Kids Clothes Week - February 2016

Aren't these trousers just the cutest?!

Back view of Purl Soho Baby Pants

My plans for February Kids Clothes Week this year didn't quite get off the ground properly unfortunately, due in main part to a poorly toddler who needed all my attention. Thankfully, for him and me, he was feeling better by Tuesday so I could get on with these incredibly cute trousers, or baby 'pants' as they're called on the pattern.  These are a present for the daughter of a friend of mine and I made the 3-6month size in the hope that it will be warm enough between March - June for them to be worn as the fabric isn't very thick.  This is the free Baby Pants pattern from Purl Soho and on the whole it was a very easy pattern to use. It's only 3 pieces and comes together relatively quickly. The only difficulty I found was in attached the cute bum patch, or 'rear gusset'.  As it's quite a tight curve it was really hard to keep it from puckering and it required a pretty crazy amount of pinning!

The dark chambray is left-over from the Stylish Dress Book Dress D and is from Merchant & Mills. The stripy fabric is an Ikea pillow case - more of which was turned into bias binding for my recent quilt.  I also had the 1/4" elastic so this was another make entirely from the stash.  All these recent makes should have led to a significantly smaller stash but I just spent some birthday money on some gorgeous fabrics from M is for Make and Faberwood last week so eh, it just kind of balances it out, doesn't it?!..

My other makes this week are 2 t-shirts from pattern no.10 from Ottobre magazine 1/2013. I hadn't tried this pattern before though so I sized up to the 98cm as the last Ottobre tshirt I made Harris was a 92cm and it's too tight now.  However the 98cm is actually a bit too big but he'll grow into it.  The navy and white stripy fabric is an old M&S tshirt a friend gave me as the neckline had stretched out too much. It is really good quality cotton and I was able to use the original hem band, sleeve bands and neck binding (though I had to cut and re-sew the neckbinding) so this was such a quick make!  

The blue, white and pink t-shirt, well you should recognise that pink fabric by now! So far I've used it for a plantain, a Marilla Walker Sailor Top, some recess raglans and now this.  It's almost all gone now but I'm sure there's enough for one more toddler project!  The blue and white stripy fabric was a medium Gap t-shirt I picked up in the charity shop thinking I could wear it but it was a bit misshapen.  Again I was able to re-use the hem and the neck binding but the t-shirt wasn't big enough to get sleeves from and I like the contrast pink anyway.  It still surprises me how large a t-shirt you need in order to get enough fabric to make a toddler t-shirt. I kind of thought the medium would be enough but really you need a large or xlarge if you're doing long sleeves.

So, a bit late in posting my makes but once again Kid's Clothes Week was a great motivator! I'm looking forward to making some spring clothes next - toddler shorts are so cute!!