Kids Clothes Week # 1

Hi Folks! Here is Part One of my makes for Kids Clothes Week. What's Kids Clothes Week?  It's a challenge to sewers to make garments for children, pledging to sew collectively, an hour a day for one week. Instagram floods with all the lovely clothes being produced, and we all support each other. It's really fun and inspirational, and this time around it had a theme, "Wild  Things".



http://www.kidsclothesweek

I chose to make shorts for my two boys, with added animal applique: snakes for one, and fish for the other.

They are not the best makes in the world; they definitely would not pass for ready to wear, and the applique is fabric from an old thread-bare nightie! But they are fun, I like them, and - more importantly - the recipients like them too.

 

 

 

 

The pattern is my vintage staple from the 1970s "Children's Wardrobe" cut to below the knee to make summer shorts, although - now I'm looking at these pictures - I think I will hem them a little shorter. I increased the seam allowance at the waist to hold wider elastic, more comfortable in my opinion. 

The fabric is a nice double knit jersey left over from my easy pencil skirt here.  So again an essentially free make!

 

My boys really need clothes that are robust enough to stand up to the hammerings they get in the park and then after in the washing machine. And these lovelies are growing at such a fast pace that any fancy sewing would be outgrown heart-breakingly in next to no time! By that requirement, these are a definite success.

 

The best thing about them is that they are the same enough for jealousy not to ensue, but different enough to tell them apart when sorting the laundry at speed.

Wahoo!  But I haven't neglected my darling girl: next up is a dress for her,  made of a pretty bird fabric.