Recently my daughter has been into pink. Waaaay into it. Especially when it’s paired with purple. Oh, barf. Pink has never been a color I’ve been attracted to and though I’m sometimes strangely drawn to purple, it’s not my favorite either. Together? No way! Sewing something you hate is no fun, but sewing something that will end up being hated is even worse.

So I came up with a compromise: a salmony pink paired with burnt orange. Boom! We both love it. The pink is a thrifted sweatshirt fabric that is super soft on the inside–sweatshirt fleece maybe. Is there such a thing? And the orange is an old tee shirt. The pattern is completely made up and I’m not super happy with it, but I think it’ll do.

It’s a raglan sleeve with a high-low hem. I haven’t been able to get this shirt that Brienne made out of my head. There was going to be a lot more color blocking going on, but in the end it was too much. I love the idea of striped cuffs, but I liked this shirt more with 3/4 length sleeves. My daughter did not agree, so I made the sleeve hem big enough to roll up. It’s all about compromise these days.

The gold polka dot leggings were easy peasy. The only mishap came when I went to hem the bottoms. Instead of pressing a nice crease, my iron melted the damn fabric. Luckily they melted in just the right place, so they’re not too short. I serged the bottoms and called it a day.

Stylish, comfy, pink: this outfit ticks all the boxes.

If you’d like to know more about these items, you can see all the details on their KCW page: sweatshirt and leggings.

It is day one of Kid’s Clothes Week! Because I was at Alt Design Summit for most of last week, I am going in cold. Very cold. Today I spent my hour staring at fabric. I used to think standing there staring at fabric was a waste of time, but I’ve discovered it’s an important part of the process. If I skip this step I’m never quite satisfied with the end product.

If I let myself stare and don’t stop myself, wonderful things happen.  A lot of the times I  get my own way and screw things up either because of self doubt or comparing myself to others. Today I trusted my judgement and chose whatever fabric jumped out at me. And look what jumped: Pink!? I’ve never been a pink girl, but my daughter has been choosing it more often these days. Looking at this pile, a salmon-y pink paired with orange is actually kind of awesome. Throw in some gold polka dots and it’s time to get this KCW party started.

So my mother called me up this morning to ask where the hell my next blog post was. Well, actually, she was much nicer than that, but that was the jist of it. I’ve been away too long, I guess?

We actually have been away. To New York, no less!  Even though we got back last week, I haven’t really returned, you know?

I shouldn’t give my mother shit because she came down and looked after all the kids, while my husband and I traipsed off to Brooklyn to eat and drink and stare at buttons (that last one was just me).

and we drank ridiculously good coffee and saw long lost friends and discovered said friends read this little blog (hi christina!).

damn, now I want to go back.

You get two for one today. That is, if you are not sick of looking at pillows yet. You probably think I’m crazy for making all these, but I had been thinking about making a bunch of pillows for ages. It’s amazing how much time I can waste just staring at fabric. This week was a nice kick in the pants to just decide already, they are only pillows you know.

To answer a few questions:

• yes, I’m using pillow forms.
• yes, zippers are really easy. I used this zipper tutorial, but erin has a fancy dancy video tutorial that will talk you through each step.
• yes, I’d love a cup of coffee, thank you.

I got these two pairs of PINK! and YELLOW! cords at the gap this summer for 3 bucks each and knew right away I wanted to turn them into pants for my kids. Last year I made pants for them out of my husband’s old jeans (sort of like this) but the rise was too low and they never wore them–my son called them, without any malice, his “falling down pants.”

I wanted to get the fit right this time, but the stinkers were sleeping when I made these so I got all fancy with the pockets while I waited. There are two patch pockets on the back of each pair and a little pocket in front–a star for my son and a heart for my daughter.  When they tried them on they both complained that the pocket was too small. Wouldn’t you be excited to have a star pocket on your pants? Whatever. They fit.

I used a pretty bit of printed corduroy for the elastic casing on the pink ones and this crazy awesome vintage scrap I had for the yellow pair. This is a super easy way to make use of those jeans you never wear, but can’t get rid of for some weird reason. Cute recycling. My friend Mary Jo over at Five Green Acres put a little upcycling twist to kids clothes week; check it out if you are making big clothes into small clothes this week.

Made by Rae Giveaway!

Today’s giveaway is from the fabulous Rae from Made by Rae. She is hilarious and down to earth and a damn fine seamstress. She kindly offered up two patterns for kids clothes week: the big butt baby pants and the toddler backpack. Both patterns are PDFs, so you could even add them to your list for this week (ha!). Just tell me which one you would rather have in the comments and I’ll choose two winners! The toddler backpack is full of nice details: pockets and piping and padded straps and little loops for hanging. And the big butt baby pants, while also being extremely fun to say, are versatile and useful and super cute. Decisions, decisions.

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The winners are

big butt baby pants: #10 Shannon

toddler backpack: #55 Stephanie from neuroses galore

Congratulations!

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