I’ve got a post over on imagine gnats showing off the boys latest sweatshirts. I absolutely love this indigo striped knit by Robert Kaufman and had so much fun mixing and matching the details up to make them each a fun sweatshirt. I love that they coordinate but aren’t completely matching…
Head over here to see lots more pictures and get all the details! 
I haven’t had a chance to show either of the boys’ birthday shirts yet so I thought I’d just take pictures of both at once to show you. I started this tradition of birthday number tees back for Oliver’s first birthday and although I’m almost always sewing them the night before, I have yet to miss a year!
This year I used the safari raglan pattern for both boys. In the past I have done more intricate designs (see last year’s superhero stormtrooper), but with all that’s going on this year, I needed something quick and easy.
I finally realized that there was a short sleeve option on the safari pattern (duh!) so I printed that off and used that to make the short sleeves. I can’t quite remember now, but I think they are wearing a size 3 and 5. And as you can see, they are completely unhemmed…birthday tees are meant to be fun and casual. Who needs a hem on that?
Both boys’ tees are made from Laguna jersey from the Imagine Gnats shop... I’m telling ya, it pays to keep a variety of colors in stock for last minute tee-making needs!
Oliver’s stencil turned out a little harder to read than I had anticipated…I started out with a black stencil but you couldn’t see that at all so I mixed white and black to reach a nice gray shade and repainted it. But on that dark gray tee, it ended up a little more subtle than I had planned. It does have kind of a nice echo effect with the black paint behind the gray though.
Eliot’s stencil is the result of me searching pinterest for 3rd birthday shirt ideas. I saw several variations of the three fingers tee and thought it was perfect for him as he loves to hold up his fingers and tell everyone how old he is. Unexpected side effect: I made the shirt green as that’s his favorite color and now he calls it his Yoda shirt because Yoda is green, therefore anything green belongs to Yoda. 🙂 Kids and their logic.
And that’s a wrap on birthday tees for another year! I don’t know how long they’ll want me to keep making these but I’m going to keep going as long as I can. 🙂
I saw someone on Instagram several months ago post a picture of the new cotton+steel Tinsel Christmas collection and I knew that had to be our Christmas pjs this year. I’m trying to make yearly handmade Christmas Eve pjs a thing. I’ve been pretty good at getting the boys’ pjs made the past few years but not so good at adult versions. This is the year I’m going to do it all! 😉 So far, so good since I have the boys pjs completely finished and it’s not even mid-December. Who is this person I’m becoming? Never fear my Christmas sewing list is a mile long and I’ll be sewing well into the wee hours of Christmas eve to finish it all!
Anywho, back to the pjs. I picked up the fabric at Fabricworm a month or so ago using a gift card I’d been saving and got my favorite prints out of the line. I knew the boys had to have this snow globe fabric. I mean, it’s just too cool that several of the places they’ve been in the last year and a half (Paris, San Fransisco…) are pictured in the globes! They got to decide which color they each wanted and thankfully there was no fighting over that! Though they were complete goobers during the photo shoot and so ended up getting their heads cut out of half of the pictures because they were just ridiculous faces.
Here’s the specs on their outfits:
Eliot:
Oliver:
The stencil didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned but overall I think their Christmas pjs are really cute. And they’re happy so that’s really what matters. Now the hard part is to keep them put away until Christmas Eve! And of course get busy sewing mine and the hubby’s pair. But, I almost forgot, if you check out my latest Imagine Gnat’s post, you’ll see I already have my shirt finished and it uses the same waffle knit that Eliot’s has! 
You know my passion is sewing for boys, right? So I was super excited to see that the newest Pattern Parcel is all about boy patterns! Jill has done a great job curating a selection of boy patterns for us to enjoy.
Pattern Parcel #4 includes:
Maxwell Top by Shwin Designs
Zippy Jacket by Blank Slate Patterns
Schoolboy Vest by Sew Much Ado
Small Fry Jeans by Titchy Threads
Jet Pack Bag by Betz White
I picked the small fry skinny jeans from this parcel to sew. Oliver is in dire need of pants for the fall and this is the perfect style for him. Mr Skinny Self looks great in a pair of skinny jeans! Unfortunately he was not digging this photoshoot but I bribed him into the outfit by pulling out the Captain America tank I bought him for next summer and telling him they were superhero pants 😉 Worked like a charm.
I sacrificed a pair of my husband’s pants for this. He bought them on clearance a while back but never wears them because the red was just a little too much for him. But red pants on my 3 year old- way awesome. I reused a lot of the pieces too: seam-ripped the waistband and belt loops and cut them down to size. I also added the leather piece from the original pants to the back waistband which I think is fun.
Pattern Notes: I made the 2T and added 2″ to the hem so that he won’t grow out of them so soon. I would normally cuff the hem up so they’re not so baggy in the legs but that looked funny with his tennis shoes so I just left them alone. Next time I’m going to size up to the 3 because the pants are a wee bit tight. The other pair I made him still fit great so it must be that the twill doesn’t have as much give as the denim does. I didn’t do the adjustable elastic because I didn’t have any and was too lazy ran out of time to make my own. Instead I sewed the elastic in place on one side, pulled it through the waistband, then tried the pants on for fit before sewing the elastic down on the other side.
As I mentioned last time I made these pants, they are labor intensive. But having a pair to reference makes the sewing go a lot quicker! I was able to finish these in one night- I might have had a bit of a sewing marathon and stayed up way too late but still, not too shabby. And I love how professional the finished result is.
Side note: I was provided with these patterns in exchange for sewing from them for the blog hop but I actually previously bought the jeans pattern so I already owned this one. All opinions are, as always, my own. You can see my original pair of jeans here.
Click on the button below to take you to the info page where you can purchase this bundle for yourself! It’s only available through this Friday so don’t wait too long!
Here’s the schedule for all the other talented bloggers following along with this blog hop. Make sure to go check them out to see how they interpreted these patterns and for some inspiration in boy sewing!
Friday, August 22 casa crafty || Lulu & Celeste || Keep Calm and Carrion
Saturday, August 23 Max California || Amanda Rose
Sunday, August 24 little betty sews
Monday, August 25 Kadiddlehopper || Radiant Home Studio
Tuesday, August 26 La Pantigana || Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy Crafts || Friends Stitched Together
Wednesday, August 27 Make It Perfect || Modern Handmade || GYCT Designs
Thursday, August 28 Needle and Ted || Mae & K || Mimi’s Mom
Friday, August 29 Pienkel || Once Upon a Sewing Machine || Friends Stitched Together
Saturday, August 30 FABulous Home Sewn || Gray Skies || The Crazy Tailor
Sunday, August 31 Nine Stitches || Max California || Oliver’s Fancy || Friends Stitched Together
Monday, September 1 a happy stitch || lady and the gents || Our Family Four || Swoodson Says
Tuesday, September 2 verypurpleperson || Things for Boys || The Crazy Tailor
Wednesday, September 3 Our Family Four || Rebekah Sews || a happy stitch
Thursday, September 4 Sew a Straight Line || la inglesita || Made by Sara || Knot Sew Normal
Friday, September 5 Knot Sew Normal || Gracious Threads || Sofilantjes || Max California
A few weeks ago a few IG friends and I were chatting about how sad it was that there were all these cute, adorable things for girls and sometimes boys get left out in the cold. If you’ve been around here for any length of time you’ve probably heard me rant about that sometime or other. 🙂 But really, it does seem like girls get a lot of the fun. So we decided to change that up a bit. We are starting a little series called All About Boys- where we take a week and showcase some extra cool boy projects. This time we decided to place an emphasis on free patterns because many people want to sew for their kids but don’t know where to begin. Free patterns are a great way to get your feet wet without breaking the bank. We will be using Continue reading
We had a birthday party for Oliver this weekend. Can you believe my little boy is three already? Wow that’s crazy! Anywho, we didn’t have a party for him last year, but now that he’s old enough to enjoy parties and such, we thought it would be fun to something with his friends. We invited a few of his little buddies (and parents, of course) to the park for a morning of play. It was a gorgeous day and they all had lots of fun. 
Eliot could be found roaming underneath the picnic table trying to steal everyone’s snacks! lol
Of course a birthday wouldn’t be complete without a handmade number shirt from mom, which I conveniently matched to his number shorts. He looked so stinking cute in his outfit. Shirt pattern is Raglan Tee from Sewing for Boys. I cut out the letters and appliqued them to the shirt after constructing it. I bought the orange Robert Kaufman laguna jersey from fabric.com after reading several bloggers’ comments on how nice it was. And it really is nice! I’m definitely going to be buying more of it in several colors. It just has such a nice feel and drape! And I’m very close to Fabric.com’s new warehouse so it is so tempting to buy from them right now- I get my order within two days of placing it! Shorts were previously blogged here.
Another fun part of the birthday party were the lightsaber favors. I am such a Star Wars nerd, and it’s too fun to pass that nerdiness on to your children! Oliver is at that impressionable age and loves anything we push as cool right now. 😉 He thought these were great. Ian made them the night before the party with pool noodles, electrical tape and duct tape. Easy, quick, and cheap! The kids had fun playing with them at the party and then got to take them home when the party was over. 
So, this kid. He’s got a lot of his mommy in him and it both frustrates me at times and yet completely endears him to me. 🙂 It’s so fun to watch him grow out of the toddler stage and full on into little boyhood. Can’t wait to see what three has in store for you, buddy! 
the dinosaurs came along for our photo shoot today. I think they had fun. 😉
You tired of seeing shorts and tees yet? Well I hope not because that’s what I’ve got for you again today. Far from being bored myself, I actually keep coming up with more and more tee ideas! Which is good because what I get done this week composes a good deal of Oliver’s spring/summer wardrobe.
For the tee, I used the raw-edged raglan in a size 4/5 from Sewing for Boys again. I like the pattern pieces of this tee, but, as a side note, I follow a lot of the instructions of the Flashback tee in the construction of this shirt. After this week I think I will be able to sew tees in my sleep! Oliver has two long-sleeve Star Wars shirts and would be happy to wear one or the other every day, so in planning his summer shirts, I knew that I would need at least one Star Wars one. Boba Fett happens to be my little brother’s favorite character so he was an easy choice (Oliver loves to be like Uncle Alex). My second time freezer paper stenciling was even easier than the first! This could get addicting. LOL. The white fabric is a jersey knit from Hobby Lobby of all places. They actually sell 100% cotton jersey, and I was really happy with it in my maternity tee last year, so I got some more to try out with Oliver. The sleeve fabric is from an upcycled tee- yay for using existing hems!
The shorts are my third pair of Dana’s Kid Shorts this week. This time I used some green denim I found in the remnant bin at Joann. There was a 1/2 yard bundle, and it was exactly what I needed to make these shorts. Flat front/elastic back again. I wanted to make some cargo pockets so I took the box pleat pocket piece from Rae’s Parsley pants pattern and sewed it to the bottom of the shorts. The denim was thicker than I had anticipated, so it was a bit tricky sewing all those layers of pleats in the pockets, but I’m really happy with how they turned out. Oliver is at the age where he loves pockets, and it’s fun to give him some to put his treasures in.
So that’s it for day 4. I have a fun photoshoot planned for tomorrow afternoon for my mini-me entry. If all goes well, you’ll get to see both boys and their daddy in some pictures. Fingers crossed for good naps and happy pictures!
What about you? How is your list going this week? Are you burnt out yet from sewing like crazy? I’m trying to pace myself so I’m not an exhausted, cranky mess by Sunday night! Oh and by the way, yesterday’s outfit is featured on the KCW blog today so go check it out and see all the other cool boy outfits she rounded up!
After a recent trip to the mall, I have been itching to re-create some color-blocked shorts that I saw for O. Also this week is Project Run and Play’s design your own fabric challenge so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make a PRP look during KCW. (enough acronyms anyone? 😉 ) I really loved these khaki and green ones, but since I already made green shorts (blog post yet to come), I needed another color. The lower short fabric started out as hot pink capris from my sister’s goodwill pile. I rescued them and dyed them with some brown RIT dye. They ended up this nice maroon color. I could have dyed them again to get them more brown but ended up liking this color and decided to keep it. The khaki fabric is from an old pair of hubby’s pants in the upcycle bin.
I took Dana’s flat front short pattern, marked where I wanted the color block to be, and cut out both fabrics using 3/8″ overlap where they would join for seam allowance. Then I sewed them together, serged the seam, topstitched, and used the resulting piece as the regular pattern piece.
Oliver’s showing off his belly button so you can get a close-up of the top-stitching.
I wanted these shorts to look store-bought so I broke out my topstitching thread and used it for all the seams. I even created a faux fly and some faux pocket stitching. Fancy, huh? I thought so. These shorts were definitely a labor of love. I had to break out the jeans needle and stitch very slowly to get all the thick seams sewn up. In the end, totally worth it to have a pair of quality-made shorts. These babies won’t be falling apart anytime soon!
The tee is the (not-so) Raw Edged Raglan from Sewing for Boys. I used my serger for all the seams and my stretch thread for all the topstitching- So loving that! I also love my current table set-up because I have my serger and sewing machine set up next to each other, and I can easily go back and forth as I am sewing. The gray and white stripe is a jersey knit I picked up at the Fabric Fairy using a gift card, and the sleeves are part of an old tee (the rest of which you will see tomorrow in another shirt!)
The shirt is my first attempt at freezer paper stenciling- so fun! The hardest part was agonizing over what stencil I wanted to do- something cool but not too cheesy. In the end I remembered a free stencil pdf I found on Pinterest and used that. It was so fun to peel off the freezer paper and see the words underneath! Definitely going to be doing more of that in the future.
I am pretty jealous of this shirt and my nod to the mini-me theme is that I actually wish I had one of these in my size! Maybe after all this is finished, I’ll try to make one for myself, and we can really be matching. 😉 Not in the exact same colors of course but the same general idea. I know it’s cheesy but gotta do some matchy-matchy while he thinks it’s cool, right?
Because sometimes the outtakes are too funny not to share.
Did I mention that I am a contributing blogger for this Spring’s KCW? Well I am, and I’m very excited to be there! Today I’m over on the blog talking about my plans for April’s challenge week. Yeah, I know April seems like forever away, but in reality, the next KCW is only a few weeks away! I discovered that I like the push to plan in advance this time because it takes me a while to think through what patterns I have and what clothes my kids need. Now I’ve done all the hard work of pre-planning and can just have fun sewing during the challenge week!
If you are interested to see my sewing list head over here to the KCW blog to check it out…plus you get to see this adorable picture of Oliver that I had forgotten about. Funny story behind this picture- I was searching google for a pattern picture of the raglan tee from Sewing for Boys and my own picture turned up in the search results. Why I guess I could use my own picture, couldn’t I? 🙂 FYI this picture is from Fall 2012’s Project Run and Play sewalong…you can read all about it here if you’re interested.
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!
oliversfancy 