KCWC Day 1: Vincent's Butt

Well Kids Clothing Week Challenge has started, and I'm already having a blast! Kids Clothing Week is a biannual sewing 'challenge' where you set aside an hour a day for a week to sew something for your kids. Since I really love this challenge and there's so much inspiration to be found in the flickr pool {the Elsie Marley group where people upload their photos of what they've made} and on the KCWC community ointerest board I spend way more than hour a day! Most of the participants are celebrating Fall, but here in the land down under we're warming up from a horrible cold winter {well my town on the mountain was not very pleasant at all!}so I'm celebrating the beautiful sunshine and perfect weather with summer clothes for the kids!

First up I made two pairs of slim-fit shorts for Vincent. I accidentally sewed nothing but shorts for him so I decided that that was day one's 'theme'. I had already had these all cut out, just had sew them up yesterday.

I used the Skinny Jeans pattern you can buy from the Peekaboo Pattern Shop, cropped down to above-the-knee shorts. This pattern was so great! Normally I draft my own patterns but I've been buying more and more lately, and it's neat. It saves the hassle of having to do so many mock-ups to get that perfect fit, and there's heaps of rad tricks and techniques I never would have learned just doing it myself.

I made one pair from this cute minty/turquoise drill and another from the yellow. Awesomely enough I totlaly spaced at the part of the pattern where you're supposed to use stretch medium-weight fabrics. These don't stretch. At all.

Shoving his cute booty into the mint ones was pretty hilarious, but he didn't care. And trust me if he had a problem I would have heard ALL about it. Once on, they fit pretty nice. I got him to do squats and tell me if anything hurt but he said everything was fine. Yippee! He even slept in them and I expect huge big digging-in marks on his skin but there wasn't!

The pocket linings, which I realise just now that I haven't got a photo of, is Dr Seuss fabric. Super fun secret pockets. I love doing it.

The yellow ones were already cut out but I used a super tiny 3mm seam allowance when sewing it up. They were snug but not such a struggle to get over Boy's hips. I've cut out a few more pairs to do up this week and I added a few millimetres on the sides to see if that makes a difference.

I bought the Oliver and S "Sailboat Pants" pattern which comes with a top and a skirt also. Cropping the pattern down to shorts, I made them TOO short. He looks a bit pooncy. If I was going to do shorts with this pattern I think on the knee or just below would be a better length. The size 3 is a bit too roomy for my skinny Vinnie, but I could just cinch in the elastic at the back waist to make it fit better.

I didn't have any big buttons that would match the fabric, apart from black which were too small and would get lost among the print, so I just used snaps. I've never sewn with this pattern before but I did like it a lot. Very easy to piece together and they were pretty speedy to sew.

The last pair I sewed that I took photos of was this neat pair of yellow & grey stripedbaggies! I honestly didn't think I'd LOVE them. I wanted to try Vanessa's free Baggies pattern for a three year old anyway, so I cut up an old t-shirt I had and got to it. The pocket linings and the tie are from a yellow shirt I also cut up. The result? LOVE THIS. I love the pocket bindings, I love the pockets. I really love this pattern and I'm going to be making the little dude many more.

My favourite part was the buttonholes for the tie, since I've conquered my fear of buttonholes with my sewing machine. I may have used this technique on a few of Eddie's shorts...

I sewed a pair of lounge pants for him but they didn't fit over his butt, also he wasn't in the mood for any more photos yesterday so I'll take a pic and include them in a post later this week.

Patterns & Tutorials used today
Skinny Jeans
Baggies
Sailboat Pants


Don't forget to add your projects to the KCWC flickr pool and check out everyone else's. So. Much. Inspiration! I'm looking at these photos of my pose-amazing son and I'm wondering, remember when he looked like this? YIKES.