I finally caught my son with his beloved shaggy man (from the OZ books) vest and (too big I know) Totoro hat. He loves 'em. My 4YO wants me to make a Totoro hood for the vest, I gotta look at those hoodies of vegbee with new serious and give it a go!
The vest is made from fleece and some covered hooks and eyes, hat some fleece scraps with appliqued eyes and nose. It's the cheapo fleece from Joann's so I doubled it and it is cozy enough for Northern California winters.
Added 2/9/08
Amended: December 2008 -- a posted a larger file of the pattern as a reader had trouble making out the measurements in the first version I posted.
HOW TO MAKE THE SHAGGY MAN VEST -- this one is size 2T or even bigger.
Exposed seams, double layered fleece vest with exposed covered hook & eye closure. The front panels are curved up, the back panel has a straight bottom. There is no bottom seam ... Shaggy, Shaggy little man! Use a small seam allowance and don't worry about the smoothness of the cuts -- the hackety way fleece often cuts helps to be more SHAGGY SHAGGY SHAGGY!!!Materials - lightweight to medium weight fleece
* Front 4 x (12.5 x 8.35)
* Back (12.5 x 16.5)
* Pockets 2x (5 x 3)
Thread -- it doesn't quite matter if it matches
2 covered hook & eye closures
Please forgive the color quality on the picture of the vest!
What to doCut one panel of front vest, use that panel to make the lining panel. Use the panel flipped to make other front panel and lining. Use one each of the two front panels to make the back panel (but have a straight bottom rather than curved at the sides. If you want to make the vest reversible, put the pockets in before you sew the vest panels together.
Make VestPin together lining and fabric of each panel and sew together. Then attach shoulder and side seams. Do not sew the bottom seams. Sew on the hook and eye closures on the outside (The non shaggy vest wearers hide them inside, for a discreet look -- but we are SHAGGY SHAGGY SHAGGY!)
Want pockets?If you would like pockets grab a wee car or whatever your guy likes to put in pockets and make a rectangle larger than that and add 1.5 inches or more for a hem at the top of the pocket. Turn over the hem, top stitch. Top stitch pockets in place. (For my pockets I used a wee car -- hot wheel sized -- it ended up about 5 x 3 inches.
How to make the pattern pieceYou could wing it like I did; wing it but use the measurements on the picture below or copy the picture to an image processing software and print it at the right size using the measurements shown on the picture.
N.B.
Who is the shaggy man? He is from the OZ books by L Frank Baum. He is wise, kind, quiet, merry and antimaterialistic -- you've met similar characters in all sorts of fiction! Here is a link to the wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_Man At our house the OZ books are the main "immersion theme" these days -- you know what I mean ... at some houses it is Thomas, or princesses, Batman, Spiderman or even the Tick. At ours just now Tin Tin has been alternating with the Land of Oz.
