A few months ago, Robin from nested in stitches gathered together a very talented bunch of sewists for an amazing swap. She assigned everyone a blogger, then by referring to their pinterest board for inspiration, we sewed an outfit for one of their kids.

I was lucky enough to have Sanae  assigned to make clothes for my middle son. She is an accomplished and proficient sewer. And she is crazy stylish to boot! You should have seen my kids when we opened the package. They have never been that excited about the clothes I make. Everything they saw was, “Awesome! So soft! Look at this! Super cool!”

I was saying all those things too, because come on! Look at these awesome clothes! All of them are spot on and so unbelievably soft. I need to hook up with her knit fabric supplier, because my knits are not nearly as buttery as hers.

The mismatched stripes and the nani iro knit print are perfect. And I love me some raglan shirts!

The hoodie , though, that is really the piece de resistance. Yes, it’s dirty, because it has been worn nonstop since it came out of the package.

It zips up and down, has secret stripy pockets, oh my goodness the greatest thing ever: the patch inside!

Sanae said that the patch was to cover up a sewing mistake. Well, hooray for mistakes! I teared up a bit when I saw it, because it’s so lovely. And why haven’t I been putting little secret messages like this on all the clothes I make for my kids? When I read it to my son he said, very matter of fact, “Actually, I am awesome!”

The pants, Sanae thought, might be a bit big and they were. But luckily I have children to spare! And they fit my daughter perfectly.

She was so happy to not be left out. The pants suit her really well and it’s a pattern I never would have considered making for her. Her brother will inherit them someday. The littlest will grow into all of them in time. We are so lucky! Thanks, Sanae!

oops, I almost forgot about the little work of art she included in her package. How beautiful! I was inspired to do the same for my swap partner, but came no where close to her artistic ability. Talented in so many ways, that Sanae!

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And here she is to talk about the inspiration behind the clothes:

This was a new and exciting challenge for me since I rarely sew for boys, and I was thrilled to be sewing for Meg of Elsie Marley, because c’mon, she’s Elsie Marley! I love Meg’s cool and fun aesthetic, so for inspiration I chose a few pins from her Pinterest board that seemed to reflect her style that also appealed to me. If you’ve been following Elsie Marley, it’s pretty clear that she’s all about the stripes. So I wanted to incorporate lots of stripes and a bit of pattern, and above all, comfort. Comfort means knits to me, and it’s probably very unoriginal but I can’t help but think of cargo pants for boys. I obviously didn’t truly copy any of the pins, but wanted to create the quirky/cool vibe.

In our household, we’ve been obsessed with the How To Train a Dragon book series, and I had this vague idea of creating an urban viking look with a dragon stencil somewhere – and how awesome would it have been to add viking horns to the side of the hoodie? Sadly, I was more ambitious than time allowed (as always). Also, my serger kept eating the knits and I kept starting over so I ended up with two raglan tees that I salvaged. I added a li’l patch to the hoodie to hide a particularly tragic serger accident, and it became my favorite part of the whole outfit. I was SO nervous about everything I made and as I suspected, the pants were too big. But all in all, it was such a fun experience!

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Those four up there are the garments I made for Gail’s little girl. Pop over to her blog, probably actually, to see them all in action! And do visit all the blogs below to see all the amazing handmade kids clothes!!

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cherie from you and mie

danielle from my sparkle

delia from delia creates

gail from probably actually

heather from well-crafted

kristin from skirt as top

meg from elsie marley

robin from nested in stitches

sanae from sanae ishida

vanessa from lbg studio

Five years ago, I sat down and wrote a list. I decided I was going to really do this sewing thing, even if my brain kept telling me I was no good at it. My plan was  to focus on sewing kid’s clothes one week, then move on to sewing something else the next week and so on down the list. Well, I never got to the second thing on the list. Sewing kid’s clothes took over! Took over and became Kid’s Clothes Week.

Now it has grown into this amazing community of sewers, all motivating and helping each other. It has gotten so big, it has outgrown my blog. I told you a few weeks ago about kcw’s new blog and I hinted at something even more. Dorie and I are building a new website for kcw and it’s going to be awesome! The website will be a place to go for inspiration, and help with patterns, and discovering new people and blogs. And all of it will be about making kid’s clothes. There are a few good sewing communities out there, but sewing kid’s clothes is always tucked away in a dusty corner.

We want the new site to be for you, and by you. Over on the kcw blog today, we’re asking for your suggestions. What do you think the new site should look like? What do you think it should do? What features are necessary? What ones aren’t? This site has the potential to be a really fantastic place and we’d love your help making it.

And if you want to do more than suggestion box stuff, we need that too! We’d like a group of people to be the first registered users and do a little hammering and sawing on our new home. We built this amazing community together, we can build and amazing site together too! Head on over to the kcw blog and check it out!

Today I am over at You & Mie for her series on Japanese Sewing Books. The series walks you through all the steps you need to know  from Japanese pattern books. They can be a bit intimidating, but they also can be a lot of fun. My post is all about finding your pattern and tracing it. Sounds easy, but there are some tricks you need to know. Hop on over to Cherie’s lovely blog for my post, and all the guest posts this week!

In honor of Japanese Sewing Books week, I sewed up this sundress from my favorite Japanese sewing book, Happy Homemade Vol. 2. Well, to be honest, I dug up this dress that I sewed most of last spring, then hemmed it and added buttons (in honor of Japanese Sewing Books week). Why I sew 90% of something and then abandon it is beyond me.

But anyway, it’s done and (still) fits! I’m going to do a form style report on this one, because 3 days into spring break and the children have run me ragged already. My brain is not functioning at full capcity.

the fabric: oh, the fabric is lovely. It is 100% cotton shirting I got from the good fabric store in my neighborhood. They have a lot of beautiful fabrics, but mostly in ugly prints. This tiny blue stripe was perfect, though. It’s a good weight too, just right for when (if?) summer comes. I went with polka dot buttons because it’s stripes + polka dots up in here, all the time.

the pattern: the pattern is from Happy Homemade Vol. 2. I sew from this book a lot; I talk about it a lot too.  I think it’s a great 1st Japanese sewing book. I’d love to do some sort of sew-along thing-a-bob with the patterns in the book. Anyone up for it? Maybe after KCW? Anyway, the pattern. The pattern was pretty simple, because, well the dress is pretty simple. I do remember the armholes being super fussy and weird.

the sewing: There was a little swearing, but there alway is, isn’t there? The fabric was dreamy. The striped bias tape turned out really nice, as did the bias cut bodice piece. I’d say not bad for a dress half done, abandoned, and (because it’s almost Easter, I’m just going to go for it and say…) resurrected. Ha!

My daughter has never been much of a girly girl. There was a brief princess phase, but for the most part all the frilly and fussy girl things are of no interest to her.  Not that she is all for boy things, either. She just wants to like what she likes and not be told what that should be. A while back she said, totally exasperated, “Arg! why does my toothbrush have to be pink?!”

Exactly.  So what is the awesome dress that isn’t too girly, but still has a tiny bit of twirl? The Skater Dress pattern by Kitchy Coo.

Amanda has hit the nail on the head with this pattern. Even the name is perfect. The skater dress is comfy and stylish, just right for puddle jumping in the spring, throwing on over your suit in the summer, and of course going to the skate park.  She designed it to fit for a few years! And this dress will indeed fit my daughter through the fall–a lifetime in kid years.

The original pattern is a crew neck, but I couldn’t imagine it without a hood. Luckily for me, Rae recently posted a hoodie tutorial that was a perfect match for this dress. I made the placket a little shorter so I wouldn’t have to add buttons or snaps. She does have to wear something under it, but I expected that.

The fabric is from Joann’s if you can believe it. I couldn’t. It is a lovely knit: not to light, not to heavy, and so soft. The best bit is that one side is stripes, the other polka dots! The color could be less Primary! Blue! but I’ll take it.

The pattern is well written and Amanda guides you through the trickier parts of sewing with knits. She convinced me that I should use stretch needles when sewing with knits. And she introduced me to the stretch stitches on my machine, which I’m now in love with. Amanda also tried to get me to use a double needle for the hem. I did buy one, but then wimped out when it came time to using it. My hem is of course wavy and now I regret not listening to her.

The moral of this story is, listen to Amanda and buy her awesome pattern! Be sure to follow along with the Skater Dress blog tour to see everyone’s variation of this fantastic dress. See you at the skate park!

I’ve never been a picky eater. Partly because picky eaters were not allowed in the house I grew up in and partly because there is just so much delicious food out there I don’t want to miss. But eggplant, well eggplant never did it for me.

I always looked at it as the vegetarian’s meat. And not being a vegetarian, I chose the actual meat. Eggplant sat there spongy and tasteless. Yes, eggplant parmesan is delicious, but if you accidentally breaded and fried your kitchen sponge, then doused it in tomato sauce, it might be delicious too.

This past year, I waged a food war with my pickiest eater, my youngest. I’m happy to say I won (and have been thinking of posting about it–would you be interested?) but part of the battle involved looking at the food I ate. Was I picky? I didn’t think so, but I had fallen into a food rut. I bought the same things every week, so we ate some variation of the same things every week.  I went out and bought 2 eggplants.

Then I had to figure out a way to cook them. I found a good recipe, messed with it a bit, and have made it at least ten times. I eat eggplant–willingly! This eggplant is smoky and bold, bright and fresh, a little winter-y and a little spring-y. It is lovely warm, but equally as good cold.  Can you tell I love it? I love it even more the next day with a fried egg on top.

smokey, roasted eggplant

adapted from this recipe on the kitchn

ingredients

• 2 large eggplants
• 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoon smoked paprika (don’t substitute regular paprika, go get the smoked stuff)
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup (optional, but good)
• 2 large garlic cloves
• 1 cup flat parsley leaves, chopped
• Juice of 1 lemon

directions

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F
2. Cut the eggplant into cubes (1 inch or so) and sprinkle with the salt
3. Whisk the oil, vinegar, paprika, cumin, and maple syrup together
4. Add the garlic and the eggplant.
5. Mix everything up and spread it out on one sheet pant (it looks like a lot for one sheet pan, but the eggplant shrinks considerably)
6. Put it in the oven for 1 hour–stirring now and then. Really it can stay in for even longer, it just gets better.
7. When the eggplant is done, take it out and squeeze the juice of 1 lemon over the top.
8. Stir in the parsley and eat!