Pattern Testing: Blank Slate Leralyn

If you’re thinking that I’ve been doing a lot of pattern testing for my summer “off,” you would be right.  There aren’t too many things that entice me to unpaid pattern testing anymore, but one of the rare reasons why I will do so is if I’m looking for motivation to make a particular category of garment.  That was my reason for testing the KBSD shorts I showcased earlier this week, and it was also my reason for testing this new pattern from Blank Slate Patterns — the Leralyn Dress.

A loose shift dress has been on my need-to-make-now list foreeeeeever, but other projects always kept jumping in front of it.  I knew that testing would finally give me the kick in the bum that I needed to add this dress to my wardrobe.

A-Line A La Mode Dress

I was going to come up with a cutesy name for this post — something like “A-line a la Easter” since this was intended to be N’s Easter dress, but I realized that the name of the pattern already communicated the precise idea I was going for!  So why mess with a good thing?

A-line A La Mode

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, “a la mode” means “according to the prevailing style or fashion.”  My goal when I made this Blank Slate Patterns A-Line A La Mode Dress was to make a dress that could serve pretty much any purpose.  A super comfy and lightweight little A-line dress that’s great for summertime play but can be dressed up for church or dinner out.

KCW outfits for the boy

I wasn’t as productive as I had hoped during summer KCW, but I did manage to finish a couple of outfits for each kid. Here are J’s:

Rocket ship tank with blue linen pants

Airplane tank with brown chambray pants

No new patterns or reviews here — when I sew for J, I pretty much stick to my TNT patterns anymore. He has fairly simple and predicable taste in clothes. Comfy t-shirts and tanks, loose, comfy pants or shorts … do you sense a theme?

Dapper little dude

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.

Handmade Holiday — Fourth of July

I know I’m a couple of days late, but I hope everyone had a great weekend, and that all the Americans had a wonderful Fourth of July holiday!

We spent the holiday weekend visiting my parents in Iowa.  J begs every year to go to Mimi and Papa’s house.  We typically would go over Thanksgiving but last year (since we would have a 2-month-old at Thanksgiving), we decided to go over the Fourth of July instead.  And oh my GOODNESS — can I take a moment to express just how much nicer it is to go to Iowa in July instead of late November?!?

It’s warm and sunny and beautiful in July where it is cold and damp and windy in November.  It’s not uncommon to have snow on the ground for an Iowa Thanksgiving.  After living in Missouri and Kansas for the last 10 years, that’s something this girl just isn’t used to anymore!  In July, we could go to the park, play outside, drive without sliding on ice, etc.  Needless to say, we decided to stick with that schedule this year.  Maybe we’ll go up for Thankgiving as well, but don’t hold your breath on that one!

A Pocketful of Posies

Oops, I didn’t mean to post pictures of me in my pajamas — oh wait, it’s just my new Pocketful of Posies dress! (affiliate link)

Pocketful of Posies Dress

So I was one of the lucky testers for this new spring pattern from Blank Slate Patterns (affiliate link), and seriously, this is one of the most comfortable dresses I own.  It really is like wearing pajamas.

I admit that, because it is so much like pajamas, it definitely has a muumuu aspect to it with the pleated neckline and volume around the midsection.  But muumuu or not, I love it!

Please ignore the camera remote. It was being a brat that day.

When the invitation to test came around, I wasn’t originally planning to volunteer since I had a lot on my sewing plate at the time, but I saw the dress, realized how incredibly comfortable it would be, and immediately signed up.  I totally don’t regret it either — this dress was actually really easy to put together and is such a great bum-around-the-house dress.

Back view.

My fabric is an argyle cotton jersey from Girl Charlee.  I can’t remember if this was a cotton-spandex blend, and it’s no longer available on their site for me to check 😦  It has a decent amount of stretch though, so I am assuming that there is some spandex in there.

The fabric was perfect.  The pattern doesn’t need a lot of stretch, but this jersey had enough to make the dress super comfy, but is also a bit heavier so that it was easy to work with and the pockets hold up really well.

The teal ribbing is also from Girl Charlee — their rayon spandex ribbing — and this fabric gave me some serious headaches.  Not that it was hard to work with, it wasn’t, but this fabric stretched like the dickens after I cut my band pieces.  My pattern pieces, even at the testing stage, measured the perfect width for ideal bands, and I cut my bands from my ribbing fabric.  When I went to sew them on, though, I noticed that I was having to stretch the neckline to fit the neckband rather than vice versa.  My neckband ended up growing 6 inches from cutting to sewing!  You can see in the pictures how the neckband is a little floppy — that’s entirely because my band grew after I cut it.

See the floppy neckband? The sleeve bands grew too but it’s not as drastic.

I’m not entirely sure how my bands ended up so big, and I admit that there may have been some aspect of cutting error on my part.  But even though I usually cut fabric at night (and therefore may be suffering from exhaustion), even at my worst I wouldn’t screw up cutting a neckband by 6 inches!

So, my only advice would be to pay very careful attention to the fabric you use for the bands in this pattern.  Check and double check to make sure that it has really good recovery because you don’t want a floppy neckband!

Other than that, I can’t complain about the ribbing.  It’s really soft and drapey and feels wonderful against the skin.  It would actually make a wonderful ribbed tank — hmm, summer project maybe?

Pocketful of Posies Dress

Pattern: Pocketful of Posies Dress (affiliate link) by Blank Slate Patterns.

Size: M

Fit: Really good.  This pattern is designed with a generous amount of room in the midsection.  However, it fits really well across the shoulders, which is really the important one in my opinion.  Technically, I probably need a small FBA in this pattern (yes, an FBA) since my full bust measurement is a tad bigger than the bust measurement for size M.  Because my bust is a little bigger, the pockets tend to flop open a bit, and I’m pretty sure that a little extra fabric in the bust area would fix this.  You can also see a bit of stretching from the bust to the armpit — all due to a large bust.  But, it’s not that bad and there’s already a ton of fabric in front (and my boobs won’t be this big forever), so I didn’t sweat it.

Fabric: Cotton jersey for the main and rayon spandex ribbing for the bands, all from Girl Charlee.  See my comments above for more discussion of the fabric.

Modifications: None.

Pattern Format: PDF pattern.  Blank Slate patterns are consistently strong in pattern formatting and instructions.  This pattern is in the style of a step-by-step blog tutorial with photos of each step.  Lots of handholding for those who need it.

Pros:

• Super comfy!
• Surprisingly easy construction.  The front looks complicated, but it’s really not.
• HUGE pockets.  Love me a good pocket!

Cons:

• Kind of looks like a muumuu.  I don’t really care, though because the comfort factor trumps.
• The pattern is somewhat deceptive because all the fabric in front makes it looks like it can accommodate almost any bust size.  However, large-busted gals may find that the pockets pull open a bit in the bust area.  If you use the main fabric for the pocket facings, this isn’t a big deal, but could be if you use a contrast.

Overall grade: B.  This dress is a very particular style and doesn’t have the versatility of patterns that I give my highest grades.  It is, however, a fabulous at-home dress and its comfort factor can’t be beat.

**I received this pattern for free as a tester.  Also, this post contains affiliate links which means that if you click on one of these links and buy something, I get a small percentage of that sale (so if you’re inclined to buy a Blank Slate pattern, please click through and throw a sista a bone!).  But all opinions are my own!

The Berkshire Blazer

Stop the presses!! She finally got around to taking pictures of something!

The Berkshire Blazer by Blank Slate Patterns.

Granted, not one of the many things I’ve made myself over the last few months, but hey, it’s something!

Actually, I decided to get off my fanny and take pictures of this particular Berkshire Blazer (affiliate link) because Melissa is hosting a Berkshire Blazer sew along this month!

Dragon Shorts (to go with a dragon shirt, of course)

** Disclosure: This post contains Blank Slate Patterns affiliate links, but all opinions are 100% my own!

Yea!! I FINALLY made J a new pair of Big Island Board Shorts!  I tested this pattern a couple of months ago when the Blank Slate Patterns Summer Vibe collection was released.

My failure to blog my original pair of BIBS (Big Island Board Shorts gets really long!) was not because I didn’t like the pattern.  To the contrary, I think this is a great pattern, and J loved the first pair that I made him.  He wore them so much that they were quite literally ripping at the seams.

No, my complaint about my first pair was the fabric.  The recommended fabric for this pattern is polyester microfiber, or boardshort material.  The problem that I ran into was that my local fabric shops don’t carry boardshort material, and because of the quick turnaround required for testing, the fabric I ordered wouldn’t arrive in time.  So, I went with plan B and picked up some polyester nylon at Joann’s for that first pair.

The nylon was sufficient to make a pair of test shorts, and J loved that I had made them blue.  But, in my opinion, the fabric was not great, and for that reason alone I wasn’t thrilled with that first pair.

Big Island Board Shorts. With dragons

These, however, are made from proper board short material from the Fabric Fairy.  And dragons?  I mean seriously, how awesome is that for a 4-year-old?

BIBS Back view

This pattern is an easy sew.  The construction is straightforward, and the use of bias tape gives a nice, retro feel to it.  I like that it uses a separate waistband, since that provides so many more options for modification.

And they move well!

Specifically, the modification that I made to these shorts — adding front pockets.  J loves to carry things around in his pockets, and the BIBS as drafted include only a back patch pocket.  That back pocket was almost completely useless for J in his first pair of BIBS, so this time I added the front pockets.

Adding front pockets is such an easy modification, particularly if you already have pocket pattern pieces that you like.  For these, I used the pockets from the Clean Slate Shorts, and widened and deepened them by about an inch so that his cars won’t fall out of his pockets at school.  Adding these did not impact the rest of the shorts construction at all.

Front pockets and inside finishes.

The other modifications I made were on seam finishes.  As I’ve mentioned before, J is really hard on the seams in his pants and shorts, so I’ve started reinforcing and doing nice finishes on his things.  For these, I flat-felled the inseams, and then encased the crotch seam with bias tape.  I also used bias tape to bind the pocket pouches.  Isn’t the inside pretty?

The inside.

I omitted the optional liner.  J has about 4 pairs of swim trunks from last summer that still fit him, so I didn’t really anticipate him using these for swimming.  And I didn’t feel like trying to make bias tape out of proper boardshort fabric, opting instead for storebought.

Big Island Board Shorts

Pattern: Big Island Board Shorts by Blank Slate Patterns

Size: 4T.

Fit: Perfect.  I guess it’s no mystery why I love Blank Slate for kid patterns — they fit my kids perfectly, with only minor changes to the length of the waist elastic.

Fabric: Chinese dragons boardshort fabric in the blue/black colorway from Fabric Fairy.  For the binding, I used storebought bias tape in turquoise.  It was almost a perfect match!

Modifications: I added front pockets and omitted the back patch pockets on this pair since J loves his front pockets!  This was really easy to do.  I used the pocket pattern pieces from the Clean Slate Pants/Shorts and deepened them a bit so that J’s stuff is less likely to fall out.

Physical pattern: PDF pattern, but it’s not overly burdensome.  There are only 4 main pattern pieces (5 if you include the optional liner), so it’s not that much to piece together.

Pros:

• Another really versatile pattern from Blank Slate.  These are designed to be swim trunks made with boardshort fabric and a mesh liner, but can easily be turned into a pair of easy retro shorts simply by using a different fabric.  How awesome would these be made out of athletic mesh for a pair of baller shorts, or a great print tempered with solid bias binding?
• Easy construction.  The bias binding eliminates the need to hem or finish the outseams and is a really easy technique.  It would probably be faster to simply hem and sew a traditional outseam (since the bias binding requires two passes at the machine), but they would lose that retro look.

Cons:

• Lack of front pockets.  It would have been an easy thing to add and it seems that most kids are way more into front pockets than back ones.  Though on a pair of swim trucks, it probably doesn’t matter much and they are easily added!

Overall grade: A.  Great pattern and it’s nice to have a boy swim trunk pattern in my stash.   Someday J’s behind will be big enough that he’ll need new swim trunks, and when that day hits, I’ll be ready!

And N was outside with us when we were taking pictures of these shorts, and her getup was just a hoot.  I couldn’t resist a few pictures!

All decked out and taking baby for a ride.

Super-secret pattern testing: The W Pants

** Disclosure: This post contains Blank Slate Patterns affiliate links, but all opinions are 100% my own!

Melissa of Melly Sews and Blank Slate Patterns just released the new W Pants pattern as part of the Pattern Anthology Alphabet Collection, and I had the opportunity to be one of her super-secret pattern testers back in June!

The W Pants, with all kinds of bells and whistles!

I decided to make a pair of fancy pants for J. The kid just keeps getting longer, which means he constantly needs pants. I should even be able to let enough length out of these pants to make them last through the winter.

I made sure to consult with J on the fabric choice, to increase the chances that he would wear them. He thought jeans were a good idea, and was excited at the prospect of blue cars on the yoke of his pants. And it worked because he didn’t object to putting them on and then wore them all day long!

The W Pants are slim-fit pants with full-length, cropped and shorts options. The pattern also includes all kinds of options for bells and whistles, like proper front slash pockets, a functioning zip fly, and zippered welt pockets. I went for all of them.

Cool Cat in his cool pants.

J was particularly impressed with the zippered welt pockets. He thought it was pretty darned cool that he could zip a toy into his pocket and it wouldn’t fall out! He was probably least impressed with the front zip fly. He kept examining it and telling me that I messed up because the zippers were supposed to be on the pockets.

Examining his zipper pockets.

I, however, was pretty psyched by the zip fly since it was my first-ever functioning fly. And it was easy! True, there are a lot of steps to installing a zip fly, but Melissa’s instructions were really clear, and the whole thing went together smoothly. And (gasp!) I didn’t have to rip and redo anything!

Since I was pattern testing, I made very few modifications to the pattern. The main changes I made were with seam finishing. J is hard on his pants and tends to rip seams. With that in mind, I reinforced almost every seam in these pants and flat felled the seams that were flat-fellable. Namely, the back crotch seam, the inseams and the outseams. Hopefully those super-seams will hold up to an active 4-year-old!

The deets. Contrast, zipper welt pockets, zip fly, double-stitched hems.

Long story short: Love these pants. Great pattern, lots of details, and I would highly recommend it. I may have to take a stab at a girly pair for N now!

The W Pants

Pattern: W Pants by Blank Slate Patterns (Available only as part of the Alphabet Collection until mid-August).

Size: 4T.

Fit: These fit J almost perfectly. I did narrow the waist a bit from the pattern measurements since J is pretty darn skinny. For reference, his waist measurement is 17″ so I always have to make the waist smaller than recommended. But because these fit my skinny kid so well, I suspect that they might be a bit snug on a bigger kid. Pay close attention to the measurements, and maybe even make a quick and dirty version without all the extras before spending the hours that it will take to finish the full version.

Fabric: The main is a nice, medium weight denim from the Michael Levine online shop, www.lowpricefabric.com. For the accents, I used remnants from my awesome cars Echino fabric that I picked up at Sarah’s Fabrics in Lawrence, Kansas. The bulk of the Echino cars was used for J’s Clean Slate Car Shorts.

Modifications: I try to keep my modifications to a minimum when I’m testing a pattern so that I can give the designer accurate feedback on how the pattern fits. I will, however, adjust a couple of the final measurements — waist and inseam — to fit the kid I’m sewing for. In this case, I used the waistband elastic instructions for sizes 6-8 and ran the elastic 3/4 of the way around the waist rather than the back only, as the pattern instructs. I had to take so much width out of the waist to fit my skinny boy that I knew it would look funny to take it all out of the back.

I also modified the seam finishes throughout. J is hard on his pants and tends to rip the seams on his handmade pants. To combat that, I reinforced every seam and then flat felled the inseams, outseams and back crotch seam to strengthen them and give them a really nice finish.

Physical pattern: This is a PDF, which is not my favorite, but Melissa did a nice job with this PDF. The pattern includes options for pants, shorts and capris, so the file is a monster (55 pages)! But she included bookmarks in the PDF and detailed instructions on which pages to print for each option, which makes it much easier to work with.

Pros:

• Lots of options. The full version with all the bells and whistles (zipper welt pockets, functioning fly, etc) is an intermediate pattern, particularly if you flat fell the seams like I chose to do. However, if you want a quicker, easier sew, you can easily eliminate some of these options and they’d go together much faster.
• Really nice silhouette. I like that these pants are slimmer through the legs than the Clean Slate Pants. They’re not quite “skinny,” but are definitely “slim.” I really liked how they looked.
• The back yoke is a nice place to feature a small amount of special fabric.
• For people with a fear of zippers and zip flies (like me), this pattern is great! Melissa does a great job of walking you through everything and you end up with a professional-looking finished product.
• The zipper welt pockets are a neat detail and one that you rarely see. They’re a really cool feature, and J loves that he can zip up his pockets so that stuff doesn’t fall out.

Cons:

• These pants take a long time if you want the full version with all the options. From fabric cutting to finishing, I spent a solid 6+ hours working on these pants. Granted, I was taking detailed notes to give feedback, but even so, they still took a long time. That’s not the fault of the pattern, but do be aware that if you want all the cool aspects, you’re going to be sewing for a while.

Overall grade: A. This is a well-drafted pattern with tons of options and a great finished product. Definitely worth the $7.95.

The Poastal Pants

** Disclosure: This post contains Blank Slate Patterns affiliate links, but, I paid for the patterns used out of my own pocket, and all opinions are 100% my own!

I actually made these pants for the kids’ yearly photo shoot back in May, and then they didn’t get worn in the photos.  Oh well, J really likes them and wore them quite a bit before the weather got ridiculously hot!

These are essentially a mash-up of the Made by Rae Parsley Pants, and the Blank Slate Patterns Coastal Cargos, hence the name Poastal Pants!

The Poastal Pants

And J loves them! If they are clean and in his drawer, he wants to wear them. My kids are at ages now where they’re very picky about their clothes, so it’s always nice to stumble on something that they just love. These pants fit the bill nicely for J. They’re lightweight, super comfy, move really well, and he got to pick out the buttons! He also sat with me and handed me needles for much of the sewing process, and that always helps endear him to a handmade garment.