Boy Makes

05/02/2012

Villain Edition

Pattern: Oliver and S sailboat top. Last time I made a 3 and the arms were a bit short, so now he’s a size 4 I made a 5 and we’re good. I don’t think its the pattern sizing, we’re probably a long armed species.

Fabric: Stripey Jersey pinched from a loved-no-longer dress that wasn’t really my style. I didn’t take before photos so you’ll have to take my word for it, but I squeezed out every piece of this pattern bar the hem facing.

Mods: Chunky black cuffs, I like how they look on the cardigans. Instead of two buttons on each shoulder, I used one big button, mostly out of necessity!

Botchy bits: Something is up with my button hole foot. It’s catching the fabric half way through each hole so then I have to tug at it which makes for a really average button hole. I wish I could say its just happening with knits, but wovens too. It’s making me a little nervous, seeing as the next few projects I ‘d like to sew for me have so many buttons in really obvious places. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be attaching giant buttons to hide the mess beneath, though I quite like it here!

Make again: This is one of my favourite boy patterns. I like the details like top stitching and facings, which make for a neat finish and look more complicated than they are. Now that I know it works in a knit…

Make your own Stuff n’ Stay with this tutorial. To make the Villain version, we can bypass a few steps. Since we are using felt we can sew our two layers of felt wrong to wrong side, just make sure the velcro side is facing out. Sew around the edges with an 1/8″ seam (include eye holes), still leaving a little gap to stuff. Once you’ve stuffed it to your liking, stitch the gap closed with your machine still on the right side with 1/8″ seam.

Completely forgot the back molar berry check.

20/01/2012

Part bird, part boy

Boy Makes

Nothing to see here folks! Just another men’s tee turned manligan, using this lovely pattern. But you know what they say…a manligan a day keeps the doctor away. Or should it be Mandigan? So confused. Diagnosis: Manligan Fever. The only known cure: make more manligans.

I wish you could add things to your cv like, ‘Applicant can completely shred, devour and re-use an entire men’s t-shirt in minutes’ and people would bow, not laugh! Admittedly, I felt a little guilty cutting this one up. There may have been a conversation with Mr Cirque Du Bebe and a vague hint dropped, like ‘wow that’s a reeeeeallllly cool shirt, I would wear that one’. Sorry baby it wasn’t me. It was the FEVER!

06/01/2012

The Manligan (manly cardigan)

Boy Makes

There’s no denying…2012 has arrived. And so has the KNIT-erviews! Made by Rae is hosting a blog-world-first with a whole week devoted entirely to sewing with knit fabric. It begins TODAY and I’m super excited to be taking a little part, sharing tips on making knits work for you (not the other way around) and my not-so-secret sources for superior knit fabrics. Don’t spend another moment fearing things that stretch…it’s a must-click-now!

To welcome a brand new year of sewing and maybe also because Archie has two shirts on rotation, I just had to sew something new. Last year I was wooed by the old-school, grandpa charm of this pattern and it has been sitting in my stash, taunting me with its ‘intermediate /advanced’ classification on the front, ever since. When I finally stopped being dramatic and just sewed the damn thing up, it came together quickly and similarly to a 90 minute shirt. What had at first seemed like lengthy instructions, just turned out to be thorough. I hereby pledge to be a less dramatic sewer in 2012!

Aaah, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of hunting down interesting knit fabrics. If I hadn’t I tried out this tutorial and experienced my first ever knit project success, I would never have started looking for cool men’s t-shirt to cut up. I’d probably still be ferreting through the generic selection at a local fabric department store, missing out on magical finds like THIS! Who would throw this out? And don’t they know how on-trend triangles are?

Some things you may find useful: it calls for clear elastic to stabilise the shoulders but I had none so used cotton stay tape to the same effect. Also, to give the front button placket some body, you are meant to interface it with iron-on interfacing, the knit kind. I had none of that either so I checked the non-stretchy iron-on interfacing to see if maybe there was a bias to it and found it stretched perfectly along the grain in one direction. Yay for improvs that work!

15/12/2011

Step Right Up

Boy Makes

Crazy Christmas mode has hit and we haven’t even got the tree up! There is a whole bunch of sewing going on behind the scenes but everything is a WIP right now. So…I thought I’d share with you some baby boots from last year. The story is, around the same time, I came across the Japanese cotton/ linen blend fabrics on Etsy and this pattern. I think my Etsy ‘favourites’ crept up to eleven pages of fabric. I was planning to make the boots to sell on Etsy and modify the pattern to make them easier to get on. But I ran into some ethical issues, namely: using someone else’s pattern eeek! It’s a steep learning curve this sewing / blogging business but I know for sure that I definitely want to go about it with integrity and create Good Craft Karma (which I’m sure is responsible for telephone dress success). I realised how much thought and time must go into pattern making, and I certainly don’t want to rip off a fellow crafter’s hard work. A pattern making course might be called for in 2012…

01/12/2011

Up Up and Away

Boy Makes

I can’t believe it’s been this long. Turns out a three month stint in a country town, three job changes and a broken camera has left YOU all post-less! Anyway, I’m back with my regular, semi-regular up-dates…and today I have a gentlemanly Pea Coat for you. (Or ‘Pee’ coat if your little someone is being a little turd during the night)

Pattern: Unisex Pea Coat by Dear My Kids (etsy)

Outer: Japanese Cotton / Linen blend (etsy)

Lining: Austen Powers baby-poo velour.

The velour was the one piece out of a great lot of thrifted fabrics that I brought home and thought, ‘it’s hideous…what was I thinking?!’ And then I remembered this beautiful version of the Pea Coat. I used some dark denim from the same thrifty pillage for a contrast under the collar, sleeve tabs and the self cover buttons. I was planning to take some width out of the coat so it’s a tad more up and down for a boy and forgot…does it look like a dress?

Anyway, I’m quite taken, as many of us are, with the idea of vintage, yesteryear, old-world, tailored little kiddie clothes. I especially liked the idea of a gentlemanly pea coat despite it being totally impractical in our sub-tropical climate. Oh well, I’m pretty sure practicality went out the window when it seemed like a dandy idea to make clothes for a whole year. Along the way I’m discovering that sewing is definitely not quicker and, once you develop a taste for designer fabrics, not cheaper. Who’s complaining?