Wednesday 19 October 2011

Kids Clothes Week Challenge 2011

October 10 - 17 was Kids Clothes Weeks Challenge over on Elsie Marley. The idea is very simple - you spend an hour a day making some clothes for your little one(s). Great! This was my first attempt at a group blog event and I was really excited. I spent the week before thinking about what I would make and collecting together the fabrics. Here is what I wanted to make for Wiss: one pair of pyjamas made from a John Deere tractor print flannel fabric I'd had for ages, a pair of mittens and a scarf from navy fleece, an upcycled jumper, a few t-shirts...I even thought about making a coat!!!

As you can see my ambition always far exceeds the amount of time I have but, hey! you've got to think big I say. The pyjamas were my number one priority so I started with those...on Tuesday! Even though the challenge specified one hour every day that wasn't really going to work for me. I had a cinema date with a friend on Monday night* so KCWC started on Tuesday for me, but I promised myself I'd make up the extra time on the days I could do!

I used the Basic Kid Pants for the bottoms, but added a cuff at the bottom from an old t-shirt of mine. I really need to learn a bit more about sewing with jersey and how to make the stitches give a little with the stretch of the material, but these work ok for now. I was really pleased with how 'finished' these turned out - the inside is as neat as the outside and the seams won't fray. Practice does pay off!




I finished these pj bottoms in two and a half hours so that made up for missing the official start on Monday! Unfortunately I was out on Wednesday too so I had to put in the hours on Thursday to make the pyjama top. I used Dana's 90 minute shirt tutorial (but it took me more like 150 minutes!)


So suddenly it was Friday night and although I wanted to carry on making clothes I also felt I should spend some time with husband this week so I did some sewing on the sofa. Using yet another MADE tutorial, I hand sewed an 'L' for a Sprinkle T-Shirt. It took much longer than I thought, so I had to finish it off in front of X Factor on Saturday night too!



I customised another t-shirt using a bleach pen - an idea I grabbed from Cheri. I had not used one of these so was very excited to try it out. I drew a tractor and grass design along the bottom of an H&M t-shirt, waited for half hour and then washed the t-shirt. Unfortunately, all I was left with was a plain green t-shirt! Back to the drawing board for me and the bleach pen but here is what it could have looked like...


KCWC 2011 was a great success - just check out the Flikr group and see all the cool things made last week. I may not have made a big dent on my list but I am still really pleased with the few new items Wiss has in his wardrobe : )





* I went to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy but unfortunately I can't tell you what I thought of it as I fell asleep!

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