Another New Sewing Blog

Until recently, like I have read many other people say, sewing knit fabric scared me. I was not scared of buying it, but definitely perplexed about how to use it. Some research, trials and many errors later, I am starting to produce wearable items of clothing! Most of these being toddler size, but that counts, right?! Here are the latest successes...

When I find something that works, I like to stick to it, so all the following t-shirts are made from the Recess Raglan pattern by See Kate Sew. I made the Size 3 for my little guy who is 3 in 2 weeks. The first three I shortened to the Size 2 length, but then J grew overnight and I decided on the Size 3 length for the forth.

Have you checked out Spoonflower yet? Sure you have. A sad lack of cool knit fabrics suitable for little hipster boys available in local fabric shops led me to try out Spoonflower's organic knit. After wading through a few thousand designs, I found many that I loved, but four I could not do without. 

First up is the Woodland print (main body), maroon knit (sleeves) and navy ribbing (neckband). If this print looks familiar, then you may recognise it from Sophie's beautiful shirt. I love this fabric! It is very soft and the perfect weight for t-shirts.

This is an awesome print and now everyone who sees it wants a Lego t-shirt too! It is the Interlocking brick wall - primary print(main body), green knit(sleeves), navy ribbing(neckband). Notice I am not that great at matching up prints at the side seams but hope to improve in the near future.

This is the Little Big Guy tee...his first black t-shirt of many, I'm sure. Medium weight black knit(main body), green ribbing (neckband). The sleeves are the Burlap Houndstooth print by Holli Zollinger. I would happily have any of her designs.

This (main body) is the very special Element Collage Knit by Japanese Designer Nani Iro (Naomi Ito). I bought half a metre from Kelani Fabric to see what it was like and it was just enough for the main body of this tee. This fabric is so soft and a bit sparkly. J is lucky as he gets to have a Nani Iro garment before I do! The sleeves are in a navy ponte knit and neckband is maroon ribbing. Also, this is the tee that I used the Size 3 length so looks a little long on him. I am hoping to get a whole years wear out of this one!

I am yet to cut into the forth knit I got from Spoonflower but have plans for it, so stay tuned for that.

I also made pants! 

These pants are made from the Basic Pant pattern by Dana from Made which she generously makes available for free. This is a one size pattern, Size 2-3, which fits J perfectly right now. I have used the flat front version here with the only modification being to add 5mm to the width of the flat front section for the corduroy pants. The Made blog was one of the first sewing blogs I started reading and inspired me take up sewing again after a long hiatus. Well, it was mainly dreaming and talking about what I wanted to do for a long while, but now I am on track!

I have never been scared of corduroy. Nobody needs to be. It is a great fabric for learning to sew and in my opinion, every child needs cord pants and overalls. This pattern suits my love of the 70's aesthetic for kids pants as they have a bit of a flare. This past winter I felt that J looked his cute best dressing just as I did in the early 90's...in medieval style dresses! Ha! No, the other days I loved cord jeans and fitted tees and turtlenecks. For that matter, I'm quite sure that is how I dressed as a toddler too, being a 70's child.

Here we have pants in blue pinwale cord with the addition of the small pockets on the front (seen in the Lego tee picture above). Below, pants in green pinwale cord and the final picture is pants in black/grey denim. This denim had a slight stretch to it so I omitted the extra width for the flat front and cut as pattern. Both cords and denim were purchased at Spotlight.

I made the grand sweeping statement recently "No store bought clothes shall pass this threshold!". A few disclaimers have been added since then but my quite sensible plan to build a coordinated handmade spring/summer wardrobe for J is off to a pretty good start.

Thanks for reading!