shorts

New shorts for the boy, made from some pretty cheerful fabric I picked up from Spotlight last summer. It can be so hard to come by decent fabrics for little boys, so when I saw this one I had to add it to the stash. It feels so good to have finally turned it into something wearable, and at the same time made a little more room in the sewing cupboard! I have used this pattern a few times now, and really like it (Ottobre 3/2008). They did turn out a tad longer than I had planned, but at the rate this babe is growing its no issue at all. And our machine/engine loving boy highly approved of the fabric choice, which was a first! Lots of 'brrr brrr, rooom rooom' noises, excited squeals and frantic pointing with pudgy little hands. He is so lovable!

milo soaker

Well that was an energetic photo session! Monkey boy (for some reason or another) couldn't manage to sit still for more than two second to have his photo taken. Not a great help when you are learning to use the new camera and trying to manually focus...sorry for the blurry shots, these were the best I could get!

I finally got around to finishing the knitted soaker. It came together nicely as per the picture, but didn't end up fitting quiet as snug as I would have liked. Although it looks OK in the photos, it could have done with less rise in the front and a little extra in the back. I kept having to pull it up at the back to keep it over his nappy while he was busy rocketing around the house, and the front was too bunched up. Still very cute and might work well over a bulkier night nappy. He is wearing this one over these fitted's I made for Maeve a while back. I will get them lanolised tonight and see how they go over the next few days.

Has anyone else used wool covers with their cloth nappies (diapers)?
I would love to hear what patterns you found the best and how successful you found them as a nappy cover. I made quiet a few for Grace back in the day and they were great. I found they worked the best in summer with just a shirt or dress over the top. In winter they got a bit bulky layered under thick pants and the likes.

The pattern was from 'Vintage Baby Knits' By Kristen Rengren. I knitted it in the 9-12month size, but next time would probably go smaller. The wool I used was the most softest Merino from Lincraft 'Italiano donegal merino' in 12ply. It didn't seem as chunky as your usual 12ply however. This soaker used up just over one 50g ball.

And here he is doing the bolt in his woolies...

recycled dino shirt :: mini tutorial

So, I know this is not exactly the best thing I have ever made...but I thought I would share the idea of how I made it with you.

The two different fabrics are both from old t-shirts. The dino print one is a newborn sized shirt that belonged to Jude, and the green was a shirt of mine. 

 

If you are interested in making one, grab your favorite tee pattern and two old shirts, then follow along!
(If you were after a picture heavy tutorial, I apologise in advance. This is a bit of a hack job).

Cut your two shirts open down the side seams.

Place your shirt front and back pattern pieces on the larger shirt lining up the bottom of the pattern with the hem of the shirt.
This way you wont have to hem your shirt when your done (I like it , I like it!).

Then lay the sleeve pattern pieces along the bottom hem of the smaller shirt, and cut.

Sew your shirt up according to pattern direction and add some ribbing for the neckband.
The onesie tutorial will help you out if you are unsure about binding/ribbing.

Then bar tack your seams to one side (to the back looks best) on the sleeve edges, and at the bottom of the side seams on body.

So... not exactly rocket science.

But you do get a kick out of recycling two un-used shirts, and not having to bother with heming or binding edges (apart from neck).
It's amazing how much time that saves!

Enough time in fact to add a few cute patches on the front...

The dinosaurs were cut from left over fabric.

Cut a circular cardboard template to the size you want your patches (mine were 3 different sizes).

Cut your fabric 1cm wider all around than the template.

Stitch around the edge of fabric circles with a large straight stitch, then gather the circle to fit around the cardboard.
Give it a good steam iron to press into shape. Pull out your cardboard.
Add some iron on adhesive to back of patch if you like.
Something like Vliesofix, heat and bond...or equivalent.

Iron patches onto garment. Top stitch around edges to finish.

And there you have it! 

One fun recycled (or is it upcycled??) tee with super cute button patches.

tie tee

Check out this little shirt!

I found the tutorial on Saltwater kids via 'Celebrate the boy' on Made, and knew I had to make one for my boy. 
You could make so many fun variations with this simple pattern.
I am thinking a few long sleeved ones for winter would be really cute too.

The t-shirt pattern is one from Ottobre 3/08.

just for fun

A few weeks back when I was tossing up ideas for the baby boy's onesie, I came up with this logo of 'the boy', which my brother helped me to polish up- thanks Tim! To cut a long story short, I decided to go with the striped onesie instead. Then later I thought some of you might like it to use it. Maybe its more your style, bold and out there rather than subtle and sweet?

  
So here's the PDF if you want to have a play!

You can stencil it with freezer paper (Dana's tutorial here). Or,  I have even reversed the images on the second page of PDF so it can be printed onto Iron on Transfer paper, cut out and ironed directly onto garment. 

I found that ironing it onto stretch wasn't the best idea, the imaged seemed to crack a little as the fabric stretched. So, one solution might be ironing it onto plain white woven fabric, then stitching it to the garment. Or you can try the reverse applique technique (which is what I've done on this outfit... don't look too close, very rough!).

don't you just want to squeeze the boy!

 

ok ok, enough of the photo's mum. My eyes are blinded by the light!

And a side note for those of you that live in Australia:

I have found that Spotlight now sells Freezer Paper for stenciling at the cutting counter. You can buy it by the meter, instead of having to purchase the whole roll which is just brilliant if you are only wanting to do one or two stencils!

baby boy onesie with binding tutorial

The lovely Dana from MADE contacted me recently to see if I would help out with ‘Celebrate the boy’ month by coming up with a boy-ish sewing tutorial, and of course I said yes! Because really, there isn’t much out there in the crafty world for our wee men folk is there? So if anything I hope this tutorial and all the other amazing ones over at MADE and Made by Rae inspire you to sew and lovingly create things for your boy, nephew, grandson or friend.

A few people have asked recently how to make T-shirts and other stretch items for their children, and especially how to get the binding looking so nice. This tutorial will show you how to sew confidently with stretch fabric and hopefully you can then branch out and sew many comfy and super cute clothes for your little man. The good news is you don’t need an overlocker (serger), just a few essential tips on how to maximise the potential of your regular home sewing machine!

This summer Jude has lived in two sleeveless onesie’s that I made for him. Such a practical item of clothing for our hot Australian summer, yet so hard to buy one that fits well and luckily, so easy to sew one (or two or three) yourself! So here it is:

This pattern has been designed to fit my son who is about 7 months old, and quite a solid build). It is a slim fit on him, but looks great. So I would say it’s about a 6-month size (with growing room) to be safe. You will have to adjust to fit if you need it in a different size, based on outfits that fit your baby at home. Click here to download the free 6 month sized pattern.

Gather your supplies:
 

70cm good quality cotton knit with a very small percent of lycra/spandex*
4 small wooden buttons
thread
washable marker/pins
3 sets of snaps
ball point needles for your machine- this is important!

*Wash and preshrink fabric. I always dry fabric in dryer before cutting to make sure it has fully shrunk (often by about 10%) so the finished garment will retain is shape when washed in future.

Stretch stitches to use:

For sewing your seams together, the stitch in the photo below is the one I would use. It looks like a straight stitch, but has a small amount of zig zag so the fabric will stretch when worn and pulled over little heads repeatedly.

The walking foot:

If you don’t have one, don’t panic! You will still be able to make the garment. However, if you do have a walking foot it is fantastic for sewing great seams with stretch. The picture shows two fabric samples. On the right a regular foot was used and you can see the seam is bubbled or rippled looking. The sample on the left was using the walking foot and it really helps seams to sit flat (photo doesn’t do it justice). However, if you only have a regular foot, a good steam iron should sort most the wrinkles out.

Lets get started!

1. Open the PDF and print off pattern pieces making sure the pattern is to scale. Check by measuring the square, it should be 5cm x 5cm. Join the two pattern pieces together at the line where it says ‘Join here’, and trace off your front piece and back piece onto separate pieces of paper

2. Cut out your front and back pieces taking care to match up stripes (see picture), and cut on the fold.

3. Transfer markings from pattern onto fabric with a washable marker, all X’s along bottom edge and shoulder markings.

4. Cut binding pieces as measured on PDF pattern. You may want to cut them a little longer if you are concerned about your fabric not being stretchy enough.

If you are cutting the binding from garment fabric and it is striped, decide which colour in the stripe you want as binding before cutting. For example, I chose white for the binding so made sure white was showing 1-2cm from the edge of binding.

5. Pin the front neck binding to onesie front, right sides together.
Stitch about 1cm from edge (using the stitch shown at beginning of tutorial) stretching to fit as you go.
Repeat step for onesie back, joining back neck binding to onesie back.

6. Press binding flat with a light steam iron on both front and back pieces.

7. Turn binding under to wrong side of garment. I don’t bother pinning, but if you think it will help keep your binding an even width, go for it!

8. Topstitch binding in place with a medium zig zag stitch (good old regular zig zag, not the type we are sewing seams with) on right side of garment. Again, stretch slightly as you sew.

The trick here is to sew as slowly as you need to keep the topstitching straight, while folding the binding under so it looks uniformed the whole way along the edge. With practice, you will get much quicker at this!

9. Trim excess binding off back of garment, not to close to stitching though!

10. Give pieces a light steam press.

11. Join front and back pieces together at shoulder seam, matching up markings. The back piece should overlap the front.

12. Stitch them together about 1/2cm from edge to hold in place.

13. Now its time to stitch the side seams together, taking care to match stripes as you sew as well as stretch fabric slightly.

14. Take one sleeve binding and stitch ends together to form a circle.
Repeat with other sleeve binding.
Repeat with bottom edge binding.

15. Mark sleeve binding circles into ¼’s with marker, and armhole into ¼’s as well.
Mark bottom edge binding circle into 1/8’s with marker.

16. Slide the armhole onto sewing machine bed (or is that called the arm too?), and the binding over that (right sides together). See photo below.

17. Stitch together 1cm from edge, taking care to match markings as you sew.
Repeat for other armhole.
 
18. Follow steps 6-10 for finishing off armhole binding in the same way you finished neck bindings.

19. Stitch the bottom edge binding to bottom edge of garment matching up markings on binding with X’s along garment edge, right sides together.
Follow steps 6-10 for finishing off bottom edge binding in the same way you finished neck bindings.

20. Insert snaps in bottom edge about 3cm apart. I have a snap press, but you can use the snaps you hammer in or even buy snap tape, which you sew on.

21. Sew on your 4 wooden buttons taking care to sew them to the binding only, not the fabric underneath.

Well done, you are now finished!!

Wait…

One last step.

22. Take one beautiful chubby baby boy, dress him in his comfortable new onesie and admire those gorgeous rolls and milky skin!

and remember, boy will be boys.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial!

the boy

Here's something of interest for all you crafty mamas with boys!

The lovely Dana of MADE has teamed up with Rae from made by rae to make February a special month to celebrate the boy!
And here's a peek as to what the month ahead holds:

tons of Boy tutorials
Boy clothing ideas
twelve guest bloggers (one of them being me, yikes...better get my act together!)
Boy crafts
Boy bags
Baby Boy stuff
Boy giveaways
Boy design tips

So if you are wanting some great ideas for the little man in your life, head on over daily to MADE and made by rae for all the action.
To give you an idea of the boy goodness to come check out today's bag tutorial from Anna of noodlehead!
And be sure to check back here in the second half of the month for my clothing tutorial.

hello dribbles

 

Two more neckerchief bibs for the boy, because this kid can seriously dribble.
He has outgrown these ones here already.
I followed a simple pattern from this book, but sandwiched a layer of hemp fleece in between the two layers of fabric.
Nice and thick and very absorbent.
Not to mention super cute!

The blue and white fabric was some my youngest brother made in high school (wouldn't let mum throw it out). I think it's batik dyeing. Very effective.

christmas 09

Sorry again for the huge blogging pause, things around here have been so hectic!
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas yesterday, celebrating the birth of Jesus with family and friends. We certainly did, despite both the girls being unwell. Poor Grace was running a fever all day. She spent most the time lying on the couch, but still managed to enjoy the day.
Hasn't my baby boy grown! He is such a sweet little man.

I had wanted to sew the kids an outfit each for Christmas, but didn't quiet get there.
Here's the skirt I made for Grace, I ended up buying a top to go with it. Pattern is from Ottobre 1/09 with a few changes. Fabric is by Kaffe Fassett. I am so in love with his fabrics right now! Fresh, summery and gorgeous.

Here is the skirt for Maeve. Fabric is also Kaffe Fasset. The lace was some I found at the Op shop, and was a perfect match.

I also made her a top to go with it on Christmas eve (not really something to write home about, but she loved it all the same). There is a giraffe appliqued on the front.

And some new gear for Jude.
The baby essentials, plenty of cute bibs and a sleeveless bodysuit. These ones were so fun to make!

I stenciled the designs on using freezer paper. The wolf and crocodile were from this book, and the fish were my idea.

The clouds on the bodysuit were also from the same book.
This was also my first attempt at fold over elastic on a garment. It was quiet easy to do, and turned out fairly neat.

Another suit the same I made a few weeks ago and he has lived in.

envelope necks are great!


And this is a little pen and notebook wrap I made for my sister in law Kate.
I made up my own pattern for this one, to suit the notebook and pens I had.
Fabric is a beautiful natural linen, with a small piece of vintage floral fabric.

Phew! I really should update my blog more...sorry for the long post.
I have lots more to show you, but we are heading off for holidays in the morning (yay!!).
Then we will be home and getting things ready for Grace's first year at school. Lots of changes coming up.

Happy holidays and New Year to all of you!
xx