Kids' Clothes Week, the rest - part III

The other thing I did in Kids' Clothes Week (which was how many aeons ago now?) was make a Jack O'Lantern with L. A nice friendly one so as not to freak her out.

I also made the dress she's wearing in that photo. It's the only picture of it I've got so no-one ask for details please. And when I say 'made', what I mean is, took in the sides and sleeves of a merino wool top that I no longer fitted into so that it miraculously became an item of child's clothing. It was Boden too. Guess I'm not a Boden wearer after all.

We also went to the flea market and bought this for T's bedroom wall (tis nearly ready!). He likes trucks.

All in all, the Kids' Clothes Week Challenge was, I think, a good thing for me. I got over my fear of trousers and knits and have since made trousers and a t-shirt for L as well. Plus I got into Sewing for Boys and started making some stuff for T too. It really is a good book with great patterns and clear instructions. So, hurrah!

But I have also realised that blogging is about the lowest of my priorities right now. Then again, I don't do it for anyone else. Posts will henceforth be random, as and when I feel like recording something (should I rename? Jo Crafts for Posterity, anyone??).

Kids' Clothes Week - the rest, Part II

Teaser picture of a finished t-shirt:

I think you can see already the level of quality that I and my sewing machine spewed out this time, no? So perhaps this doesn't come as a surprise:

Yes, that's what I did to my first ever twin needle. The machine gave me an error code which upon consultation of the manual turned out to mean something along the lines of Tangled Thread Meltdown.

No shit, Sherlock.

By some weird miracle I had a spare, which worked like a dream but was a different size. Thus we have this nice hem effect in the front middle of the shirt:

Then I had to seam rip the neckline twice, thus stretching it beyond repair and ending up with a funky wibbly effect.

But he seems to like it. He must do - he lovingly stained it with tomato immediately.

Kids' Clothes Week - the rest, Part I

Oh hello. It's been a while. What with doing my job in half the time these days and having a lot of fun actually sewing when not playing with the littles, I can't quite be bothered to blog. But then when I'm old I'll regret not having recorded all my lovingly handcrafted random crap, so here I am.

And here are T's finished trousers in action.

KCWC Day 1

Kids' Clothes Week Challenge is here! This being the first time I've signed up for any kind of sewing event, I find myself rather excited.

Yesterday was Day One, and I made this:



A pair of trousers, as yet without a waistband. Guess what's on tonight's To Do list??

I had done my prep:

And decided to do some refashioning/upcycling/recykleren on this:

 

Which is more shocking, that I own Boden clothing or that I'm about to chop it up? It's an excellent quality piece of corduroy and was sitting there unworn, as the waistband is inexplicably small compared to the rest of it. 

So - waste not, want not - here goes!  Lay out pattern pieces, just about avoiding the seams:

Trace pattern onto skirt using chalk (the "Halloween" method. Look, ghost trousers!):

Cut! Fun! 

What can I destroy next?? Did someone mention more unworn corduroy? 

 

Nothing better for livening up black cords for a boy toddler than knee pads.

Unfortunately, I didn't think through the implications of cord-on-cord appliqué. It frays and it stretches = not that easy to neatly zig zag round the edge of a circle. Or at all, neatly or not. The eagle-eyed will have noticed that the final knee pads in the picture above are grey. In the end I made them out of an old jersey vest, after A LOT of seam ripping. I got too fed up to bother photodocumenting at that point (I bet you're disappointed).

But hey, I love seam ripping. It's an excercise in zen. Almost as good as the sewing itself*. And thankfully the brown cords have plenty of scope left for other stuff.

~

* not really. But hey, you have to embrace it or this would be the Most.Frustrating.Hobby.Ever.