Pokemon Inspiration for Project Run & Play

I absolutely love sewing along with Project Run & Play. I (pretty much) always love the themes they choose for each week and love that it gets my creativity going. I'm grateful to have the time and energy to sew again now that school is in session. It feels like there is time again to do what makes me happy. Sewing for Elena makes me happy.

This week's inspiration is Pokemon. Andrew is 16 now but Pokemon was huge for him when he was 8 or 9. It's something he had been sharing with Elena for the last couple of years - watching the shows together, looking at his old cards, and he even found the half dozen Pokemon stuffies he had stored away. So this was something they shared even before the Pokemon Go thing hit. It was so cute to see him take his little sister (11 years younger than him) out Pokemon hunting this summer.

We decided to do a loose interpretation of Butterfree since we love butterflies. Who doesn't love butterflies?
                                                

I remembered a skirt that Olivia used to have that had similar colors and in an abstract butterfly print. Perfect. You know I love refashions, but this one makes me extra happy since Olivia has been gone 2 weeks now and this is a way to keep her in our daily lives seeing her clothes on Elena. I remade the skirt into another skirt (boring, I know) and made a long sleeved tee with a butterfly applique.

There isn't much to say about the skirt. All I had to do was cut the waistband off and shorten it in width and height and serge it back onto the skirt bottom. That may have taken all of 6 minutes, but I really love it and so does she.

The t-shirt was based off the bodice portion of the Willow & Stitch Gumnut dress pattern. I like the more feminine neckline it has for a basic tee so it was worth it to make the necessary changes. I just had to extend the overall length and the sleeve length. Easy to do with just a few measurements. The fabric is black interlock that I think came from the remnant bin at Joann's. I had about a half a yard and it was plenty. The neck and sleeves are finished with self bindings instead of bands for a nicer clean finish.

The applique was the fun part. I spent about 2 hours trying out various butterfly shapes and sizes and auditioning all the various scraps. Sometimes having so many options (hello giant scrap bin) makes things so much harder. Elena helped out a lot with this part because I really wanted to feature colors of her choosing. Then I used a washable glue stick to stick it all down before machine stitching everything with matching color threads.

A huge storm blew through Saturday leaving us with gorgeous sunny and cooler weather to attend a Bug Day event at a local park on Sunday. Of course you have to wear your new butterfly outfit to the Bug Day. The park was so crowded though that it was actually hard to find a place to take pictures without photobombers.  This fun monarch butterfly cut-out was lucky though.

Thanks for looking. We'll be back next week with our Autumn inspired look. I don't know which outfit I like better, but I'm sure having fun with these themes. Have a great week.