More Ottobre pants

I made Tristan some more pants based on the Ottobre 'Aqua shorts' pattern I blogged about in Robopants. Elastic-waisted? Check. Lot of pockets? Check. Easy peasy? Check, check, check!

These ones are made from some red babywale corduroy I bought a couple of years ago - yes, I am making a concerted effort to use up some of my copious stash!

 Tristan loves them and I do too. I love seeing little fellas in brights.

RoboPants

Someone has outgrown all his long pants...who might that be? Yes, it's Tristan, who is now 108cm tall. While I bought him one pair of pants, I really wanted to make a couple of pairs for him - let's face it: in a few more years neither child is likely to want to wear 'homemade pants'! I am also determined to use up as much of my stash as I can - it's quite embarrassing how much fabric I have parked in tubs!

So I pulled out some robot Kokka fabric I've had tucked away for a couple of years. I didn't have quite enough for the yoke, so I used some contrasting fabric (also from stash!). The pants are based on the Aqua Shorts pattern from Ottobre 3/2008, which I've made several times. It was easy to lengthen them and I just added a little width around the waist/yoke, as the Aqua Shorts pattern only goes up to size 98cm - Tristan is very slim around the waist, so it was really only length that needed to be changed! The pants are a little long, but at least they'll last him through winter. And when they turn into ankle flappers, I can convert them into shorts :)

I am very happy with how the pants turned out - I didn't make any mistakes! I think this is the first time I've sewn pants without having to unpick something. Tristan seems well pleased with them too!

Perhaps I might actually be learning a thing or two after the past five years of practice :) I have two more pairs cut and one is half-sewn. I'll potter away on them in between working, mothering, studying and whatever else takes up my waking hours.

I've also been quilting! My Christmas Baubles handquilting is coming along very nicely and I've just finished making five mini-quilts for the sample swap that's being run as part of this year's Sew It Together. I'll show you what I've been making once the swap's complete.

Spring is nearly here - time to do some sewing!

The blossoms are out, the bees are abuzz and the days are warming ever so slightly. And thank goodness! We can now take the kids outside without layering them in so many clothes they can barely move. All this excitement was inspiration enough to see me drag out my poor, neglected machine on the weekend and whip up a skirt for Romily and a pair of pants (or very long shorts) for Tristan. Two old faithful Ottobre magazines were found (after only a little searching). Otto 3/2008 for some more #7 'Aqua pants' for Tristan in some lovely, soft aqua babywale cord. I love this pattern and have made it a couple of times now. Lots of pocket detailing and top-stitching make them look so cute.

And 4/2007 - the #20 'Corduroy Skirt' for Romily using some very cool printed corduroy from Michael Miller (Cool Cords), which I bought a while back from Crafty Mamas. The skirt has real insert pockets (the first time I've ever tried that and it was pretty easy really!) and lots of top-stitching. I love the cute skulls (who knew that was a possibility?) and so does Rom. She wants to wear the skirt next time she sees her far-away cousins, 'cause she knows they like skulls. (Arrr!)

Two-whit two-whoo

A lovely friend of mine (aren't you all) who's posted to the US with her husband for three years had a lovely baby boy (and aren't they all) last November. I've been meaning to make something for him since then, but Christmas kind of got in the way. I finally pulled my finger out this week and sewed up some cute shorts (Otto 3/2008 'aqua pants') and made an appliqued onesie to match, using an owl design from Ottobre 4/2007. The duck-egg blue and chocolate fabric is Michele D'Amor.I think this may be my best sewing effort yet - I made no mistakes (this may be a first) and I used an overedge stitch to finish the seam edges, as opposed to zigzag, which I find doesn't look very professional. The overedge stitch takes longer and uses more thread, but it looks so much better. It will have to do till I buy an overlocker at some stage in my future. The owl's pupils and branch are drawn on with a chocolate brown fabric marker. I sewed one of my new 'Cascade Lily' labels into the back waist casing to finish it off.

I've packed up the outfit and will send it off to the US with a couple of treasured items of Tristan's that sadly no longer fit. I hope Thomas can wear them but I've told Kath to gift them on if she doesn't want them :)

Next up is another comfort quilt, this time for Carl's only auntie, who's had a dreadful run of health over the past 12 months. She's in rehab at the moment, recovering from a middle ear imbalance, the poor thing. I hope a quilt will cheer her up.

A start and a finish

Wonders will never cease! I've got a habit of posting new craft books and fabric, promising to make something with them soon and then consigning them to the cupboards and promptly forgetting about them. Well, this time, I've actually made a start - below is a picture of the cute Kokka fabric (posted about here) with the pattern laid out ready for cutting. I traced off the 'Aqua pants' from Ottobre 3/2008 in size 80cm and have since cut them out. They're waiting patiently to go under my needle just as soon as Tristan finishes his lunch :)
And a finish, of sorts. I decided to give the Sew What! Skirts book a go and decided to make a trial skirt before I cut into my precious (and exxy) Saffron Craig fabric (posted about here). Thank goodness I did! It's been a while since I've made any clothes from a pattern, and an even longer time since I've made anything for me. I made three mistakes on this trial skirt (all stupid and thankfully redeemable) and have decided that the drawstring waist is too bulky for the look I am going for. So, I will have to make a fitted waist, probably using bias binding tape and a zipper. Eek! Surprisingly, the actual drafting of the pattern was easy. So if I can get the waistline right, it should be a lot of fun to make some gorgeous skirts. Of course they won't be as easily adjustable as elasticised or drawstring waists, but they will better suit my round figure.
Anyway, here's the nearly finished skirt - if you look closely you can see the safety pin still in one end of the drawstring. I just need to handstitch the ends and the skirt is finished. It's a bit billowy, so I hope a wash will knock the size out of the fabric (yes, I'm naughty I didn't pre-wash) and it will sit a bit better. At any rate, it'll be a great beach skirt - perfect for tossing on over bathers.And, completely unrelated, here are a couple of pictures of Tristan, who is now nearly 15 months old. He loves 'helping' me bake, and, just like his big sister, his favourite part is banging the tins and licking the spoon! He's also part-time walking, although is making it near impossible to photograph him - as soon as he sees the camera he drops to his knees and crawls away at light speed. He's a cheeky little monkey, but you can see that from the photos.

Pleats to meet you

I realised I hadn't blogged this yet! Before we headed off on our road trip I made this skirt for Romily. Actually, I made it twice - the first one was waaaaay too big around the waist and a little long, so I made it in the next size down. It's from an Ottobre 6/2008 pattern - #16 'Tammy'. It's the first time I've made anything with pleats, and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. It's also lined. As the first skirt was so big around the waist, I also excluded the seam allowances. A perfect fit!
The bigger sized skirt has been put away for next winter :)

And just because, here's a photo of Romily with her twin cousins Darcy and Cody - they're exactly four weeks younger than her and cute as buttons. This is their favourite trick and they showed Romily how to do it too!
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All goes well here. We are all healthy for a change! We have also been night-weaning Tristan. It's going well so far after a fairly torrid first night. I think we will all be better for having a bit more sleep at night. Once he's sleeping through we'll move him downstairs into Romily's room. She's very excited about not being the only one sleeping downstairs!

Groovy pants for a groovy chick

In a last-ditch crafting frenzy before downing tools to study for my exam on Thursday, I finally cut into the lovely cord fabric I've had in my dressmaking stash that I posted about here. I made some 'Katri' pants from Ottobre 1/2009 (#13) for Romily. She doesn't have many warm pants for Playschool, so I thought these would do the trick. They were easy to make, apart from all the fiddling about with 28 pintucks around the pants leg bottoms!She likes them a lot and thanked me for making them for her. She also told all the teachers at Playschool that her mum made them for her. God love her! It's nice to have an appreciative model :)

(Note the fog! It was the foggiest day we've had in Canberra this year to date.)

So now it's time work through my notes from the past semester and do lots of handwriting to get my hand and arm muscles used to the idea of holding a pen again. The exam goes for three hours - ouch! We have four questions to answer out of six, so it will be a word frenzy! I will be glad when 5pm Thursday rolls around and I am free! Well. For a few weeks at least :)

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And, if you're a fan of Oliver + S patterns, head on over to Novy's blog for a giveaway.

Cool cords

One of my recent fabric purchases - and there have been a few - was this really cute printed corduroy. I was amazed to find it in Spotlight - they never usually have groovy quality fabric like these ones. The cutting lady said the bolts had only arrived that day. So I grabbed some! I love this fabric for pants and jackets for little girls and plan to make a couple of things for Romily. The weather's starting to cool down and soon lightweight cotton outfits just won't be warm enough. As you can see, I already have a couple of issues of Ottobre out, ready to draft off the patterns and cut into this lovely cord.

Of course I have a couple of other projects on the go that should get first dibs under my needles. And then there's the essay that's due next Monday (not yet started, um ah). Study schmuddy this week. Tristan has a cold and is needing lots of cuddles, so not much studying is getting done - nor sewing for that matter. But sewing is somehow finding its way ahead of studying in the priority stakes. I'll get onto the essay soon. It's only 1500w and on a public policy issue I know quite a lot about, so it shouldn't be too difficult. I'm on top of my reading for the weekly e-lectures (mostly), so I'm pretty relaxed about it. And there's always the weekend!

A girl needs candy pants, yes she does

Encouraged to spend, spend, spend by my local fabric store with a $40 voucher should I spend more than $100, I traipsed off to Queanbeyan and did as I was bid! I came away with several metres of cute polka dot poplin, some groovy B&W quilting fabric, as well as a few other bits and pieces.

Over the weekend I broke out the 1/2008 edition of Ottobre and whipped up some 'Candy' pants and a 'Nirunaru' pinnie top for Romily. The pants are fab and sewed up really easily. The Nirunaru top only went up to size 92cm, so I cut a 2cm seam allowance instead of 1cm and made it into a swing top, rather than a pinafore dress.They turned out great and Romily loves them. They're perfect clothes for Playschool - nice and loose and not too heavy. Playschool is pretty high energy, so jeans, etc. aren't ideal.I'm planning on making these pants and tops in a couple of different colourways. Rom will be able to wear t-shirts under the tops and long socks under the pants when the weather starts to cool.

How lovely it is to be able to make such cute outfits for your kids! Especially when they actually still like wearing them!

Two posts in a week! Must be on a roll!

Well since no one (other than Sarah) liked the landscape/art quilts, I thought I'd show off the finally-finished jeans I made for my nephew for his seventh birthday. This is the first piece of clothing I've made from the latest Ottobre magazine (04/2007, #29) and I found it quite challenging. Who knew you sewed the crotch seam before the leg seams when making jeans? I didn't and with terribly scant instructions, I didn't discover this until too late! I made some...ahem...adjustments, so I hope they actually fit him! We are heading down to Melbourne for a visit in September, so I can fix up hem lengths, etc. then, if necessary.

The owl is made from some leftover fabric I used in Wonky Geese. Isn't he cute?


And hooray it's hump day! The week is more than half done. Thank goodness. September can't come soon enough for me!