whole thing is a little to repetitive for a toddler. He still helped me pin the sleeves in place (adorable - why this fabric have a big hole in the middle mom? because that’s where your head goes. but mom this doesn’t look like a shirt yet! my head can’t go through that!) and let me get them on and side seams done, but at this point he just wanted to wear it.

So he wore it and got it all stained and i worked on the hood - i decided not to bother lining the hood, which isn’t as sleek looking but a lot faster. I also had forgotten that the hood on the cape doesn’t actually meet at center front, so I needed to add a little length, so I added on an edge finishing piece that would add some length.

And of course we were going unhemmed by the time we got to this point!

The body fabric is so stretchy that he can get the shirt on even though much of the hood is non-stretch. Wahoo!

He did ask that it get a Sonic belly but it just hasn’t yet… maybe I will get around to it and that will cover up how stained it is a few months in!

Fabric: woven blue from a Fabcycle mystery pack, blue organic cotton spandex jersey from a Facebook sale a year ago
Pattern: mash of Twig and Tale animal hood with Brindille and Twig Ringer Tee, adapted as we went