Flanno shirt for DS

 My Son J and I have been trying to get outside for a walk/jog each morning for the last couple of weeks.  It's been really great, but that last couple of mornings it's been getting a bit cool and I've felt the need for a light weight long sleeve shirt to wear over the top.  I've been grabbing one of my flannelette shirts but we reaslised that J doesn't have anything like that - he's got sweaters and jumpers and the odd long sleeve shirt, but no light weight over shirts - so I figured it was time to remedy that. 

I decided that since I was going to have to start from scratch with this shirt I may as well do like I did with my daughter and make a moulage.  It was much easier for J not having to worry about bust darts etc and I got a moulage made up in a morning, then I had to make the pattern.  Figuring how much ease to add was the biggest issue.  I knew that he wasn't going to want it tight, but how tight is too tight? how loose is too loose.  In the end I added 1.5" to each side seam for a total of 6" ease which is probably excessive, but I knew he'd prefer too baggy to too tight.

I used the Cashmerette Harrison shirt pattern to create a collar pattern to fit the new neckline but then used the sleeve placket/cuff pattern that I drafted ages ago for my very first flannelette shirt.

The sleeves I made extra long as per J's request.

We wanted to make the shirt out of a plaid flannel, but I didn't have any in stash so I decided to muslin it in the blue and white checked fabric that I picked up from a fabric swap a year of so ago.

I did some basic pattern matching down the front and the side seams and the yoke, but didn't bother with the plackets and collar etc as I'm not sure that this will ever get worn, but I decided to make it fully anyway -  it'll do for our walks until we can get to the fabric store for some good material.

Jumpsuits for L

My daughter has been growing again - I could tell the other day when I realised that the long pants she was wearing were about 2" above her ankle.... For the last couple of years I've been buying most of the kids clothes but this year I just didn't want to go out shopping ....you know....Covid.... and I hate buying clothes online so it's back to making clothes. J and I have made a few pairs of shorts for him already but they're not really blog worthy - but now it was Ls turn. Together L and I raided my fabric stash and found a couple of pieces of fabric that she liked.  The first was a piece of scuba fabric in an orange and black geometric print.  L actually chose this fabric a couple of years ago  - I was going to make her a jumpsuit out of it.  She still likes the fabric and decided that she still liked the idea of a jumpsuit so we decided to go for it.  I drew a croquis for L and sketched out an idea for a jumpsuit taking into account L's preferences.  She wanted short sleeves, long pants and a high neckline.  With the high neckline I knew I would need to make an opening in the front and went for a placket that runs from the crotch area right up to the neck and then into a simple flat band around the neck.

L has grown so much that all the patterns I've drafted for her in the past would not fit anymore - and whilst she does fit into adult patterns these days, none of the patterns I have were what she wanted so I decided to do it properly from scratch.  I went back to the notes I took when I got a free preview of Suzy Furriers moulage course and used that to make a moulage of L's bodice. Lots of measurements were taken and an excel spreadsheet was made to do all my calculations - I was in heaven.  I really enjoy this part of sewing.  It all went pretty swimmingly right up till the armhole.  The arm scythe and shoulder seam were giving me a few headaches so I did it as best I could and moved on.

After drawing up my pattern I used an old sheet to make a mock-up.  I sewed up all the darts, shoulder, armhole, side and waist and put it together and tried it on.  Not too bad really.  I did have to do a bit of modifications to the shoulder and arm scythe area which I expected but that was it really.  I transferred all my modifications back to my pattern and I was ready to start on my actual pattern.

First thing I wanted to do was eliminate some of the extra darts  - 4 in the front is a bit excessive - especially for someone who is an A or B cup\. The first one to go was the arm hole dart - I rotated it into the side dart.  Next up was the shoulder - this also got rotated into the side dart.

Next step was to add ease.  I used the Dresspatternmaking.com website and the first step according to that is to add a small dart at the armscyth - I'd just removed one of those so it was pretty easy to add it back in.  I lowered the underarm point about 0.5" and took it out about 0.5" too to allow for a sleeve to be inserted.

I knew my daughter wouldn't want anything too fitted so I left the waist dart drawn in but unsewn and tapered the side seam from the new underarm point to the existing waist point.  This leaves a new bodice pattern with just a single side bust dart.

The neckline on the bodice was about where L wanted her neckline to sit so I just removed 1.5" from the existing neckline and reassigned it to the neck band pattern piece.

Down the front of the bodice I wanted a cut on placket so I extended the bodice centerline by 0.75" for the front of the placket, 1.25" for the back of the placket and an extra 0.5" turn under.

Then I just had to add 0.5" seam allowances on all the other seams.

For the back pattern piece I again ignored the waist dart to add ease, but kept the back centerline shaping.  Again I took off 1.5" for the neck band - did the same modifications to the arm scythe area and added 0.5" seam allowances on all seams.

For the sleeves I drafted a basic short sleeve from scratch - starting with the bicep measurement plus ease I wanted. Figuring out how high I wanted my sleeve cap and then using my front and back arm scythe lengths to figure out the slope of the curves and the center point of the sleeve cap leaving about 1" ease at the top of the sleeve cap.

Next to the pants.  Unfortunately I don't have a tutorial for pants sloper making that I like so I fell back on my existing patterns.  I got L to try on some of the jumpsuits I've made for myself  and whilst the top halves were no where near fitting the bottom halves weren't bad.

 Since we wanted a more tapered leg we decided to go for the Sirocco pants, but without the pleat.   I folded out the pleat then traced around the pattern, then started modifying for L's dimensions.  First off I made sure the width of the back and front bodices matched the width of the top of the pants pattern, then the hip width was modified based on L's measurement.  Finally I extended the placket pieces down the front onto the pants pattern.

And now it was time to cut out.....but here's the problem.  I bought the fabric based on the plan to sew a shorts jumpsuit for a 7 or 8 year old.  Now I wanted to make a long jumpsuit for a 12 year old.....Hmmm tetris at it's best, but you know what the 1.5 yards I had were enough - Just!  As you may have noticed there was no pattern matching or anything - I thought for a while I would have to piece the sleeves but I managed to find a small sliver of fabric just big enough.  I did however have to piece my back neck band pieces but that's OK. 

I managed to get everything cut out, then basted it together...  The top was perfect, but there were issues with the pants - there was a huge pouch on each side much lower than where her hips were, so I pinned it out, then transferred the changes to her pattern and recut my pattern pieces.  Now that I was happy with my pattern I took everything apart and put it together properly.  I wanted to add pockets and L said she wanted in seam pockets - that's lucky cause I didn't have enough fabric for any sort of visible pocket - as it is I managed to scrounge together enough fabric for the first inch or so of pocket bag, then used a plain grey cotton fabric for the rest of the pocket bag. 

All seams were serged except the darts and the waist seam.  I sewed the darts in the front bodice.  Attached the front to back at the shoulders, set in the sleeves, then sewed the side seams.

I then moved onto the pants and sewed the front crotch below the fly, the back crotch, the inseam, then sewed the pockets into the side seams and sewed up the side seams.  I sewed the bodice onto the pants leaving the seam unserged.  I then stitched each side of the seam allowance open so I could thread 1/4" elastic through each side of the seam.  I made sure the elastic stopped at the end of the placket and stitched the ends in place. 

I added interfacing to the front band, turned under the first 0.5"  then turned the placket under again and top stitched it in place stitching the two plackets over each other at the lower end.  Next up the neck band.  Again I interfaced one layer of neckband, sewed all pieces together and then sewed the outer edge onto the to of the bodice.  The inner layer I hand stitched in place.  Finally I added black star shaped snaps down the front, placing one right on the neckband, one at the bust line, one at the waistline and spreading the others out between.

Thankfully after all the work L loves it - so much so that she asked for a second one.  So when I finally got to the fabric store I bought her some more fabric and made a second one!

As you can see - L has definitely got my taste for garish prints.  Who wouldn't want a blue and green animal print full length jumpsuit!

 I made no changes to the pattern, but again I did no pattern matching.  I bought 3 yards of the material thinking that would be more than enough - but the fabric actually had a panel down each side in a black and white print which L didn't like so we had to avoid that.  So once again I had to do some tetris to get the pattern to fit on the fabric.

This time we went for green circular snaps down the front and I got them spaced a bit more evenly.

I didn't particularly like threading the 1/4"elastic through the waistband the first time, so this time around I actually made a separate casing on the inside and used 2/4"elastic.

I'm really pleased with how these came out and so is L.  I love having a proper moulage for L and hopefully I'll have a chance to use it for something else before she grows again, but at least now I know basically what I'm doing - hopefully next time will be easier. 

Hedgehogs hedgehogs everywhere!

For the past 2- 3 years now my daughter has been obsessed with the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.  She has sonic shirts, sonic games, sonic plushies, wallet, bracelets, halloween costumes......She reads the fan fics, writes her own, watches the videos, reads the comics, plays the games.

So when her art teacher assigned a project and one of the animals to research was a hedgehog that is what she chose.  It was whilst she was doing this project she found out that it was possible to keep hedgehogs as pets and so of course she decided that she needed one.

Now I've been thinking that we need a pet for a while but I was never willing to commit - I didn't want a dog - we'd need to fence the yard, be willing to take it for walks and I'm allergic to some. My husband was against a cat, and I whilst I would love one I could see all the downsides too, but when my daughter mentioned a hedghog I thought - you know maybe this would be a good pet for us.  He's fairly well contained  wouldn't be running around the whole house, no walking requirements - If we went on holidays he could be left with one of the kids friends for a week or so.

And so I told the kids to do some research.  Find out how much it would cost, what care requirements are there etc.  This was right at the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown so the kids had plenty of time. They did all sorts of research assignments, found out everything they could - made up quizzes for each other so they could test their knowledge - it was really great to watch them.

And so they came to us one day with all their research and my husband and I talked it over and decided maybe we should do it.  The kids had found their preffered purchase location and so we filled out their questionnaire, emailed it in and waited to hear back...and waited....and waited.....and it looked like we'd be waiting for months (they still haven't replied to us even though we followed up at least twice), but then one day I looked at a website for a place a bit further afield (about 2 hours away) and found that they had hedgehogs available right now......including this little guy who we fell in love with immediaately.

Ohh could it be possible?  As well as being a USDA licensed breeder they also have a store dedicated to all things hedgehog and sell all the gear required (we had originally planned to order a hedgehog then purchase all we needed off amazon whilst waiting for it to be available), This meant that we could buy it right now and have it this week.  After a bit more research into this place we decided to go for it and on May 1st the kids and I piled into the car for an outing.

We left early as I was worried that if there was traffic we could end up being late, but luckily there was none - we also had to make a quick stop at an auto shop since my windscreen wipers had died a little while ago and I had put of replacing them as we weren't using the car.  A final stop at a rest are to change the wipers and we arrived at our destination a hour early.  Since it was lunch time we popped into the drive through Maccas and bought ourselves lunch and ate it in the car parked outside the hedgehog shop.  At 12:30pm we were allowed into the shops - we donned our masks (I made my daughters out of the scraps of hedgehog fabric from her shirt I made) and headed inside to pick up Star.  He's a 6 week old hedgehog pinto in colour, mainly browny black but with one pink paw and one pink ear and lots of white quills scattered through (including a really cute white blaze on his butt).  He has a black circle around one eye that makes it look like one eye is bigger than the other - and he is adorably cute!

We bought the Ultimate Cage set up that provided us with everything we needed including heat lamps wheel, igloo, carrier.

and then headed home with Star being passed from lap to lap the whole way.

We got him all settled into his new house and I realised I was going to have to do quite a bit of sewing to make it comfortable for him.

trying put his new food bowl.

They had provided paper bedding for him but I knew that I didn't want to use that so I pulled out all my scrap fleece and started sewing.

I made a liner that would cover the plastic bottom of his cage and go right up the sides and tie to the wire mesh.  Originally this was just 1 layer of fleece, and then I added a cotton backing as well.  I made two of these liners.

But after a couple of days he found out how to get up and underneath the liner and we found him a couple of mornings lying on the plastic bottom of the cage under the liner.  My main worry about that was that he couldn't get himself out if he needed to so I changed tactics and made a different type of liner.  This time I used 3-4 layers of fabric.  Fleece on one side, heavy weight cotton on the other and in between a quilted sandwich - for my first one I used a premade quilted fabric two layers of cotton on either side of piece of batting, for the second one two layers of warm and natural quilted to a piece of heavy weight cotton.  These were great until I washed them the first time and they shrunk...

I have to think about what I can try next.

The kids also got in on the action each of them making a little snuggle sack for snuggling with him.

These snuggle sack are simple - take 2 rectangles of fabric and sew them together on three sides, then put two of these together, right sides facing and sewing them together around the top, leaving a small opening to turn them right side out.  Finally top stitch around the opening to close up that last hole.

I also made a snuggle sack, but I made mine with a bottom.  Same steps as above, but after sewing the three sides together sew two triangles across the bottom to create a  square base.

We had some wire shelving lying around ready to be thrown out, but decided instead to use some of it to make a little playpen for Star, but he kept trying to slip out of the cage, poking his head almost right through on a couple of occasions.

So I sewed together some scrap fabric to cover the wire and then made a floor from fabric as well.

We then wondered if it was too bright for the little guy during the day living inside his see through igloo, so I made a fleece cover to go over the top of it.  I put 4 grommets in the top, attempting to align them with the air holes on the igloo for air flow.

And then one day I found a video tutorial on making your own stuffed hedgehog and that was it - the kids each wanted to make one.  Watching the video, the toy she makes is pretty much 2 dimensional and we all wanted a 3D toy so I modified the pattern slightly, adding a gusset underneath the body and the head and a triangular gusset coming half way up the back.  We used materials we had on hand so white fluff, beige fleece and brown micro suede.  I made the pattern and J was the first to sew - he cut out all his pieces, I pinned them together and he sewed them (except the last seam I did that as he needed lunch but still wanted to get it finished).  We turned him inside out and stuffed him - oh so cute.  J hot glued on two black felt circles for eyes, I sewed up the hole and he was done.

Unfortunately he turned out a bit hunch back.  The gusset up the back wasn't big enough so he now has a flat butt...but J loves him!

I wanted to modify the pattern before L made up hers so I tried a smaller version using just white fluff, white fleece and black fleece.  This time I extended the back gusset full width up to the top of the back, tapering off to a point at his face.

That's more like it.  The fluff is a bit long on this little guy, I was going to offer him to Star for a toy but he wasn't interested.

Next up it was L's turn using the new and improved pattern.

That's a much better butt!

And now we have a house full of hedgehogs!  A couple of last photos of the cute little guy.

Awhhh look - he thinks he's a parrot!

Cup O' hedgehog anyone?

Those eyebrow quills are so expressive.  When they come down and he squints at you you know your in trouble!

Going out shirt - Hedgehogs

The last time I went to the fabric store (before this whole self isolation thing began) I had to take my kids with me so I bribed them by offering them each a piece of fabric of their choosing. 

Both kids have grown out of their going out clothes again - we really only wear them a couple of times a year so they don't get much wear before I have to replace them, so I figured that they could each choose a piece of fabric and I would make them a button up shirt.

My daughter chose this cotton with yellow polkadots all over it interspersed with rolled up hedgehogs (she's had a thing for Sonic the hedgehog for over a year now so anything hedgehog related is a big yes). 

To make this into a shirt I pulled out an old New Look Pattern 6598.  This must have been the first pattern I ever bought for myself after moving out of home.  I remember that I didn't have a sewing machine so I sewed it entirely be hand - even the button holes!

I measured my daughter and according to the back of the envelope she was a 12 bust, 16 waist and 14 hips. Based on some quick measurements of the pattern I decided to cut a straight size 12.

L requested the long sleeve version of the shirt, but when I looked at it closely this pattern has no cuffs on the long sleeve.  I wasn't sure how that would work - you couldn't roll them up at all and that would be so annoying, so I cut about 2" off the length of the sleeve and added the cuff and placket from my basic woven long sleeve top.

The sleeves are a tad too long, but I prefer that over too short, and so does L.

We also left off the tie at the back - I cut it out and was planning on putting it in, but then I went ahead and sewed the darts without them and she said she didn't want them anyway so we left them off.

There are definitely a few fitting issues here - I should definitely have graded out to at least a 14 or 16 at the hips.

I found the instructions included in this pattern very hard to follow, especially around the collar region, if I didn't know basically how it should go together I'm not sure I would have been able to figure it out to tell the truth.  But I managed to muddle through.  I quite like the way the collar sits but I did top stitch down the back facing to get it to sit nicely.

I chose not to finish the edge of the facing as I didn't want those edges getting too bulky.  Instead I just ran a line of straight stitched about 1/8"away from the edge and am relying on the iron on interfacing to minimise the fraying.

I did however go all out on the hem choosing to mitre my corners at the side split.  I also did french seams on all internal seams.

The only other issue occurred when I was putting in the snaps.  She decided that she would prefer snaps rather than buttons (just like her mother) but I realised that I only had just enough white snaps to do 6 down the front and one on each sleeve.  As I installed the very last snap I realised that rather than a male and a female the last snap was two males - there were no other options so I just left it, but I'll have to go back and change it when I get around to buying more snaps - not sure when that will be at the moment.

This shirt will probably never have a chance to be worn outside the house before she grows out of it  - It turned out quite a bit more fitted than I had originally planned - but oh well!