Kids Clothing Week Challenge: Day 3

Day 3 has been somewhat more productive than days 1 and 2: behold the Little Heartbreaker Pants!

The shirt is blogged about here and is also sewn by me.  The awesome Kermit the Frog hoodie, though, is sadly not.  Back on topic, I love this pants pattern.  It's got lots of interesting details like Hong Kong finishes and sewn on cuffs.  It was actually my first time doing the Hong Kong seam finish and also the turn and stitch finish (which I didn't like too well, but mostly I think it was difficult with this thick corduroy material).

Too bad the pants are waaaay big on him.  It's better, really, since summer is coming and he won't be needing them (much) til the fall.  I was hoping to make him some shorts for summer, but I'm thinking I'll go back to the Kickin' Back Sweats pattern and try and tweak it a bit to be the right size.

Obviously he's about ready for this week to be over so he doesn't have to model his new clothes anymore (as if that's gonna happen haha).

The material is from a very large corduroy dress (I can't imagine wearing a corduroy dress, especially in that size, that thing was heavy!) which my mom gave me and I think she probably got at the thrift store.  That makes these pants pretty much FREE which I always like.  Other than, of course, the buttonhole elastic which I most certainly did not have any of lying about.  There's a bit of it left, though not enough to do much with.

I'm actually more proud of the inside of these pants than the outside.  Check that out: I made that bias tape.  MADE IT!  I've never even used bias tape before.  By the way, I don't think that's how you do Hong Kong seams but it worked for me.  The book's explanation is very vague.

I also have yet another raglan tee almost done; it just needs the neckband sewn on.  And I went to Goodwill today and got a bunch of new fabrics and a few old sheets...  I'm already thinking about what's next.

KCWC Day 2

Day 2 yields no pics, but great progress.  I am 90 percent finished with my first run of the Little Heartbreaker Pants from Sewing for Boys.  All they lack are cuffs and elastic.  I'm actually pretty surprised that they went so quickly considering how, erm, professional? they look (because that's what Dj really needs: more professional attire).  I love the Hong Kong finish, too, though it makes the inside of the pants look a little busy.  Barring any major disasters or distractions tomorrow morning, Dj should be wearing them tomorrow.  With a little bit of luck there may be a new shirt too...  Pics tomorrow guaranteed!

Kids Clothing Week: Day 1

 Day 1 of KCWC is quickly coming to a close.  I don't have much to show for it, but I'm not too disappointed.  I actually didn't know it was coming until two days ago so I haven't had much prep time.  Today I finished this eye shirt (I don't know if you can tell, but yes: it's a big drawing of an eye).  I actually didn't have much to do to finish it, but I spent the rest of the morning cutting out the rest of the pieces for my first pair of Little Heartbreaker Pants.  Actually, I also spent the better part of the morning in the fabric store trying to order refills for my rotary cutter which was no fun and really cut into my sewing time =P

 Since it was such a beautiful day (for Seattle in April) we went to the zoo so Dj could model his new eyeball shirt.  Of course, he wasn't terribly interested in striking a pose whilst there were fences and balls to be climbed.

And the nitty gritty: the pattern is once again the Raw Edge Raglan Tee and the material is (as usual) a 99 cent thrifted tee.  You can't really tell from these pictures but I had an eyeopening moment today where I realized I've been using the twin needle wrong.  I thought there was a special stitch setting for it but there is not.  Now my topstitching is all pretty and correct!  Hopefully tomorrow will have most of a new pair of trousers.

Things I'm Excited About...

I love the online sewing community.  It's not all neatly compiled on one website (like Ravelry is for knitters, ahem) so you have to do a lot of surfing to find what you're looking for, but it's very active.  I love that a lot of people host challenges and sew-a-longs on their blogs.  I just found this challenge here through a link from another blog, and I am so excited to participate.  Why?  Since I've mostly been sewing kids clothes since I started anyway...  Well, the word challenge to me means it's time to step it up.  I'm planning on making a few more t-shirts, but also a pair of Little Heartbreaker Pants, at least one pair of shorts, and maybe even a Henry shirt.  And if there's more time, well, I've got more fabric!  I'm ready! As a matter of fact, since it starts today I suppose I've technically already finished half of my one hour requirement for day 1.  Not that that'll stop me ;-)

My Pet Robot

One more shirt from the raw edge raglan pattern:

The orange shirt was 99 cents at the thrift store and the grey I used for the sleeves and neckband came from a shirt a friend gave me (which I noticed when I got home was slightly bleach stained).  So all in all this shirt cost a dollar!

 I have enough of the orange to do short sleeves on another shirt, so watch out for that.  It's kind of hard to see, but the front has an awesome drawing of a robot sitting beside a record player listening to headphones. Then there's a person leaning up against the robot's leg with another set of headphones coming from the same player.  The tag on the shirt says "My Pet Human" which I thought was cute.  I could not get a decent shot of it, though, so it'll have to wait til he's not wearing it.

I'm really happy with the results on this shirt.  All the seams are finished (unlike in the original pattern) and I only used the double needle for topstitching on the collar and the hems.  I didn't like the way it looked on the raglan seams on the shirts I've done so far.  I'm very happy with it and I feel like I've got a pretty good beat on this pattern (that's always a good feeling).

That's Not Right....

I've been looking at this for 3 days now thinking that's just not right

Finally I had an epiphany.  Pants have two separate legs; I'm thinking of skirts.  I've been trying to make a pair of Kickin' Back Sweats (my second pattern from Sewing for Boys).  While I'm really liking this book so far, and I think it has a lot of great info for less experienced sewers (ahem, like me) such as what needle and stitch to use and what fabrics will work well for which patterns, sometimes I'm just beyond all reasonable help.  But I digress.  I had an epiphany, and five minutes later (after snapping this pic for purely comical reasons) I had this:

times two of course.  I was pleasantly surprised how shortly thereafter I had this:

and still had time to sew up another raw edge raglan before el monstruito woke up.  I already had the pieces cut out so it was all sewing.  Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to get to the fabric store for a new twin needle.  On the bright side, though, I now have a better understanding of why it's recommended.  C'est la vie eh?

You can see the pants are kinda long.  They're made from a thrifted sweatshirt and the cuffs were the waistband of the sweatshirt so they're ribbed.   (Yet another pattern where you can have nice finished edges without the finishing when you start with recycled materials).  Rolled up they're the perfect length.... and he'll grow.  Oddly, the shirt is a lengthened 4/5 and it fits perfectly.  The pants are a 2/3 and they're huge!  He must take after me: long torso and short legs.  Either that or the sizing on these patterns is a bit off.  That's why it's so imperative to measure you're little guy and refer to the sizing chart at the front.

The shirt is super soft with neon designs: some sort of writing on the back and this crazy looking scarecrow with a Chinese kind of hat on the front, all in neon orangey-pink.  I had to put the lettering upside down on the back (so presumably it's nonsensical) to squeeze four sleeves and a front and back out of this one shirt.  I'm not sure what it's made of since there was no English lettering anywhere on the tag but it seemed kind of sticky on the iron without actually melting so I think there's some elastic or something mixed in there with the cotton.

It wasn't quite warm enough to continue jacket-less, but it was nice enough to break out the sidewalk chalk!

Check out that concentration!  All in all: love these patterns, love that baby, love summer (wish it would get here!)

Surf's Up

 This is my second Raw Edge Raglan from Sewing for Boys.  I was so excited about the success of the first one and the fact that he actually wore it all day long (which is rare with any clothing at this point) that I was motivated to finish #2.  As a matter of fact, I finished the first one yesterday morning and finished this one last night, so this is definitely a quick pattern.  It's a good time for sewing, too, because spring is slowly coming on and we haven't bought Dj his summer wardrobe yet.  We even found a caterpillar while we were outside modeling today...

And it apparently looked delicious...

But don't worry because no caterpillars were harmed in the making of this post--just severely annoyed for a brief period of time.  And because the worst picture of your face is always the best picture of the garment (or am I the only one who's noticed that) I present this:

The sleeves and body of this shirt are from two different 99 cent thrift store shirts.  The blue shirt I already have cut and pinned for a single color version and there's enough of the green to do sleeves and collar on another one.  All in all I feel like this is a pretty thrifty way to build Dj's summer shirt wardrobe and brush up/build my sewing skills.  I've got my first pair of pants started which will hopefully lead to some homemade shorts as well.  I am having some problems getting my sewing machine to do what I want it to do but I think once I get a copy of the manual that'll help.  Oh, and I broke my twin needle trying to sew through too many layers on the collar so no more topstitching for me til next week =(  I had to use an alternate stitch on the neckband collar and it looks awful.  Lucky for me he's cute enough to pull it off.

Successes and Failures

Sometimes it amazes me just how much time and money I'm willing to waste in my quest to do it without a pattern... Knitting, sewing, whatever. I like tutorials but, I'll be honest, I enjoy the mindlessness of working from a pattern sometimes--especially when I don't really know what I'm doing.

I found this tutorial for a little boy's shirt on Cirque du Bebe which I am totally addicted to. She has done some very inspiring versions of the 90 minute shirt. The tutorial has you draft a pattern from an old shirt and it's got a cute little lapped collar (is that what you'd call it? I don't even know.

On my first version I forgot to add seam allowances... but only to the bottom half of the shirt. For some reason I thought it'd be okay to just add them on to the top half which hadn't been cut yet. The result was pretty much unwearable, or, at the very least, a bit too far off the shoulders for a little boy. Plus, I used a straight stitch instead of zigzag which isn't stretchy enough.

Version 2 was done with some old sheets that were lying around. While better, the stretch of the fabric ran perpendicular to the pattern so it just looks weird. I know Dj doesn't much like wearing it.  I think this pic says it all =P

Version 3 was the first one I went all out on; I went and bought a thrifted shirt for 99 cents, ribbing from the fabric store for significantly more than that, used a zigzag stitch, did french seams (why? i don't recall). Unfortunately, the shirt is a bit tight in the armholes and Dj hates wearing it, too.

On Version 4 the fit is all right but a bit loose in the body and Dj still doesn't like wearing it. I finally decided that it's the neck detail (which I thought was soo cute) that he doesn't like!

That's a pretty cool graphic, though, right?  Oh, and on this version I pulled the ribbing waaaaaay too tight so the neckline has this weird scalloped effect to it.

Finally I bought a pattern. Actually, I bought the book Sewing for Boys and used the raglan pattern out of it. I measured Dj and opted for the 4/5 size with a bit of length added. The first one fit perfectly even though I had some problems cutting out the pattern pieces and ended up making the back piece lower on top (and as a result had to make a longer neckband) which was still almost impossible to stretch enough.  But finally a shirt he doesn't mind wearing!

There will be more of these to come. As a matter of fact I have one almost finished (just need to finish sewing on the collar and hem it) and another one mostly cut out (just deciding on sleeves). I finished the first one this morning, so they're definitely quick to make. As a matter of fact, if you strategically plot your pattern pieces onto thrifted shirts you can even get finished edges without doing any finishing!

Coffee, Tea, Shrug?

With the epic failure of my recent sewing and crochet efforts I need to give myself a little back pat for a more successful knitted endeavor. I'm in need of some new shrugs; I love them for warmer weather to dress up/warm up an outfit and with baby impending I certainly don't plan on any full sweaters any time soon.

The pattern is Flowers After the Frost from Ravelry and here is the direct link. I've been wanting to try a pattern of this shape to see how I like it and I couldn't resist the beautiful lace pattern on this shrug. The written instructions are dizzying but Tribute has a nice, easy-to-read chart. For slightly longer sleeves I cast on 104 stitches (basically an extra half repeat on each side of the original 78 stitches). My original plan included ribbing on the sleeves, but I ended up liking the way they looked after blocking.

It still isn't quite warm enough here for short sleeves, but here I am hanging out with our sad looking hyacinths trying to stay warm.


The yarn is from a recycled thrift store sweater; I can't remember the exact blend but it's got angora and it's oh so soft! I dyed the yarn with coffee, tea, apple cider vinegar, cinnamon, and a little bit of anything yellow, brown, or gold that wasn't nailed down! It's held double for about a light worsted weight or heavy DK and I used size 7 needles for a nice open lace. I have enough dyed yarn to do a matching fairy hat and enough undyed to do another shrug, with longer sleeves I think... I just have about a million things to do first! Oh yeah, and look: I found some new tricks in Picasa which I'm pretty psyched about

Stashbusting Eternity Scarf

If you're like me you have all these pretty scraps of yarn from leftover projects lying around that you just can't seem to part with. Someday... someday I'll find a use for them I said. I also had a few other things lying around; a few super bulky yarns that I could not think of a use for and a free cotton/silk blend sweater whose sleeves were easily undone but (surprise!) the body was serged. I was inspired by a thread on Ravelry making ruthless fun of this scarf: which I thought could be pretty cool...

First I swatched with those super bulky yarns that needed to be used. I found my largest needles (size 15) weren't big enough for the fabric I wanted. Some sharpened dowels did the trick, though. They're probably similar in size to US size 20 needles (I'd guess, obviously I don't have any size 20s so I can't say for sure).

I provisionally cast on about 14 stitches with waste yarn using a crochet cast on. Then I used yarn 1 and knit 2 rows. Cut yarn 1. Now there are two yarn 1 tails; one beginning and one end tail. Use yarn 2 to knit 2 rows. Cut yarn 2. Then tie the beginning yarn 2 tail to the end yarn 1 tail.



You can see a close up of the knotted fringe above. Continue in this fashion until it's as long as you want; mine is about 9 feet long and I can wrap it around two or three times. If you're using different weight yarns hold lighter weight yarns double or triple so that they knit up similarly to the heaviest yarn. Then graft the ends together. Alternatively, you could do a regular cast on and bind off for a regular scarf or you could twist before grafting for a moebius scarf.