Gingham Puppet Show Shorts

I made these shorts back before Christmas, to go with Amélie's "Hollywood Cherise", but have struggled to get a photo of them on her. They get worn heaps, sometimes with the dress and sometimes with a t-shirt. The pattern is the Oliver + S Puppet Show Tunic and shorts pattern, which I think is possibly the cutest shorts pattern ever. You can get the pattern as a digital download from here.

You can see other items I have made using the pattern here, here, and here. I also did a little tutorial to get that perfect placement of the pockets which you can see over here.

Woodland Sailor Shorts

I made these CUTE shorts for Amélie, back at the end of November. The fabric is Woodland Fairies by Natalie Lymer of Cinderberry Stitches for Lecien. I have had this in my stash for a little while, waiting for the right project to come along and here it is. The pattern I used is the Sailor Shorts pattern from the Peek-a-boo Pattern Shop on Etsy. If you've never shopped on Etsy before, you can use this link to get $5 off your first purchase. In the interests of full disclosure, if two people use this link, I also get $10 off my next Etsy purchase. You must be new to Etsy for the link to work.

If you are making these shorts, I would recommend going up a size to usual, especially if your child is still in nappies. Amélie is not wearing a nappy in these pictures, but when she was wearing one, it poked out the top at the back. I am not sure if the "T" in the sizes actually means they are sized for a nappy or not, but Amélie still wears mostly size two pants, and these were very snug with the nappy on.


I feel that the construction of the band across the front (the short waistband) was more complicated than necessary. The seam allowances are all encased, which means there is more bulk than necessary in those edges that are just going to be covered with bias binding anyway. A pattern piece with the curved edges and button holes marked would be preferable to instructions where you cut a rectangle and add the curves yourself. If the top edge was open, rather than folded, there would be no messing about with trying to catch an edge in your topstitching. Much quicker, less bulk and no curve clipping (not that there is any mention of curve-clipping!). I would also suggest some interfacing be applied to this waistband, especially since there are button-holes. In addition to this, some dots to indicate the position of buttons on the front would be nice as would notches in some of the seams.


Having said all of that, these really are a cute little pair of shorts and it was still a pretty good pattern with great instructions and clear photos at each step. I would still recommend this pattern and I am sure to buy more from this designer. I did an extra little alteration myself, by adding adjustable buttonhole elastic to the waistband. Instead of stopping at the side seams (the elastic in the pattern only goes across the back), I put some buttonholes in the ends of the long waistband (hidden behind the front, short waistband) and threaded the elastic right the way around, making the shorts adjustable. I did this mainly because I was making size three and thought they might need to be adjusted tighter for Amélie.

If you want to make these shorts, and you haven't used bias binding before, the picot edged bias is really easy to use. The picot edge keeps that fold in the middle, so catching the edge of the bias on the back when you topstitch on the front is far easier than with regular bias, particularly around the curves.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention the t-shirt she is wearing! It was a $2 plain t-shirt from K-Mart that I appliquéd with a heart shape from my scraps using a little Steam a Seam, some cut away on the back and a machine blanket stitch. It only took me a few minutes and now she has a cute t-shirt to match her shorts.


I used about half a metre of fabric to make these shorts, so two fat quarters of fabric, SYST13 Running totals: in = 140, out = 270, total = -130

Have you ever purchased a pattern from Etsy? Any you recommend?

More Christmas Gifts!

I still have a few bits and pieces from December to blog about. I made this ear-bud case for my nephew, Owen. He's staying with my parents over summer, and had brought his iPod, but forgotten his ear-buds, so luckily for him, this came with a set. I used a tutorial to make this, it was relatively quick and easy to do. Don't be scared of the zipper!



Upon hearing about their sale, and needing a few bits and pieces from a particular range of fabrics (I didn't want them to sell it all!), I popped into Spotlight. As I was standing at the counter, being served, I noticed there was a pattern that I needed, for just $2.50.



The pattern is Simplicity 9958, a 1 hour boxer shorts pattern sized for men, teens and boys. Overall, there are ten different sized patterns, ranging from a hip of 61cm right up to 130cm. They were pretty quick to make, but took me a little more than the 1 hour proclaimed on the packaging. I made two pairs of boxer shorts for my nephews, both in a child's medium size.

 

I added an adjustable waist to both pairs (not part of the pattern), by adding a couple of button-holes to the waistband and using some buttonhole elastic. This made me a little more confident that the shorts would be a comfortable fit.

Paper Dolls, Lady Bugs & Unicorns

I've been wanting to make this outfit for Amélie for a while now, and finally managed to get the fabric and the time to do it.



I've made this once before as a gift for a friend, and when I heard that the pattern was being discontinued, I went and got myself the one in the larger sizes - before I even had a girl to sew them for. Let's hope I can still convince her to dress like this when she is pre-school aged!



The pattern is the "Puppet Show" Tunic & Shorts by Oliver + S. The patterns come with a cute paper doll that you can cut out and dress up in the same paper outfit as the pattern. I wonder if I will let Amélie play with these one day, or if I will still want to keep them for myself!



The fabric is Heather Ross' "Far, Far Away" Unicorns for Kokka, and I used some Kiyohara Clover & Ladybug for the shorts and the bodice and sleeve cuffs. Both fabrics are double gauze, which is lovely and soft and light. I was looking at the unicorn fabric, and noticed the Kiyohara on the same page at Kelani. The colours are a pretty close match.



I also thought of a way to make use of the cutest selvedge I have ever seen...

Swimming Shorts

I recently made these swimming shorts for Liam, using some Kauffman Animal Party that I bought almost a year ago. The pattern was the "Ahoy" baby shorts pattern from Ottobre 3/2009. I did my top stitching in orange, and managed to find some orange trim in the remnant basket at my local fabric shop. I have plans to make Noah a pair using the dog fabric that I purchased at the same time.

Blinky Bill Shorts!

Quick little project, I got the embroidery machine to do the Blinky Bill picture whilst I did some stuff around the new sewing room.





The shorts are from the Kwik Sew - Sewing for Toddlers Book. I used the pattern with no side seams.