Double agent wear

I unabashedly admit I'm a sucker for McDonald's toys.

Have been since they first started coming out with Happy Meals when I was a kid.

And though my tastes have thankfully outgrown the food that comes in the box, I can't say the same for some of the playthings.

This month we've been hitting up the drive-through window pretty regularly as The Champ is trying to collect as many Spy Gear toys as he can while the promotion lasts.

Ittybit ... being a mature lady of 8 ... is trying to restrain herself, though she did happily accept the gift of a weaponized cell phone toy.

But I digress.

Thus far The Champ has amassed about a dozen things (not all of them from McD's) that will aid him in his recon missions.

As you might imagine, a dozen techno-toys are pretty difficult to juggle, so he asked me to make him a tool belt in a similar style to Ittybit's garden apron.

Instead I decided to make a SPY VEST:


I started by searching the internet for simple vest patterns. After I found one that looked easy enough to draw I remembered that the dog had eaten the measuring tape. So ... I took a Sharpie and marked approximate measurements on a length of organza ribbon.


Then I drew a pattern like this on folded newsprint.





I used pleather leftover from the Bat Jacket I made two years ago for Halloween  for the vest, black fleece for the pockets and ribbon for loops.

First I hemmed the edges of the collar, arm cuts and outside edges of the vest front and then sewed the shoulders and sides together.

Then I hemmed edges of fleece rectangles which would be the pockets, and top-stitched them to the vest. (I actually gave a little thought to the toys that would go in the pockets and tried to distribute them so that the weight of the gadgets would be evenly distributed.

I folded a narrow length of pleather and stitched them to the top front of vest. I looped a circle of ribbon through the pleather strap so that toys with hanging edges could be inserted.

After that was done I noticed that the vest was a little shorter along the bottom than I had expected (and also uneven) so I hemmed and sewed a length of fleece along the bottom edge to add length and even it up.

 

Finally ... I loaded it up with gear and realized the first thing the kid would say when he tried it on would be ...

"WOW! Mom ... You're the best mom I ever had!"

And the second thing ... after he took it off ...

"It's too heavy, though."