Monday 14 June 2010

Busy bee...


So eventually I did get time to finish Alex's fleece, and I am really rather happy with it. Luckily so is Alex, I've actually not been able to get it of him other then to sleep the last couple of days, so it's been a matter of wash in the evening, and dry over night. Thankfully fleece dries fairly quickly so it's not been a real problem.

As you can see I've used the lime fleece for the body, and the olive for sleeves and hood, I also lined the hood with a lime coloured jersey fabric I also bought at Dots N Stripes ( see my blog list for Nicole's blog, or my previous entry for a link to her shop-I love it!). I think it's working really well.
One thing in particular that I am pleased about with this top is a clever little detail on the hood, which was suggested in Sewing Clothes Kids Love. Instead of putting in a drawstring in the hood for the kids to get all tangled up in, they suggested putting in a little piece of elastic in the front of the hood, in the hem allowance, and it really works, and it looks very nice too I think. It's on the whole a very nice book, as ever there is more girl clothes then boy's ones, but that's just to be expected, I still feel I'll get plenty of use of its projects, and as the sizes goes from toddler to 11-12 years, I can see myself making hundreds of IMKE shirts in different versions over the next ten or so years.

Sewing Clothes Kids Love: Sewing Patterns and Instructions for Boys' and Girls' Outfits


But that's not all I've been doing recently, oh no, I've also finished a little bag for myself (although Alex did try to get me to give it to him) it's a bit of a cheat really as the fabric to this project came ready cut with Cath Kidstone's 'Sew', so I really just had to stitch it together.





Sew!
Compare and contrast the pictures...
It did also allow me to practise making my first ever button holes, four of them, I can definitely do with some more practise on them, although it wasn't as difficult as I had expected. I do feel as if I am getting better with my sewing though, which is nice, I am certain that if people who really know their stuff were to inspect some of the seems on either of those projects, they might find one or two things to improve upon, but that is just what I'm doing, so I'm OK with that.

I haven't really got anything else started at them moment, although I am hoping to get a few baby bloomers finished for Tristan, and maybe also cousin Poppy, before we go to Sweden for to weeks on Saturday. I know that bloomers probably is considered a female piece of clothing, but I figure if I make Tristan's in a manly sober blue or similar, it is just possible that he will mange without getting any problems in the future. He might even not know it's girls clothes, and I do think at the crawling age, they are much more practical then shorts which goes down over the knees. And he will look adorable in them, of course he always does as you can see here:
Feeding himself...