Boy sewing: tees

Here we go, a series of posts about my recent spree of sewing for my boys.  Today it's all about tees.

I rarely buy a t-shirt for my boys that has any kind of decoration on it (none of that "American sports" kind of stuff that seems to be ubiquitous in the department stores here).  I usually end up with stripes, I love my boys in stripes, or just plain shirts that I can add a little decoration to.

Recently I bought some plain long sleeved tees for my oldest boy.  I think he's getting a bit old for some of the designs I've done for him in the past, like dinosaurs and pirates.  He wanted t-shirt decoration though so I ended up opting for a red and white striped star on a navy tee.  The striped fabric comes from a t-shirt refashion that I did for my little boy last week.

There was also a request for a dolphin t-shirt...but as we are seeing out the last days of summer here he was happy to let me dolphin up an old blue t-shirt.  To do that I had to pick the pocket off the old t-shirt, yes, you can totally see where the pocket was can't you!  Never mind, we're not that fussy.  Not to let that little pocket go to waste I sewed it straight onto a long sleeved grey t-shirt for the coming winter.  Gives a great pop of colour don't you think?

For my little boy I've been experimenting with making knit tops from scratch.  I made him a long sleeved tee out of a large sized men's t-shirt I bought for $5.  I followed a few tutorials on Made to draft a pattern and sew the shirt.  I used the hemline of the original t-shirt for the body, and squeezed in one sleeve from the hemline, but the second sleeve needed me to sew the wrist hem, which I did with a straight stitch and I suspect the stitches will break there, this sewing with knits thing is a learning curve in process.  I'm dreaming of ordering some cool and funky knit fabrics from the internet but I want to test wash and wear a few garments first.

Someone wants to put the lens cap back on my camera, so that's it for now folks!

Double trouble

  

My tally of sewing for Celebrate the Boy 2013 is starting to look impressive but I'm now officially lagging behind at sharing it here on my blog.  There's been a few troubles getting in my way.

Trouble 1: the weather has been terrible with moments of brilliance.  It's been mostly true that when I considered getting camera in hand and organising some photography it's either about to rain, raining or just finished raining, or failing that it's been awfully overcast or the wind was blowing too hard (I do most of my photography outside).

Trouble 2: last week I had tonsillitis, this week my little man has a virus infection and is feeling very poorly.  We've been frequenting the doctors rooms more than we would like.  Illness has been making us tired and in bad spirits.

Hopefully we'll have a restful and healing weekend and be back with a lovely boy sewing round up next week.  

Hope you enjoy your weekend too.

The flip vest: take 2

After a week of wresting with patterns, printers and practice runs I now have a flip vest for each of my boys.  I sized the pattern up slightly to make one for my six and half year old (hence the practice runs), but I'll get to that one in a little while, I'm still sewing on the last buttons. Today I'm showing off this version for my toddler.

I found that I had a few issues with my printer which was downsizing the pattern slightly, which is partly to blame for my first attempt ending up too small.  I think though that even if the pattern had printed at correct size the first time around I would have gone up a size in the end anyway.  Just to put the nail in the coffin on my first version I attempted to use some snap closures, but I suspect due to the thickness of fleece and drill fabric together that they just wouldn't hammer in properly and got a little bent (either that or I'm a real klutz when it comes to wielding a hammer...), so those snaps just weren't going to do up, no matter how hard I squeezed with my poor fingers.  No snap.

So here's the new version, complete with shiny, red buttons.  The button holes were no big deal and you can still reverse the vest, the buttons just go hiding on the inside and that's fine with me (and him).  For today's photo shoot, I bring you a raid on our CD collection...whatever works, right?

He wore this vest to school drop off for his big brother in the rain this morning, it was Perfect!

Baba Marta shirt

Today it's the first of March - Baba Marta day in Bulgaria.  People exchange martinitsi with each other which are red and white coloured wristbands, or figurines, that symbolise health and happiness.  Over there of course its the end of winter and the coming of spring.  You are supposed to take off your martinitsi when you see the first signs of spring.

Today I was in the local second hand shop and I saw this great red and white striped ladies t-shirt.  For $3 it looked like the perfect thing to try out a bit of sewing with knits.  I took it home and started to cut it up - what do you know, it's made in Bulgaria.  It was then I remembered it's Baba Marta day, too amazing!

While the little one napped I made a quicky pattern for a t-shirt by tracing around one of his store bought shirts and on a wing and a prayer sewed it together.

I absolutely cannot believe this worked and it fits!  

I'm not sure that hem band will last the distance, it's a bit too stretchy, but I can always cut it off and put a blue one on to match the neck ribbing.  I might add some decoration to it later, but for now I'm just basking in this little sewing triumph.

Tshirt made using tutorial by Made
Pants made using Big Butt Baby Pants pattern by Made by Rae

The flip vest: take one

Recently Dana from Made released her latest pattern - the flip vest.  When I saw this pattern I knew I had to make one for each of my boys (one boy might be a bit too big but I'm going to have a go at enlarging the pattern a size or two).

I've been working all day on this vest, the pattern is easy, the instructions are detailed and despite being a relative novice with polar fleece and knit ribbing the whole thing has gone together without a hitch...

...but even after doing a whole lot of pre-sewing measuring and checks I just had this nagging feeling that the 12-24 month size was a little on the small side for my 18 month old.

And yep, when he woke up from his sleep and I gave it a quick try on, it's too small for him.  It's too tight around the chest area, the front just won't overlap to put any kind of fastening on.  Obviously the sizing gods are not smiling on me recently after the too large pants episode.

Oh well, we'll call this a practice run and start over on the next size (the 2-3).  Lucky for me I bought extra fabric so I've got plenty of extra to work with.

Boy fabrics

I'm preparing for boy sewing in the coming weeks, so I went shopping for boy fabrics and came away with these lovelies.

Corduroy, drill, some blue fleece and grey ribbing.

The most prized fabric that I am yet to find is some navy blue pinwale corduroy - I've checked for it twice in the shop already with no success, but they say it's coming.

Off to throw these in the wash and prepare some after school snacks, those boys, they need feeding.

Saturday shop update

One for girls and one for boys, both size 4.  I like to keep things even around here obviously.

Have a great weekend!

My creative space: size up

I bought half a metre of red and blue car corduroy on the cheap last week.  My sole intention was to make a pair of pants for the boy.  Last time I made these I was still using the 6-12 months pattern, I skipped the 12-18 months size and went straight onto the 18-24 months size seeing as he will be 18 months in a few short weeks time.  Aaargh, they're too big!  Never mind, there's plenty of shorts and t-shirt weather around here for a time yet so here's hoping these will be the perfect size for the colder months later in the year.

I love a pair of oversized pants on a kid though, they look so cute and funny.

We had a lot of fun mucking about in his room this morning, there's a huge mirror in there and I quickly realised it's easy to get caught out in the background while taking photos...and I should really have moved that fan to the side before I started...never mind, I'm just showing you to a bit of "real life" around at our place this morning.

Ah so what, let's have a go and some self portraiture while we're at it!  

Joining in with these talented folks today.

Making

Today I finally got caught up in some dressmaking.  

A quiet house and being on top of the domestic work gave me the mental release to spend some blissful hours in the sewing room.

Ah, so many projects, so little time!

The love in the stitches

 Oh how I love my little guy, he's super cheeky with a ready smile, he's got a soft little giggle that he reserves for when something is really funny, or if I tickle his ribs. He's quiet and patient and gentle, and very attached to being in the warm cocoon of our little family.  

But this year it's time for me to start to inch my way forward to a return to some form of paid work outside the home.  For my little guy this means one thing - he has started in daycare.  After a false start with a local commercial daycare operator that neither of us felt comfortable with he now has one day a week at a community based centre in a beautiful setting with beautiful resources and the most friendly and caring daycare staff a mother could wish for.  He seems to be settling in and having fun, and also getting plenty of cuddles when he needs re-assuring.  It's odd for me too in these first weeks, I feel a little empty handed and directionless without him.

To make sure there's plenty of love packed in his bag when he goes for his day I made him a special sleep time blanket.  

I used some fabrics I already had for the top, a vintage nursery print and red gingham, and backed it with a metre of red and white striped flannelette.

  I hand stitched the bias binding on the back, every stitch has a little bit of love and wishes for fun...

...and happy days. 

xx