Category: kiddo clothes

Here’s the fall version of today’s set of PJ pants – I LOVE these fabrics, and it was so exciting to find two prints in the same line that I liked so much.

Again, they’re sewn to be reversible, but the green makes such a pretty lining/accent that it’s the inside. Both sides feel great, though.

I am so excited about this pants pattern – after the success of the last pair, I decided to make two more. These are the summer colors version.

So bright and cheery. They’re completely reversible.

And I love the bits of yellow lining peeping through on the blue side.

I even remembered to mark a “tag” on the back with ribbon.

They look so finished and seem to fit really well. Exciting!

I’ve been trying on and off for the last year or so to find or come up with a great cotton PJ pants pattern with an elastic waist and that works with our cloth diapers. (The kiddo is nearly two and we’re still going strong on that front – works for us, but pants are getting more challenging.) There have been many attempts, and all of them so far have met with failure. For the patterns, either the fit was off, the finishing was crummy, or the instructions were baffling. I’ve also tried making my own patterns by tracing his current clothes but the Christening outfit was the only one that really came out well.

We were at the fabric store (it’s next to the CSA pickup spot, and they hand out balloons!!) a few weeks ago and I noticed this book just as Henry was starting to hit his limit. Looked nice, though, based on my 7-second flip-through (the illustrations are somehow reminiscent of the Anne of Green Gables homemaker book that I loved in 5th grade), so it was essentially an impulse buy.

But WOW! The PJ pants pattern is pretty much awesome.

Such simple sewing (which is great given the amount of time I will be dedicating to the project), and although they’re big, they work. I feel like the much loved elephant pants are a size down (a solid 2T) whereas these are 3T and still biggish. Luckily they roll well (and hold the crease – yay double layer of cotton).

One last photo of the 23 month old kiddo, his “big truck!” book, and the turtle pants.

(Sorry you can’t really see the pants in that photo and the shirt doesn’t match – he was happy to try them on, didn’t want to take them off, and REALLY didn’t want to pose for the camera, so I gave up quickly.)

There are definitely going to be more iterations of this pattern – it’s great.

I decided to take an unheard of vacation day to just stay home by myself and sew while Kevin was in Albuquerque and the kiddo was at daycare. I’ve never done that before – it was wonderful. I read a book, listened to NPR, and I worked on the toddler’s crab shirt.

Putting the big mat on the kitchen counter was a whim, but it’s a wonderful work spot. Clear and open, plus tall enough that it’s exactly the right height for cutting. I will be doing more of this.

The finished shirt in the bright backyard by my pretty planters.

And a close-up of the crab.

This was my first attempt at paper piecing – went really well, I think. The points aren’t perfect, but they’re good enough for a kid’s shirt. I’ll have to try this again soon.

I came across this quilt block today, and was smitten.

I don’t need an entire crab quilt, necessarily, but I have a toddler who could certainly use a crab shirt! So I started pulling out fabrics.

You’ll see two shirts in that photo because I got all excited and decided to maybe also make him a plane shirt (since he spends so much of his day pointing out each plane that passes).

It probably would have been smarter to finish one shirt rather than perpetually working in parallel. Oh, well. The fabric is starched and ironed, and now I just need to figure out how to copy the pattern and learn paper piecing… neither should be hard, just takes more than five consecutive minutes. Learning from past mistakes, these are both 3T shirts (not the 2T ones that fit him today) – even though this should be a VERY quick project, I’m sure I can manage to stretch it out for a few months.

I thought I’d try appliquéing cute things on some of the plain toddler shirts we have. So I bought Heat-n-bond Lite (which seems to be the medium of choice for this sort of work on the blogs I read), and happened to also see a cute little bird stencil. While Kevin and the kiddo went to the grocery store last weekend, I set up camp in our office and traced, cut and ironed, and watched three shows of Jon Stewart online. Such a fun use of an hour. When the guys got back, I had this, just waiting to be sewed (I planned to embroider eyes and beaks and branches later):

So we took a break for dinner and bedtime, and then I sewed during the Patriots game. I started by hand – so slow. So then I switched to the machine, but it was hard to keep the shape of the line right on such small pieces, and then I had a string of bobbin catches as I worked. Frustrating – the birds would have been so cute. The last bobbin catch would not come unstuck, and I ended up tearing the shirt. Hmm. Lessons for next time? Bigger pieces (not teeny tiny curves), start on the slowest speed setting, and use the walking foot. Rather than totally giving the shirt up for lost, though, I ended up reverse appliquéing in a turtle print that I love.

Here’s the inside of the shirt – I used the pinking shears on all the edges, shirt and patch. The stitching was just very tight, small zig-zags.

If I did this exact same thing again, I’d do a double (back to back) layer of the cotton, since I think it’s probably more airy and colder than the jerset knit. There’s enough of the turtle fabric to make matching pants – perhaps I’ll get around to that at some point? Love those turtles.