Monthly Archives: December 2018

Off We Go!

I spotted this panel fabric in my local fabric store early in the year, made up the book, then forgot all about it! This was a Christmas present for K, although it does seem a little young for him now (oops).

The back page is obviously completely personalised, but I’ve edited out the details so his full name isn’t on the photo. Can I just say I love the alphabet options on my Janome M200 QDC!

So I sent it with the Dinosaur Hatteras Hoodie plus a note saying that the dinosaurs had eaten all the words for the story, so he’d have to make up his own story to fit!

Dinosaur Hatteras Hoodie

What do you make for a young relative who loves dinosaurs, when you’ve already made him a cuddly dinosaur before?

I settled for my tried-and-tested Hatteras Hoodie, and went to find some suitable fabric… which was harder than I’d first thought! Eventually I came across this dinosaur sweatshirt fabric at Sewing Studio, and despite the main stretch being vertical rather than horizontal, the random positioning of the dinosaurs meant I could still use it

I’d purchased some black ribbing fabric to use for the hood lining, waistband and cuffs. Unfortunately (the disadvantage of buying online) this fabric was a lot thinner than I’d anticipated. The hood lining didn’t need to be heavy, so I used the ribbing for that, but it wasn’t going to work for the cuffs as it was.

I had part of a pack of cuff ribbing left over, which worked for the cuffs on this hoodie, but there wasn’t enough for the waistband. 

Playing around with the original ribbing fabric, I tried holding two layers together and realised that might just work to give enough stretch and strength for the waistband. This hoodie is an age 6, but made for a child who wears an age 4 at the moment. It should give him a nice long time to wear it before he grows out of it, but it does then need a decent rib for the waistband to help hold it in until he grows more!

I cut four waistband pieces instead of two, and just used the additional ones inside the main waistband pieces to give it more strength. To me, that feels strong enough, but we’ll have to see how well it holds out – he won’t have the chance to try this hoodie on until Father Christmas delivers it next week, so I won’t know for certain just yet!

Another pair of jeans, another mistake

I really don’t know how I’m making so many mistakes with jeans at the moment – my first ever pair of denim jeans came out as I expected, but since then my jeans have been going wrong!

First let’s start with the positives on these Real Deal Jeans*. I decided to do some decorative top stitching on the back yoke, and also for the back pockets. The yoke stitching isn’t overly visible unless you look closely, but that doesn’t matter as the anchor pattern is quite bold anyway.

So the back was a definite success, which means the front must have the disaster, right? I don’t know if it’s just the way I put the zip in, or if I’m missing something in the instructions, but the left side is a different height at the waistband to the right-hand side.

This is the same pair of jeans – I didn’t use the flash for this photo, so it came out a bit darker than the real shade of blue

What seems to happen, is that the zip moves (despite being pinned), and ends up slightly higher on the second side. I had this before with my Penguin RDJs but while my Dawn jeans didn’t have this mistake, these anchor jeans have a more noticeable difference between the left and right at the waistband.

Not only that, but I had a disaster with the button – when I hammered it in, it ended up skewed. 

So before I get on and sort the hem to finish these off, does anybody have any recommendations for how to remove the hammered-in button, and also to resolve the waistband problem, or will I be stuck with that lopsidedness forever?


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Pattern:  Real Deal Jeans* by WinterWear Designs*
Fabric: Anchor denim from Sewing Studio

Baby Tee

I hardly ever make baby clothing, but when a neighbour was expecting I decided it was a good excuse to try out a Patterns for Pirates free pattern to make a tee.

I will admit I made several mistakes in the sewing, most of which came about because it’s a much smaller size than I’ve ever sewn before! The lap part of the tee (where the back panel laps over the front) isn’t quite sewn into the seams fully… but it’ll be perfectly wearable until the little’un grows out of it!

And of course, I had to make a card to go with it. I just hope the tee fits little J!


Pattern: Wee Lap Tee by Patterns for Pirates
Fabric: Jersey from Sewing Studio
Card: graphics from FreePik.com