Next week is the kids clothes week challenge! Have you signed up? Do you have a plan? Are you making piles of fabric? My list consists mostly of pants, coats, and some shirts. Not particularly exciting, but it’s what my kids need.

This week I wanted to have a slew of tutorials to get everyone excited to sew next week. There are so many good tutorials out there for simple pants and shirts already. Like these–

1. simple pants pattern
2. basic coat pattern
3. ringer shirt tutorial
4. hoodie to pullover refashion
5. kimono pattern
6. raglan shirt pattern

So instead of patterns and tutorials for pants or tops, I’ve asked some super fantastic children’s clothes makers (and bloggers) to come up with tutorials for details you can add to basic pieces: patches, hoods, pintucks.  Sounds awesome, right? This week will be like the pre-game party for kcwc!

I’m going to kick it off with a little detail tutorial of my own: the bunting tag tutorial. I try to remember to put tags in all the clothes I make, because if I don’t my son will inevitably wear his pants backwards. The elsie marley tag I have is gray–nice and subtle, but not very noticeable to a four year old. So I’ve had to come up with other, more visible tags to use. Bunting, banners, triangles on strings, whatever you call them they are everywhere, so I figured why not put them in your pants?

the bunting tag tutorial

Materials

• bias tape–double fold, single fold, it doesn’t matter just use what you have
• pins
• scissors
• iron
• an article of clothing to put your tags in

Directions

1.  Cut five 2 inch pieces of bias tape. You can use all the same color or different colors, whatever you like. Oh yeah, that is some metallic gold bias tape up there!

2.  Open up one side of the bias tape and iron it flat. Then fold up the folded side to make a triangle–see above photo. 

3.  Turn the triangle over so the fold is in the back. Line them up in the order you like.

4.  Check to see if the triangles are evenly spaced by placing a piece of paper over the raw edges (the bit of cardboard that comes with bias tape works well for this).  This also lets you see what the tag will look like when it’s sewn into your clothes–the triangles overlapping no longer shows and it looks more like a proper bunting.

5.  Pin the triangles and sew or bast them together.  Trim the raw edges to about 1/4 inch.

6. Insert the bunting where you would normally put a tag (the back, duh) and sew that sucker in. Ta Da! A bunting in your pants!  Now your kids won’t put their clothes on backwards and while you are folding the laundry you’ll smile a little when you see these little tags .

I have been dreaming about crocheting the kids some afghans for a while now (like this one and this one or this one). I knew I should have started in the summertime, but the thought of a big pile of yarn on my lap when it was 100 degrees out just made me gag. It’s cold and of course they need a warm blanket and now I want to make one, but at this point it will be done for next fall. Dammit. Old lady thrift store to the rescue!

Seriously, those old ladies are the bomb. It’s the only thrift store in town that hasn’t been hipsterfied. Things are a little smelly and odd, but they all are priced like second hand goods, not like it’s oooo vintage. This super amazing rainbow afghan was three bucks! But (big but) none of the end were woven in. Do you see all those color changes?!

How could I pass it up? I had been looking at this exact pattern to use for an afghan, because of this beautiful specimen. So last night, I happily sat on the couch with the afghan warm from the dryer and wove those 200 ends in. It’s like the satisfaction of finishing a huge project without having to actually do the huge project.  Thank you whoever made this gorgeous afghan and abandoned it almost done!

p.s. see that little bit of a map up there? the room is (still) slowly coming together–might even get done.

A little friend of ours turned 3 last week. I had the damnest time coming up with something to make for him. He’s got a super crafty mama, so that lucky boy is kitted out with capes and bags and awesome appliqued shirts. And all the other things you would make for little boys.

I figured the dress up box could always use a few more things, so I sewed up these felt masks. I started with a mask template I made from a paper plate and then went crazy with a bag of felt scraps.  There was a lot of white, gray, and orange felt in the bag, so out came a cat, an elephant, and an owl.

I had the best time making the elephant. His ears are extra wonky and homemade, but I’m so in love with his pompom headpiece I don’t care. It was sort of a last minute addition too. If I had thought of it earlier I would have dressed him up more!

Mostly I made up the patterns as I went along except I did steal the owl mask idea from Martha (she’s got so many ideas, she won’t notice). These were so fun to make and halloween is coming up so fast, I might have to make some more.  I might even go crazy and write up a tutorial. But which one? Or should I make something else?

I’m now accepting sponsors for October! Kids Clothes Week Challenge is the second week in October and there are already over 150 people signed up. It looks like there are lots of new people this time around too–yay! I’ve got some super good stuff lined up for the week before KCWC. And there is even some good stuff after it’s over too! October is going to rock your world.

KCWC has been such a big hit in the past that traffic on the blog doubles for the month. That means over 100,000 pages views! Just like in the spring, 125×125 sponsor spots for October are 40 dollars.  I’m also offering a larger 300×300 spot for $150–in case you want to go big. I really try to keep the prices reasonable so that bloggers and indie shops can easily afford it–and I hope you can.

Sponsorship introduces elsie marley’s 4500 subscribers to your shop or blog. And it gives me the resources to create tutorials and patterns and all of the good stuff you love about elsie marley. If you are interested please email me at

elsiemarleyblog@gmail.com

 

If you don’t have a blog or shop, but would still like to support this lovely blog, you could subscribe to elsie marley and have posts sent directly to your email or an RSS reader (there is a subscribe button on the sidebar at the right).  The more subscribers I get, the more support I get, the more projects you get! And I get to know you are out there, which makes me happy as can be.

If you made it this far and are still wondering what the pictures are all about.  It’s salad spinner art!  We did a few weeks ago and it’s easy as can be: jam a paper plate in an old salad spinner, blop lots of paint on it, and spin like crazy. Even the two year old got in on the action! I admit I was waiting for my turn too. This is a fairly contained project and you probably could get away with doing it inside, but better to go outside while the weather is nice. I’m sure you know where all your almost empty bottles of paint are–this is a project for them–but I bet you are thinking, “where the hell did I put that salad spinner?…”

Remember these crates I found in the garbage?  I cleaned them up and we slapped some wheels on the good ones this past weekend. Et volia! Toy boxes with wheels. Not my idea and not even the first time I’ve done it, but it is still awesome. Blocks are heavy and a pain to drag out, but no longer! All thanks to the almighty wheel.