DIY Cochlear Implant Speech Processer Shirt

I made a few changes .... Update here


I wanted something to encase Seth's speech processor.    We have been clipping the processor to the back of his shirt.  The processor weighs down his shirts and looks pretty awful and I am afraid we will lose it.   If you know Seth, you know he moves A LOT! I was worried about the clip coming off his shirt and us losing the processor.  We ordered a few options from Advanced Bionics; armband, body harness, lanyard ... but they all required the clip to be used.  I am not convinced that the clip can withstand Seth's movements.

I've seen a few shirts online that would meet our needs ... all underwear style shirts that cost 30ish dollars.  A five pack of a-line undershirts are only about 10 dollars ... I am much too frugal for that!!!!

I made one for free ... I had everything on hand.  I used blue thread for this, normally I would use white thread on a white undershirt ;)  I was prototyping and made this in about 10 minutes, with 9 children ... some running amuck and some "helping"  with things like spilling all my pins on the floor.

I took the shirt, folded it from the hem to the armpit, sewed Velcro on for a closure, created the pocket for the processor and closed the hem.  It is not fancy by.any.means ... but it is practical and cheap.

I am going to pick up a five pack of undershirts at WalMart and make a few more.

Before

With the hem folded up to the armpit of the shirt, I used a red marker to mark dots to line up the Velcro for pinning.  Here the two pieces of Velcro are pinned.  I used a 2" Velcro that I cut at a 1" height.

I sewed the Velcro to the bottom hem first.

Then sewed the Velcro onto the body of the shirt.

I created the pocket using a zigzag stitch.  I stitched over it three times.  If I had a serger, I could have done it in one pass, but my sewing machine is a very basic singer model that is over 20 years old, so it does done have any fancy tricks.

I sewed the hem onto the boy of the shirt, leaving the pocket open.

Inserting the processor.

Processor inserted with coil attached.

Wearing the designer duds!  Not bad for free and ten minutes of distracted time.  ... It took me longer to write this blog than it did to make the shirt.

If you are more clever than I, you will see my mistake ... ;)

I did not realize it until I flipped the shirt right-side out ... so I learn ... :)

I believe the pocket is deep enough that the Velcro may be unnecessary.  I am a little paranoid that we will lose the processor, so I will probably make the rest with Velcro.