KCWC - tee two with tie

Clem is having his birthday party at home tomorrow so I thought he would like a new t-shirt to wear. And because I bought a bunch of these coordinating Farbenmix knits (partly with a voucher I won from Crafty Mamas, lucky me), it's clearly in the same 'family' as Jasper's tee from yesterday.

Before I could take some decent photos of it there was food down the front but I don't think you can really pick it in these trampoline action photos, where Clem was willingly letting Jasper bounce right over the top of him, even though it was clearly unnerving.

(covered as usual in bandaids and temporary tattoos)

Pattern: Ottobre Best T-shirts, with bands added on the sleeves, calculated at .85 x circumference of sleeve ends so they pulled in a bit

Fabric: Farbenmix cotton/elastane jersey from Crafty Mamas (I cut the neck and sleeve bands from the wide stripe version of the red/turquoise knit)

Iron-on: another from Crafty Mamas

Tie tee is in the wash as I write, ready for party duty tomorrow!

- Jane x

KCWC - beetle tee

I really wanted to take part in the Kids Clothes Week Challenge this time. I didn't sign up last time and then I felt a bit left out when I saw the awesomeness everyone else was posting on their blogs.
This time, when I tried to put the KCWC button on my blog it wouldn't fit on the sidebar. Maybe I should have taken that as an omen. As I previously posted, it's been quite a week here. The hour-a-day of sewing thing hasn't been happening.
But today I managed this:

Pattern: Ottobre Best T-Shirts (skinny version)

Fabric: Farbenmix cotton/elastane jersey from Crafty Mamas

Beetle: iron-on velour from Crafty Mamas

Am I still allowed to call this a KCWC achievement if I haven't adhered to the rules? It was certainly inspired by KCWC. The volume and quality of garments being sewn out there is simply incredible.

How cool is that iron-on beetle? And it's fuzzy!

Okay so enough of the cool cropped photo stuff, let's see this kid enjoying his new t-shirt.

That's more like it.

- Jane x

KCWC days six and seven: helloooo Spoonflower organic cotton knit!

Whaddayareckon? I reckon this is right up there as one of my all-time favourite-things-I've-sewed.

The details:
Pattern - Figgy's Tee For Two, except sewn on the overlocker (no exposed seams).
Print fabric - organic cotton knit from Spoonflower, "countryside architecture linen" by Holli Zollinger.
Plain fabric - organic cotton jersey from Kelani Fabric.
Neckband - cut from the unprinted edge from the Spoonflower fabric.

 Design feature! You know, to cover up where I accidentally ended up with the join on the neckband at the front? Sweet little piece of Japanese cotton trim from here, which happened to match the colour scheme perfectly.

Gasp! The twin needle worked. I had a feeling that the special magic needed was my good old 'Blue Magic' Singer 348, whose story I must tell one day. I had lent it to a friend, she brought it back, I tried the twin needle. My devotion to Singers is reaffirmed. Yay.

I bought two yards of this print from Spoonflower, which was my first ever order from them. I also got one of their swatch books of all their different base fabrics, which will be great for future reference. One of the reasons I went to Spoonflower was for boy-friendly prints, particularly ones suitable for tween-age and up. I like the way you can gather a whole collection of 'favourites', and I have a few more good ones I'd be keen to order now.

I love the fact this is organic cotton. And the price, at least with the current AUD/USD exchange rate, was reasonable given that it's organic, and printed to order. It took about a month to arrive but that probably only served to make it more exciting.

Here's a tip: if you want two or more continuous yards of a print, make sure you order it as one quantity of the required length, not multiple quantities of one yard. I had a number of things in my online shopping cart and was umming and ahhing, changing my mind, and in the end just opted for the two yards of this. So I must have changed my order to '2' of this in the cart. Therefore it turned up as two separate cut yards. Not a terrible problem but not quite as versatile as two continuous yards.

The knit is beautifully soft, light-ish but not too flimsy. I will definitely be back for more.

Well, I think that's it for my KCWC, but certainly not the end of my summer-sewing-for-boys. I went out and made appreciative noises at Andy doing an awesome job of fixing the side fence, to make up for my recent sewing binge. "Fwoaarrr" and "that looks soooo much better!" should assure me a bit more sewing time over the next week :)

- Jane x

KCWC days, um, two to five-and-a-half?

My Kids Clothes Week Challenge efforts have been, er, sporadic, however I think it would add up to the equivalent of around an hour a day. That's okay isn't it?
Yesterday I made these shorts for Jasper, from start to finish. Since they're made of linen, they look like he's been wearing them a thousand years already.

They're my slightly dodgy graded-up version of the Oliver + S Sketchbook Shorts, with added back pockets. The brown linen is left over from a pre-blog dress I made myself, and the pocket fabric is a quilting cotton, bought with grand plans, aaaaannnd... marinating in the stash for a while now.

Next up, and finished today, was the companion piece to Clem's pink pyjama top of my last post. He has some pretty definite ideas about his clothing. I bought some beautiful dotty Alexander Henry cotton lawn at the end of last summer and have been musing about the perfect pattern to make myself a dress. Meanwhile, mister 4y.o. spots it and demands it become his new pyjama pants. To be honest I bought plenty of the fabric and its crisp-drapey-lightness would be simply delicious for summer sleepwear. And, saying yes to the harmless whims of a 4y.o. is easier than arguing about it.

Hence:

yeah baby, the full self-styled ensemble

pockets!

totally danceable!

they do the hornpipe!

show us your dancin' bobbin*

Pattern is one I've used several times now, in varying lengths, from Japanese sewing magazine Pochee. They have nice shaping to them, although it doesn't show up as well on this version as I made sure they were big enough for comfy sleeping.

Now, I really want to get to a t-shirt or two. My first order from Spoonflower was delivered yesterday, eek!

Happy KCWC!

- Jane x

* Bobbin is Clem's word for his bottom