Armor Tutorial

Thank you so much for all your kind words ~ I hope your little ones enjoy these as much as my boys have ... Please excuse the not so great picture ~ wind blowing, sun setting, in a hurry ... you know the story. For some action shots go here. So here goes fellow bloggers ~ read lots of these things but never written one. Please let me know if anything is confusing.

You will need:

Felt for armor

Contrasting felt for applique

4 inches or so of sew on Velcro

Glue stick like this (not mandatory but helps when working with the Velcro)

I made each piece of armor to fit my boys. I measured the width of their shoulders (like where the seam of a shirt would be) and then from their shoulders down to where I wanted (waist / middle of bottom / knees) to get the length you desire. Here are my boys measurements in case you are making this from afar from your little knight: Henry (a tall 4 1/2 yr old) is 12" wide and to hit mid-bottom 18" long. John (a tall 2 yr old) is 5 1/2" wide and 15" long. Just a note for John's size - I wish I had made the length a wee bit longer.

Once you have your measurements, fold felt in half and cut your rectangle on the fold. The fold is where you are going to cut out the neck – no seams – yae!

To make the opening for the neck measure 2 ½ inches in from the side on both sides and 2 inches down from the fold. Draw your rectangle and cut your opening.

Take the felt scrap you just cut from the main piece and cut in half long ways. In other words – make the cut down the middle so that it is a long and skinny rectangle ~ this is going to be your straps for the side.

Take your straps and on one end of each sew the ‘soft’ part of your Velcro. (I used the fabric glue instead of pins to hold the Velcro in place.) I found out the hard way that Velcro attaches itself to felt … so we are going to put the piece that is a bit tougher on the actual armor.

Now to attach your straps to the armor. I attached the straps to the outside back (whatever side you deem to be so if you aren't ahead of the game and already did an applique) and had the matching Velcro on the outside front. I felt this would be easier for little hands to manage (all about independence here!). Attach the end of the strap without Velcro to the armor about half way down and two to three inches onto the felt. Repeat on the other side.

Now to attach the ‘hard’ part of your Velcro. Find where your strap’s Velcro meets the front and sew Velcro on (right on the edge of the armor).

Embellish as you wish or should I say as your knight wishes! For my little royalty I just enlarged clip art and then cut it out on felt and used the zig zag stitch to attach.

If you have a princess who requires a crown, or your knight prefers a cape to armor, you should check out these great tutorials - here, and here, respectively.

I would love to see photos if you decide to make some armor! Make sure you leave me a comment so I can come take a peek ;-) Up next are the tutorials for the shield and the dagger / sword. Stay tuned!