Unfortunately i can’t provide you with a Pattern as lets be honest Bugaboo would probably sue my ass, and well thats not worth much hehe. So the next best thing is; to take a old broken/ripped/faded Bugaboo Donkey Hood/canopy and literally take it apart bit by bit.
PARTS: (check back later to find links to future posts on the below bullet points)
- How to make your own Bugaboo Donkey Hood – Part One
- How to Make your own Pattern – Part Two
- Finding/Using Fabrics and what you need – Part Three
- How to Construct and Sew together your Hood – Part Four
- Bias Binding and how to make your own to match – Part Five
The best, easiest and quickest way to do this is by using a Seam Ripper, its basically a sharp pointed instrument with plastic on the end.. You can purchase these for pennies from any craft shop, including Wilkos, The Range, Asda etc, just look up the mending and fixing stands that sells needles and thread, you can be sure to find one there…. It should look something like this:
The seam ripper is a very precise tool to get through really small stitches and unpick/cut them, without causing any damage to the fabric. You can of course use scissors, but just be careful and take your time to not accidentally cut into the fabric.
I find that by unpicking the finished edge called the Bias binding, that goes all the way round the edge to make it look all neat and tidy. By unpicking all of it, this then enables you to start unpicking all the sections that make up the hood.
Whilst unpicking each section, i whole heartedly recommend that you clearly label every section, i.e top section, front section, even label which part sews to which section and where. Believe me doing this, will save you heaps amount of time and stress later on when you come to cutting and sewing each section. As you can probably tell I’ve done it before, i learnt the hard way, by not labelling anything, cutting it all out and then proceeded banging my head against a brick wall when it wouldn’t sew back together again!!! haha
Ive given every part a Number and a Letter that corresponds to each piece, I’ve duplicated the letters for the pieces that sew over those pieces. So by doing that i know which one goes on which piece and precisely where. If you need to make any further marks that you think will help you in any way then do it, this is your template and entirely upto you on what you do with it.
Once all the pieces have been unpicked and all the loose threads have been pulled out, you will find that most of the pieces will be creased and the original sewn edges will be all uneven. Place all the pieces on a ironing board and using a cool iron, try and flatten out all the pieces to there original state. By doing this, it will make it a lot easier for you to pin them down on your new fabric and cut out.
Check back soon to find other parts on this series on How to Make your Own Bugaboo Donkey Hood.