KCW: Re-Fashion Men's Shirt to Leggings

The first day of Kids Clothes Week brings (or brought, depending on which way you look at it)...


A month ago I thought this was a great idea and, despite thinking that perhaps there were other things I should be doing now, I did find an hour to sew for kids.  I found so much pleasure and calmness in creating today. Ok... soooo... I wrote this yesterday. My overly ambitiousness saw me sewing and blogging in one day. In reality what will happen is I will sew this week and blog next week. But since I've half done this already, here is Monday's sewing...

I have decided that I will only sew clothes for my children this week. Day one's sew, I have to confess, I cut out last week from one of Mr Toffee Tree's reject t-shirts (one I quite liked, so I loathed to see it going out to the shed for a rag!). I can't claim that I made it in an hour, but I did have to unpick what I had already stitched up because I didn't realise the pattern had no seam allowances. Hem allowance yes, seam allowance no...Oops!  Lucky they do fit with their minuscule overlocked seams (thanks again Aunty Anne Marie, I love this overlocker business).

The shirt, destined for rags was perfect (in my mind) for a pair of leggings for Anya. My parents bought me a subscription to Ottobre magazine for my birthday, from which I've been itching to make something thanks Mum and Dad!). The pattern I've used for these leggings was the Sortilege leggings in Spring 1/2011. I went with a size 80, which is for around 18months old and they fit really well, a little bit of growing room in the length.

Lucky for me, bubba girl slept from 11am til 12pm and two little boys played delightfully with the train tracks, which have been in the shed for...ages! First day of school holidays and our three-weekly toy rotation system is back in action. It's been about 3 months 4 months (I realised it was just after Christmas) since the last toy swap, making it well overdue.



Yes, they were both still in their PJs!

Back to the shirt-come-leggings. I didn't think to take a 'before' shot of the shirt. But here are new leggings! They look a little less exciting unworn. The gathering of edges using clear elastic tape is somewhat new (OK, all new) to me so I perhaps didn't do the stretching and sewing bit quite right, hence why the lower part looks a little like a fetlock.



However, they are very cute on. Room for a cloth nappy. 




Especially cute with this reversible, tie-shoulder pinafore. I'm not so excited about the reverse side, so you just get this one today. Yep, I did make this pinafore too, I especially love that tree fabric.





We had to (yes, had to) go button shopping for the buttons the sides. There were only 4 buttons on the original shirt, I needed 6.  I contemplated simply using one different one on each side, but none of those I had seemed to do the trick. Buttons were attached some time around 10pm, after netball. So yes, there was a finished product for day one, which I'm rather stoked about. Don't ask me what's been done for Day 2, because that's less exciting.

Whilst button shopping, Keegan chose some very cool 'bus' buttons for his item, which hopefully we will make before the week is out. If we can agree on what we're making. Nathan has chosen grey pants, specifically grey, so I'm going to tackle the Blank Slate Coastal Cargos pattern. There looks to be whole lot of trickiness in these pants, but I can do tricky. Can't I?!?

  


That's right, no buttons here, because these photos were taken on Monday, during the day, before netball. 10pm buttons after netball remember. 




Nawww. Just a tiny bit cute, huh?!


SUPPLIES

Ottobre Sortilege leggings pattern, size 80 from Spring 1/2011
Leggings fabric - Dad's unwanted t-shirt
Buttons from Spotlight
Plastic elastic
Double Crosser Pinafore pattern in Cute Clothes for Kids by Rob Merrett (I modified this pattern, made it a bit bigger than it suggested and also made bigger, wider ties. I am not sure that you could have done the ties up if they were as short as the book said)
Heather du Pont Home to Roost Trees and Fruits on Green Fabric - pinafore outer
Blue with white spots for trim and pockets
Natalie Lymer Lecian Woodland Gathering in White - pinafore inner/reverse side

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