Goodness, how am I just now getting around to blogging the suit I made for J back in April?!? Time flies when you’re overwhelmed, I guess.
Anyhoo, J was the ring bearer in Leslie and Bob’s wedding and walked his little sister down the aisle. Naturally, he had to have a proper suit for the occasion!
My dapper little guy.
Well, I plowed through last night and finally finished J’s car shorts, which had been cut since sometime in April:
Clean Slate Car Shorts
These actually went together relatively quickly, but I didn’t head down to my sewing room until 9:30 pm, so it was yet another late night — I think I finished up about 11:15. Still, not too bad, particularly when you take into account the fact that I reinforced most of the seams and flat-felled the back crotch, inseam and outseams!
Every morning for over a week, J has asked me the same question, “Mommy, did you make me a new shirt?” And every morning my answer was, “No sweetie, not today.”
Well last night, I finally broke down and made the kid a shirt. When I showed him in the morning, he asked to put it on immediately, even before he got out of bed. And this coming from a kid who usually puts off getting dressed as long as he can — typically until about 10 minutes before he’s going to walk out the door for the day (which means I sometimes come home from work to find him still in his pajamas!).
J’s new blue tank top — he loved it!
J had requested a blue tank top, and selected gray for the trim when given a choice between gray and white. I used the Blank Tank pattern from the original Blank Slate Basics collection from Blank Slate Patterns (boy, that’s a lot of “blanks” in a single sentence!).
The crazy thing is, even though I was a tester for this pattern when it was released last summer, this is actually only the second Blank Tank I’ve made! You might think from that that I don’t like the pattern, which couldn’t be farther from the truth — I actually love it! It’s a quick sew (traced pattern pieces in a new size, cut fabric, and sewed the whole thing up with some added details not in the pattern in not quite 2 hours), and is super-comfy for an active little boy in the summer. And what kid doesn’t love a comfy, breathable knit tank top on a hot summer day?
The back view
The only thing I’m not particularly keen on in this pattern is the finish on the neck and arm openings. The pattern instructs you to simply turn the edges under 1/2″ and sew with a zigzag or double needle. While getting a top on and off, J always seems to pull at the neck and arm openings so much that the seams break when they’re finished in this way, which means I’d constantly be fixing it, or it wouldn’t get worn (again reinforcing my desire for a coverstitch machine so I have the ability to sew a stretchier seam!).
However, that was a really easy fix. Instead, I just used a gray contrast binding on the neck and arm openings that matched the gray pocket. Using a binding definitely takes longer since you’re adding a few more steps, but I also think it gives a more finished/polished look. I did use a zig zag stitch to attach the binding because I don’t trust my double needle to give enough stretch on knit items for J — he just pulls on them too much. I can’t tell you how many double-needle hems this kid has broken!
The details … and a big smile from a happy boy!
Not much more to say — J loves his new shirt! It’s always nice when the kids really love or appreciate the things I make for them. It doesn’t always happen at this age. I will make something that I think they’re going to love, and then they want nothing to do with it. Take N’s purple mouse Geranium dress — everything about that dress says “a two-old-girl will LOVE me!” Cute, swingy pattern, purple fabric, adorable animals all over it. And she’s only worn it once. She likes to look at it, but gives me an emphatic “no, no, no!” every time I try to put it on her.
Since there’s still a lot of summer left, I should probably make J a few more tanks. I have a great orange bamboo jersey knit sitting in my stash — I’m thinking an orange tank with a big tiger decal …
And since I’ve never done my full pattern review break-out on this pattern, here you go:
Blank Tank
Pattern: Blank Tank by Blank Slate Patterns ($7.95 USD).
Size: 4T, with no size modifications.
Fit: Perfect fit for my skinny 4-year-old. He likes his tops a little loose, and this one gives him room to move and grow. J is 40th percentile for weight, and 60th percentile for height, and is very compact, to give you a reference.
Fabric: Blue organic medium-weight jersey from Near Sea Naturals. The contrast is a lightweight gray heather jersey from Girl Charlee.
Modifications: I added a contrast binding to the neck and arm openings, as indicated above. When cutting the fabric, I left the arm openings as-is, but cut the neck opening about 1/4 inch deeper than drafted to account for the fact that I wouldn’t be turning the raw edges under. That also raised the neckline just a bit since the pattern has a 1/2″ seam allowance at the neck. The result is more like a muscle tee, which I like.
Physical pattern: This is a PDF, but it’s not too cumbersome to piece together. Just 3 pattern pieces.
Pros:
Cons:
Overall grade: B+. I love this for a basic summer tank. The only reason I mark it down is because of the simpleness of the pattern compared to the price.
I made this shirt for J in the summer and am only now getting around to blogging it! Lazy blogger!
Anyhoo … I was lucky enough to test four of the five patterns in the original Blank Slate Basics e-book by Blank Slate Patterns. This is the Prepster Pullover, a nice, basic boys dress shirt.
The Prepster Pullover
My fabric is a random polyester rayon that I picked up off the red tag rack at Joann’s. J loves animals and I knew he’d be all over this fabric. I think I paid about $3.50 for the yard that I got and it was more than enough for this shirt.
The Prepster Pullover is a great shirt and a great pattern. I made this shirt in size 3T for J, and the fit was perfect. I’ve been consistently impressed with the fit in the Blank Slate Basics patterns. The fit on the 3T sizes at least are right on for my tall, skinny 3-year-old. If you have a kid who is stockier or broad in the chest or waist, you might need to go up a size. But if you kid hits in the 50%-ish range, the sizing should be pretty good.
I made very few alterations to the pattern. The biggest was in the sleeves. I made the shirt with short sleeves, and the short sleeves as drafted were ridiculously long for a 3T shirt, so I shortened them quite a bit. But I think that was a common critique at the pattern testing phase, so I expect that has been fixed in the final pattern.
I followed the pattern instructions for the placket, but this honestly is not my preferred way to do this style of placket. Melly has a great tutorial for a henley placket that, to me, is much easier and has a better result. Though this opinion is likely influenced by the fact that I was using a fabric with a one-directional pattern, so by following the included instructions for the placket, I ended up with half of my placket upside down (I just made that the inside placket).
I also had a b*#&$ of a time sewing the buttonholes, though I doubt that had anything to do with the pattern. The bottom button actually has no buttonhole. I gave up and just sewed the placket shut where the buttonhole should have been. The top one isn’t pretty, but it mostly works 🙂
The problem I ran into was that, because of all the layered fabric to form a placket, the fabric at the top and bottom was too thick to move smoothly under my buttonhole foot. It kept jamming up in the feed dogs and resulted in a big mess of knots. I think it might help to sew the buttonholes sideways instead of up and down. I might try that next time and see if I have better luck. Or snaps. Love me some snaps!
Still, I really like the pattern and will probably make more. I have some nice, striped cotton poplin in my stash that would make a nice long-sleeved shirt for J for the colder weather. I think playing with the direction of the stripes would be fun on this pattern too.
Loving his animal shirt! He was Diego this day, so we spent the afternoon saving imaginary baby animals.
Pattern: Prepster Pullover by Blank Slate Patterns
Size: 3T. Fit my 50% 3-year-old perfectly.
Fabric: Polyester from Joann’s red tag clearance shelf
Physical Pattern: The pattern comes in sizes 18m to 8, so there’s a great range. It’s a PDF, which is not my favorite, but seems to be a pretty common format for independent children’s patterns. Melissa has just recently started selling paper copies of her patterns, though. Maybe this one will be next!
Pros:
Cons:
Overall Grade: B+. A great pattern for a slightly dressier boys look — though as you can tell, it’s great for everyday rowdiness too!
the creative counselor 