KCW Day 3: Flashback Tee and Fancy Pants Leggings

Posted on January 29, 2014 by oliver's fancy

nope, pants aren’t hemmed yet…had to get the photoshoot in while the getting was good!

Lest little brother feel neglected, I made Day 3 of Kid’s Clothes Week all about him. This little guy is growing at a faster rate than his older brother, and, as a result, all of his hand-me-down winter pajamas are a bit snug. Why buy more when you can make them? Especially when you have such great fabric sitting around.

E’s top is the trusty Flashback Tee in size 12-18 months. (yes he’s 7 months old, why do you ask? 😉 ) and bottoms are the Fancy Pants Leggings- also in size 12-18 months. This was my first time sewing this leggings pattern, and I can see myself coming back to it quite often to make pj pants and shorts for the boys. I would say this pattern would be great for a beginner because the designer really holds your hand throughout the entire construction process. The only changes I would make next time would be to make the rise higher in the back because it was way too low on E’s big cloth-diapered bum.

And now that I’ve made 3 garments from the same fabric, I think it’s time to move on to something else. I have in mind another Bimaa for O from some cool red/blue stripes I’ve been saving. 4 more days left in this challenge so still lots of opportunities to sew! Make sure you head over to the Flickr pool to see all the fun clothes everyone has been making. Also check out the #kidsclothesweek hashtag on Instagram for even more action shots.

Halloween 2013

Posted on November 4, 2013 by oliver's fancy

While I really wanted to make Oliver a handmade costume this year for Halloween, I also knew that practically I would not have much time to make said costume. I also didn’t want to spend hours on something that would be worn once and then discarded. I went through lots of ideas until I saw this post on KCW making a kid’s tee with a cape sewn into the shirt. What a brilliant idea! Oliver has some Batman pajamas given to him by a friend and he absolutely loves to wear them so what better costume for him?! Plus I had an old gray polo of Ian’s and a black knit dress of mine just waiting around in the upcycle bag so no shopping was required.

I used my trusty Flashback Skinny Tee pattern in a 3T and followed this tutorial for the cape. It’s sewn into the shoulder seam while the shirt is being constructed. I didn’t have quite enough of the polo for long sleeves so I added black cuffs. I considered attempted freezer paper stenciling for the batman logo but I didn’t have any paint at home so I went with applique instead. I traced out the bat logo from Oliver’s pajama shirt onto the same black knit I used for the cape.

The best thing about using the polo is that I was able to keep the existing shirt hem! Less work for me! 🙂

I really wanted to make him a mask and pants to go with the shirt, but there’s no way he’s keeping a mask on his head and he already has gray pants so we went the easy way this year. But I’m very happy that I ended up with a cute costume that can be worn over and over this fall and winter. Sorry we don’t have any really great pictures. Batman was just not in the photo taking mood this past week!

Kid’s Clothes Week Wrap-Up

Posted on April 30, 2013 by oliver's fancy

Day 4

At least one part of his body always seems to be in motion!

As I was debating what tee to make Thursday, I realized that Oliver “needed” a birthday shirt for his 2nd birthday on Friday. I had a super soft brown thrifted women’s XL shirt that I was saving for an appliqued tee and decided to use that for my shirt base. Once again, I used the trusty flashback skinny tee pattern. Since this was my 4th flashback tee, it came together super fast. I am really interested to notice how the different knit fabrics look different with the same size pattern- because this was really stretchy and soft material, it fits quite a bit bigger than his other shirts.

I spent forever trying to decide what kind of birthday applique I wanted to use. In the end, I spelled out TWO on his shirt because now it’s a shirt he can wear the entire year, not just on his birthday. It would have been easier if I had found a font I liked and traced the letters, but I can never do things the easy way so I free-handed the letters and took quite a while getting them just right. I used heat n bond lite to applique the letters to the tee and sewed around them for added security. I really like how this turned out! Of course Oliver did not cooperate super well for our mini-photoshoot but I have a few useable shots for you.

enjoying his yummy birthday cake 🙂

Day 5: Oliver’s birthday. I had planned to do a little sewing during his nap but after making his cake and playing with him all morning, I was too wiped out to sew and ended up napping myself. Oh well. We had a really fun day together and doesn’t that cake look good!? My car loving little man thought it was great.

Day 6-7: Had a reaction to something I ate on Friday night and had horrific indigestion/heartburn for 2 straight days….meaning no sewing or anything else for that matter. 😦 Getting ready to get this little brother out into the world so my body can go back to normal- only 5.5 more weeks!

Day 8:

I really wanted to complete a pair of shoes for the baby during KCW so I decided it could last one more day in order for me to meet my goal. I was going to use the shoe pattern from Handmade Beginnings, but found this adorable tutorial for TOMS and decided I must try it out using my leftover red denim from the boys’ pants. These took forever! I enlarged the pattern to where it should have been a size 6-9 months, but they ended up so tiny I don’t know if they’ll even fit a newborn. Fingers crossed this baby doesn’t have the gargantuan feet his older brother has! I know I’m a bit slow now with my pregnancy brain, but I really did not like this tutorial. I found it hard to follow, and she left out some details that would have been helpful. I also don’t like how it ends up with exposed seams in the inside of the shoe. Seems uncomfortable for a baby. I had to do lots of seam ripping with these shoes because I made so many mistakes, and in the end, I still ended up with 2 left feet. Oh well. Hopefully they’ll fit the little man for a few days at least so I can get some cute pictures. And maybe, I’m just super slow these days and the rest of y’all will have no problems following this tutorial! Let me know if you do try it!

And that wraps up another KCW… Total of 4 tees, 1 dress shirt, 1 pair of quick change trousers, and 1 pair of baby toms. Not too bad of a list in my opinion.

Kid’s Clothes Week Day 3: Another Flashback Tee

Posted on April 24, 2013 by oliver's fancy

Day 3:

Finished Dress Shirt from Day 2: hemmed sleeves and finished off all side seams
Blue Stripe Flashback Tee completed

Sure hope you are not tired of seeing these flashback skinny tees because I am most definitely not tired of making them. 🙂 We have been so blessed to have quite a few clothes passed down to us from various people, but as I was going through Oliver’s summer wardrobe, he really does need some dressier tees and dress shirts so that’s what I am focusing on this KCW.

This blue stripe tee is one of my faves so far. It’s from an old tank top that I picked up at a thrift store a while back in order to have practice knits. It’s a nice thick jersey material but super stretchy, so it definitely was the hardest knit I’ve worked with yet. I had barely enough fabric to make this tee…had to do some creative layout and cutting to get my shirt.

Thankfully I was able to use the existing hem for the bottom of the shirt and only had to hem the sleeves. Also because this is super stretchy, I could use the fabric itself for the neck binding, and it fits over Oliver’s head! I was debating on adding a pocket to the tee but as I was cutting the pocket out, nap time ended so I decided that was my sign to be done with the tee. 🙂 Tomorrow my goal is to attempt a polo refashion. Wish me luck!

Kid’s Clothes Week: Days 1&2- Flashback Skinny Tees and Quick Change Trousers

Posted on April 23, 2013 by oliver's fancy

Day 1:

I got so much done today and am quite proud of myself! I could not believe how quickly the flashback skinny tee whipped up! It helped that in my last sewing machine mastery class (for my amazing Bernina! 🙂 ) they taught us how to sew with knits- which stitches to use and how to adjust the presser foot tension. That made the tee an easy project. Based on Oliver’s measurements, I made him the 24 month size (adding 1 inch in length) to begin with, but I didn’t want to make any more until he tried it on for fit. I used the existing hem for the sleeve which made it an even quicker sew!

Since that project went super fast, I still had time before nap time was over, and I sewed up a pair of quick change trousers for baby bro. The red side matches with Oliver’s tuxedo parsley pants, and I hope that I get a chance to have the boys wear the pants together because I think that would be super cute. 🙂 The other side is just a fun multi-colored stripe that I have been eyeing as pants for Oliver but thought they might be a bit too crazy.Thankfully you can get away with a bit more on a little baby! I made the size 0-3 months, but I didn’t have quite enough red denim left so they are a bit short. I just won’t roll up the cuff and I think they’ll be fine.

The 24 month tee ended up *just* fitting Oliver (really too small for his head but we made it work) so I knew I would need to make the 2T size if I want the shirts to last more than just a few weeks. He got to bed pretty early last night, and I couldn’t stop thinking about finishing the shirts, so I went ahead and made the 2T size last night… this pattern is addicting! I figured out how to salvage and reuse the existing neck ribbing because I only have gray ribbing, and I have discovered that if I don’t use ribbing, the neck openings are too small to fit over Oliver’s head. Happy to report that the 2T fits great! And I can’t believe how professional this shirt looks! Yay me 🙂 . Oh I must explain one thing, these are my hubby’s old shirts, and he loves them dearly. I find the green shirt to be a bit disturbing (especially on my 2 year old), but I needed something that I didn’t care about that much to check fit with and it makes hubby happy to give new life to his old shirts, so I guess everyone wins… just no one in blogosphere freak out that I’m encouraging my son to go after animals…he’s quite in love with animals actually. 🙂

Day 2:

Oliver is in major need of some dressier shirts so I thought I would see about remixing the flashback tee into a button down shirt. I really had no idea what I was doing, but since I was using one of Ian’s old shirts, I figured I had nothing to lose. I also used Oliver’s short sleeve dress shirt as a general guide to how this shirt needed to come together. I added about 1.5″ to the shirt width on the 2T size FST. It was so cool to use the existing hem and button placket and see the shirt come together. I even seam-ripped the old pocket and cut it down to size.

The only tricky part of this shirt was the collar, and up until I did it, I really had no idea what I was going to do. I cut off the entire collar section from the old shirt, sewed it onto the new shirt, and then folded and sewed the actual collar down to make it a bit smaller. It works, but I kinda forgot that you can see the seams on the shirt inside when the collar isn’t buttoned and they are a bit messy there. I’ll have to figure out something else when I try this again. On a side note, all my other seams look great because I finished them off nicely! Oh and I thought the collar would be too big, but for some reason the toddler neck size was the same as the adult neck size…hmmm.

I waited to finish off the sleeve hem until he tried it on after naptime so you’re seeing the shirt without a sleeve hem but with everything else finished. We are doing really low-key photo shoots this week since most of my time will be spent sewing and I (hopefully) will have lots of finished projects to report to you. I was also pretty happy that this shirt only took me about 90 min from start to finish. I’m pretty sure I will be even faster the next time. Let me tell you, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Oliver tried the shirt on and it fit! The shoulders are a teensy bit tight but everything else is perfect with a bit of room to grow! Now I’m on to scour through Ian’s clothes and see what else I can re-purpose. This gets addicting, I tell you. 🙂