I went to look for my post about this outfit I made for J late last fall, but I realized that while I blogged about it for the (now inoperable) Sew the Show blog, I never wrote about it here!
Well, time to change that 🙂
Wow, I have been such a lazy blogger lately! Â With no evening hours for photos and no good setup for inside photos, the fall/winter months are really challenging bloggy times for me. Â I hope you all will forgive me!
I did manage to make outfits for the kids when we had our last family photos taken in September (!), and here is the first one.
J in the Helter Skelter Tee by Shwin Designs
J, my tall, gangly 5 1/2-year-old is wearing a Helter Skelter Tee by Shwin Designs.
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. Â Naturally, he had to have a proper suit for the occasion!
My dapper little guy.
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!
** 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:
Cons:
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. Â I couldn’t resist a few pictures!
All decked out and taking baby for a ride.
** 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. Â 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.
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 it through about 10% of my Handmade Holidays sewing list, but I did manage to make one thing for each of the kids. J got a Diego costume, complete with patch!
Go Diego Go!
J is starting to move on from Thomas and Friends and now is a HA-UGE fan of Go Diego Go, the boy offshoot of Dora the Explorer. He loves to strap on his backpack and go “find the animal in trouble.” A proper Diego costume was only appropriate.
The most identifiable item in any Diego costume (other than the Rescue Pack, which I had planned to make but ran out of time) is Diego’s vest. It’s an off-white cargo vest with a distinctive patch on the chest.
I was flipping through my children’s patterns, and saw that the Explorer Vest from the Oliver + S book Little Things to Sew would be perfect for a Diego vest. The vest even had the option of bellow pockets, which gave it a less “polished” and more “cargo” look — exactly what I was going for!
The back bellow pocket
In addition to the bellow pockets, I added a couple of interior patch pockets to the inside of the vest, and I used the interior contrast fabric for the underside of the pocket flaps. I found a Diego iron-on patch on Etsy, which thankfully arrived a few days before Christmas.
The details.
To go along with the Diego vest, I also made J a light blue t-shirt, just like Diego’s. I used Rae’s Flashback Skinny Tee pattern, adding a few inches to the bottom, and a light blue cotton/poly interlock from my stash. And I double-checked to make sure I cut the knit the right direction this time!
And I’m happy to report that J loves it! Even when he wants to stay in his PJs all day, he readily agrees if I ask if he wants to put his Diego costume on.
Go Diego Go!
Pattern: Explorer Vest from Little Things to Sew
Size: Medium
Fabric: Off-white cotton twill from Joann’s, lined with Ed Emberley Happy Drawing Lions and Tigers in Gold by Cloud 9.
Physical Pattern: Pattern books are among of the few paper children patterns that I have, and you all know how I love paper patterns! The pattern sheets in Little Things to Sew are pretty easy to work with. My only gripe is that the book doesn’t come with a pocket to hold the pattern sheets, so they just kind of float around once you’ve pulled off the sticky from the back.
Fit: The fit is great, and still gives him room to grow into it! J’s measurements actually put him one size smaller, but just barely, so I made the bigger size so he’d have some room to grow. I don’t plan to make another Diego vest soon — those bellow pockets took forever (relatively speaking).
Pros:
Cons:
Overall grade: A. This is a well-drafted pattern with good options. The sewing world is overflowing with “fun” and accessories patterns for girls, but it can be hard to find them for boys. This is a good one.
the creative counselor 