I am just under the wire with this post. Today is (was) the last day of the kids clothes week challenge and I am all challenged out. With the little bit of sewing mojo I had left,  I managed to finish–well almost finish–this tank top for my son today. I’m not totally on board with the whole sewing with knits thing yet, but I picked up a bit of the softest blue striped knit at the thrift store and I had to at least try. So I faked it and pretty much made it.

A matching one for his little brother is in the works. The shorts I eeked out from some random thrift store yardage as well. I had to use some scraps for the pocket, but it’s kind of a cool detail I think. They are from the same pattern I’ve been using all week and I think I could sew it in my sleep at this point.

It was a stripey kind of day in the flickr pool. I want to eat that little shiso baby up, she’s so cute. Check out all the matching outfits Mimi made for the whole shiso family!

1. fashion show sunday 2. flat from shorts 3. sailboat top 4. linen pants

It’s been a pretty damn fantastic week, I have to say. But there will be much reminiscing and showing off and patting each other on the back this week, and maybe even a prize or two. Did you have a good time? Or do you never want to look at your sewing machine again?

There are a bunch of projects that for some reason I never got around to posting this summer–probably because I was lying around in a pool of my own sweat, but now ahhhh fall is here and I feel human again.  And now my camera is broken, so all you are going to get for a while are whatever old projects I took pictures of. Sorry.

These shorts were a sucessful project all around: they looked like I imagined and my daughter loved them. I took a simple shorts pattern and added a long narrow triangle on the side (this is where my camera would come in handy), sewed a facing onto the triangles–a pink flower print that my daughter picked out–and then sewed the shorts up. They tie on both sides and the little pink flowers stick out just enough to be cute, but not cutesy. And hey, I made that shirt too. I made an adult size shirt I got at the dig n save into a kid size one: I took it in on the sides, reattached the (shortened) sleeves and hemmed the neckline.  I need to do this more often I think.

These shorts came from my well worn copy of Everyday Bottoms.  They are just plain old shorts, except they have a million details that made them take forever to finish:  pockets in the front, pockets in the back, flat felled seams, belt loops, double elastic casing, and then I had to go and use stripes so I had to (almost) match them.

But they held up all summer and will fit next year too. I’m crap at finishing garments properly; at some point I loose interest making it and just want the sewing to be over already, so I’m extra happy about these shorts. Everything is done on these shorts and stitched twice even.

These projects (and a few others I never took pictures of) are the products of leftover motivation from the kids clothes week challenge in the spring. It put me in the mindset that I didn’t need to buy any clothes for my kids because I could just make some silly.  There are almost a hundred of you signed up for the fall challenge already! Yee haw! Which is great because all that leftover motivation has gone stale and I need some of the fresh stuff.

p.s. some of you are having problems with the kcwc buttons and I really want to help, but I don’t know how.  If there are any of you more html savvy than I am could you head over to the comments and help them out. thanks!

After some pretty obvious frustration yesterday, I finished some projects. Some I just put away for another time and some I started because I knew I could finish them without loosing my mind.  This shirt pattern is from the super fantastic japanese book Happy Homemade Vol. 2.

There is a little keyhole detail in the back, but except for that it’s just a few pieces of fabric cinched together with a tie.  The tie works as the straps too and ties in a pretty bow in the back.  If I didn’t have to hem the entire tie  (and next time I’ll just cut two, sew them together and turn them out) it would have taken an hour start to finish. I don’t know if it fits yet, because little miss is at school, but it turned out so well I won’t even mind if it doesn’t.

I know for sure these shorts don’t fit, but they might in a few years. My son doesn’t care though. He wore them yesterday and today and the front is covered in breakfast, which is why I am only showing you the back. To make these you take a pattern for shorts cut the front and back pieces down the middle (slash and spread) so when you cut out your fabric you should have eight pieces total. Then sew the middle seams with the seam exposed and sew the side seams normally.  It’s kind of a cool detail, but I’m not sure how they’ll look out of the wash. I made them from a knit, so they shouldn’t unravel. If they come out ok I’ll make some more in the right size. someday. The pattern is “i” from Everyday Bottoms.

I was going to make a dress that looked just like this, but then my muddled pregnancy brain got in the way and I cut the fabric on the selvedge instead of the fold. Then after picking out another lovely piece of fabric I did it again. Amazingly I didn’t just go upstairs and eat chocolate, but instead picked out fabric that I had yards and yards of so I could continue to screw up and still get a dress out of it.  And ta da! I cut on the fold (yay!) and used the elastic thread that’s been sitting in my drawer for over a year. I used Erin’s sunny dress tutorial, but stopped after 5 rows of shirring because I liked the baby doll shape of the dress. I never did like the straps that tie (even though I know they are super useful) so I made thicker straps instead. Then high on my one success, I made my son matching shorts. They are a little longer than shorts–board shorts? short pants? long shorts? everyone has a different name for them. I think they are just cute as hell.

oh and thanks for all your comments on the last post. I guess I’ve never read the comments on apartment therapy before. I didn’t know they liked to get down and dirty. I wasn’t hurt at all–everyone’s entitled to their opinions–but I think I may put a disclaimer on my blog about using my photos (to be fair, AT did credit me, they just didn’t get the facts straight) or maybe even have an edited version appear in RSS readers. How do you protect your work?

I kept my word and worked (almost) every evening this past week on my kid’s wardrobe.  Actually I had such a good time I’m going keep at it this week.  Mostly I used tutorials, but I’m working on some patterns too. The two skirts are from the twirly skirt tutorial by Erin from house on hill road.  It is a seriously twirly skirt–my daughter calls it her swirly skirt.  The tulip fabric I picked up at the thrift store and there was just enough.  A good friend gave me the fish fabric and even though there was only a quarter of a yard (about half of what is called for) it still twirls a little. I looked forever to find a tutorial for the shirts. I knew what I wanted, but didn’t want to spend 10 bucks on a pattern for something so simple.  I finally found it on Just Tutes, which is a fantastic resource for kid’s clothes (click here to go right to the shirt tutorial).  I made the yellow one first and it’s ridiculously small (I’m worried it won’t even fit the 4 month old babe it’s going to) and the second one I made is too big, so I’m guessing next time I’ll get it right.  That’s the problem with sewing at night–no one is around to try anything on.  The striped pants are for my son and I blatantly ripped off the design (and fabric choice too) from Leah of go monkey designs, but she did a much better job (serves me right). I traced a pair of my son’s pants for the little shorts and made up the cuffs and tabs as I went a long.  I used a contrasting bright green thread for all the details and damn if it isn’t stylish.  They turned out better than I had hoped and have been worn and washed many times already.

whew! if you’d like to see bigger and better photos head over to my flickr site.

Do you have any good garment making tutorials to share? I’m kind of addicted, so if you know of any good ones–for kids or adults–please leave a comment so we can all see. thanks.