KCW Days 1&2: Bimaa Hoodie

Posted on January 28, 2014 by oliver's fancy

For my first Kid’s Clothes Week challenge, I give you the Bimaa hoodie. I have two things to say about it…

I’m going to learn to use my serger- STAT
Can there be anything more adorable than a 2 year old in a hoodie? I think not.

But seriously, I absolutely love this pattern and I cannot wait to make many more of them! My only sadness is that I don’t know how to use my serger yet (beginning Craftsy serger class next week!) because that would make this hoodie ridiculously fast to put together. As it is, it’s still a fairly quick and easy pattern. I used my walking foot and a jersey needle for the entire thing and didn’t have any problems with the construction.

The main fabric is a clearance jersey blend knit ($3/yard!!) from Girl Charlee. It isn’t a 4 way stretch like the pattern recommends and as a result, it’s a bit snug on him even though I sized up to the 3T but I kinda like that it shows off a bit of the toddler belly. He loves it and didn’t take it off all afternoon so it’s a win all around. If I use another similar knit, I will size up to the 4T so he will get more wear out of it.

To make this even more perfect, we got snow this afternoon! Y’all it rarely snows here so this is a special occurance. My hubby took O outside to play in the snow, and I coerced him to snap a few pictures of O in his Bimaa before we put his jacket on. Poor little fellow lasted about 2 minutes before he was begging for gloves so I don’t have a good full body shot but thankfully the husband is a master photographer and managed to take these adorable (IMO) pictures in that short period of time.

How I don’t really have a plan for KCW

Posted on January 26, 2014 by oliver's fancy

So yes, as I mentioned before, Kid’s Clothes Week is this coming week- Monday through Sunday. I have every intention of participating in this challenge; however, I have a slight confession to make- I don’t have my project list finished or my work prepped and ready to go. I’ve decided to take it a bit more stream of consciousness this year and see where the week takes me. It’ll be fun, right? (says the girl who lives by her lists!)

But really, I get so inspired from the Flickr group every challenge season that I want to give myself a little more freedom this week to come up with more ideas as the week progresses. I know that I want to make a Bimaa hoodie for Oliver and perhaps one for Eliot too. I’ve got that pattern printed and taped but still need to trace out my correct sizes. I’ve got a pretty stack of washed and folded knits calling my name (purchased from the Fabric Fairy with some giveaway winnings). And I am excited to see what I can accomplish this week! What about you? Are you a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of sewer or do you prefer to have your lists all made out and everything prepped the week in advance? Whatever happens, it’s sure to be a fun week and I look forward to seeing everyone’s accomplishments throughout the week!

Kid’s Clothes Week Winter 2014

Posted on January 21, 2014 by oliver's fancy

Just popping in to remind everyone about KCW coming up next week! I am pretty excited about this coming week because I have some kid sewing projects I am really looking forward to and need this push to get started on them! I’ll be back later in the week to share my list with you…have to finish it first. I hope that many of you will join in with me. The goal is to sew one hour a day for 7 days. Doable for anyone, right? I just love the community that KCW brings and how I get inspired with everyone’s creativity. For more info check out the KCW blog. And this week is giveaway week so you may want to check out some of the cool things they are giving away this week over on the blog as well!

Kids Clothes Week Fall 2013

Posted on October 30, 2013 by oliver's fancy

This past week was Kid’s Clothes Week, and while I am late reporting in on my productivity, I did get a few things finished (or mostly finished) last week. When taking inventory of the boys’ clothes, I realized they could both use some more church clothes. Perfect time for me to try out the Oliver + S Sketchbook Shirt pattern that I picked up during their end of summer inventory sale.

I have been saving Ian’s old button down shirts for this very purpose and got one out to perform surgery on for this pattern. I started out with one for Eliot. Let me tell you, I have decided that from now on, all button down shirts I make for the boys will be short sleeved! Although the little tiny cuffs and button plackets are so adorable, they require way too much time and work! Much easier to make a simple short sleeve and then wear a long sleeve shirt underneath if need be! I actually ran out of time to put the buttons on the shirt so you will see Mr. E wearing safety pins to hold himself together!

The shirt turned out really well but a little big. He’s growing quickly though so I anticipate him getting quite a bit of use out of this shirt before winter is over.

Now as far as my other KCW project, it involved Oliver’s Halloween outfit and I haven’t been able to get good pics of him wearing it yet so expect that post to come up sometime on Friday, after our trick or treating experience. Let me just say that I think it’s pretty adorable even if it is very simple and practical. I’ll leave you with an IG picture as a hint. 😉

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: 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. 🙂

Parsley Pants Take 3: The Tuxedo Stripe

Posted on April 22, 2013 by oliver's fancy

To kick off Kid’s Clothes Week, I am presenting the third (and my personal favorite) version I made of the parsley pants (Update: Pattern is now available!). This pair was made with some red bottomweight fabric (I think it’s denim) that I picked up a while back in mind for pants for Oliver. The third pair of parsley pants has one main modification from the other two- I took them in an inch on the tuxedo stripe line to make them more slim cut. I believe the final pattern version of this pant will be taken in 3/4 of an inch over the tester version- making them a little less straight cut than this version but not quite as baggy as the pj or linen pinstripe pants.

I also added a chevron tuxedo stripe down the side and some patch pockets on the back. This look was inspired by Rae’s version here. The tuxedo stripe is an option given in the pattern itself, but I improvised the patch pockets. I just think these are the cutest things ever! And the fit is superb!! I have to tell you how excited I am that this pattern has a snug enough waist to stay up, but enough room in the seat to make it fit well with both cloth and disposable diapers! I did the flat front finish with elastic backing again, and I have decided that this is my favorite finish for a more professional-looking pair of pants. The full elastic waist is great for pajamas, but the flat front looks a bit more polished for everyday wear.

um, seriously, what is this model pose, here?

Our photoshoot got rained out so I don’t have a ton of good pictures to share with you, but I did manage to get a few. However I have to pull up a phone picture to really show off the back of these pants…

FYI, we took these pics at the same time we took pics of my maternity shirt and Oliver was copying my pose in this picture…too funny how much they notice at this age!

Now to get started on my KCW list! I bought the flashback skinny tee pattern this weekend and have a bunch of Ian’s old shirts set aside to make some tees for Oliver- hopefully some of them coordinate with his new pants! Here’s a somewhat loosely organized list of what I hope to accomplish this week… aiming high like always:)

Flashback Skinny Tees- going to make regular tees and also attempt some dressier shirts using this pattern as a base
Quick Change Trousers for baby from Handmade Beginnings
Shoes for baby from Handmade Beginnings
Oliver + S Sailboat shirt and pants (if time)