Dr. Seuss Week Projects for the Coolest kid at Daycare

I'm not sure what's wrong with me lately. I used to be so practical. For some reason, when parents got the email that it was Dr. Seuss week at daycare this week and given the theme of each day, practical was out the window. For pajama day, I HAD to make Dr. Seuss pajama pants. For Wacky Wednesday, I HAD to make the Cat in the Hat's hat. Had to. This might make sense to some, but for those who know me, it's quite out of character. I'm the mom who didn't get her son a Christmas present for his first Christmas because he was only 9 months old and didn't know it was Christmas. The mom who wouldn't have dressed him for Halloween because he didn't trick-or-treat or eat candy. Luckily his grandma stepped in and bought him that first costume before he was even born. Boy was he ever adorable...

I probably spent as much time analyzing the reasons for this sudden change of heart as I did with the projects. It's a very recent development for me (as seen in this post), putting so much effort into such little things, knowing he would be just as happy if I didn't do it. He's such a great little dude! Anyway, I came up with a few things that make no sense.

1. I'm determined to make him the coolest kid at daycare. I was never the coolest kid anywhere. I was always chunky and shy, but at least I was always described as "nice". Maybe this is some odd effort on my part to make sure my kid is cool. Because it's SOOO important when you're 3 ;)

2. I'm 33 weeks pregnant with baby 2. That second part is important. Because I remember what it was like that first year with baby 1. I didn't even start sewing until he was just over a year old because I was simply too tired. Maybe there's a fear that I won't have time to do what I love because baby 2 might not sleep through the night for a long while either.

3. I'm pregnant. Yes, I said that before. But with this pregnancy, I've just been doing some weird things for no real (or sensible) reason. This is my favorite explanation. Pregnancy crazy. Way to be a stereotype.

If you have managed to hang out this long, you're awesome. And probably confused. On to the projects! I'll start with the end result of both because A. He's so cute and B. You can check out faster. You're welcome!

Pajama pants were the theme for Monday. Mommy got a break on Tuesdays Crazy sock day (although for a fleeting moment I considered making dinosaur socks) and Wednesday was Wacky. I figured the hat was a little wacky. Plus, he loves hats. You can tell because of the posing :)

I don't really have much to report on the pants. I bought the Dr. Seuss fabric for this exact purpose probably a year ago. That pretty much sums up how I roll. Big plans, but not a whole lot of follow through. Thankfully, daycare came up with this event to push me along.

I used this tutorial because it was by far the easiest one I found. I only had 2 issues, which is not bad for me. 1. My son doesn't have pajama pants, so I used a pair of jeans as my template. I ended up with the first pair of pants being too small because they wouldn't go over the hips. I did not account for the fact that the jeans were smaller because they open up over the hips. 2. I was trying to save fabric (which didn't work out anyway because of #1), so I ended up a little short on the legs. But this allowed me to add the stripes to the bottom, which I thought was a cute little addition.

There's a bit more on the hat. It just took longer and I added some extra stuff. Don't mind the basting stitches I left in the brim and the top of the hat. I should have taken those out before I took the picture, but it was already 12:30 and I just couldn't wait. 

I had intended to fully use Mama Lusco's tutorial however, I didn't start until the night before Wacky Wednesday and realized last minute that I had to pay for a Scribd account to access the pattern pieces. Luckily, I found this post and sort of flipped back and forth between the two. Both are great.

The one thing I wanted to change was to add interfacing. It looked fine in both posts, but I was sure that my hat wouldn't stand without some interfacing. I bought it intending for it to circle the entire hat, but quickly found I didn't buy enough. So I did this instead.

Keep in mind, I have no clue what I'm doing, but I cut a few strips to the length of the hat and hoped they would be enough to keep it standing upright. It ended up working thankfully!

I ended up spacing them semi-evenly and sewing them on. I was going to be all lazy (or practical depending on how you view it) and use fabric glue, but as I was cleaning the dried glue out of the cap, I inadvertently dumped the glue out of the bottle. Luckily, my big fat gut was in the way so none of it spilled onto the carpet. Yay!

I also put interfacing in the brim. On the left is the felt. I just used that as a template and cut one of the same size from the interfacing. Then I cut a bit off of the inside and the outside so it wouldn't get in the way of my seams. It's craft interfacing so it's pretty thick. All in all, it took more time, but I'm glad I used it. The hat stood pretty well on its own. I might have cut one more strip on the hat itself and not made them as long as I did. They did get in the way of the seams a bit. 

All in all, I thought the boy looked adorable (completely unbiased opinion there) and best of all, he was totally in love with what I made for him. Makes the late nights worth it!