It’s been a quiet few months on the blog front these last few months due to lots of exciting life adventures. I moved to New York City for a month and left the joys of Frankytown and my sewing machine behind, which meant there wasn’t so much news to share. On my return, I was greeted with a lovely surprise of a proposal, so it has all been a bit of a whirlwind. All of this busy-ness hasn’t lead to a decrease in sewing, just a decrease in blogging my projects. I’ve been using the speedier method of posting on Instagram (@amyjune2015).
As the summer rolls on things are starting to return to relative normality, so I wanted to share my new favorite past time – baby clothes. Ever since making the Spencer Dress I have become a total addict. As I haven’t had much time for sewing, they make great projects for when you have a spare thirty minutes or so. They’ve also helped me in my aim to make friends with my over locker as most of them are made with knits. I’ve been hunting around for some of my favorite patterns which I will link to in this post. The best bit – they are all free! There are so many amazing free baby patterns out there. I’d really encourage you to give them a go!
So what have I made?
First up – I ordered 50cm of this really cute giraffe fabric online. I had a voucher from www.stoffe.de and was looking for something to make my free delivery allowance and just thought “ah well giraffes always come in handy”. These giraffes were the beginning of the craze!
First I made some baby leggings using this free pattern. I have to say, the sizing of the pattern is 9 months and at the moment I am not convinced they will be big enough for my niece (who is only 7 months). Maybe I just don’t know anything about how small babies really are so we will see what happens. I’m looking forward to seeing if they fit! The pattern was super easy to follow and sews up very fast. The only thing I didn’t like about the pattern is it doesn’t suggest sewing a casing for the elastic. I don’t like the idea of exposed elastic on soft cute baby tummy so I added in a casing myself. They turned out ok in the end I think!
Next up – what to do with the left over fabric? Baby hats was the answer I was looking for! Little did I know I would be embarking on a truly addictive make. I found this great free pattern for a trio of baby hats. Although I’m too lazy to make the little bear ears so mine always ended up a duo of baby hats, I still think these make a gorgeous gift and they really are so easy. They are such a good place to showcase cute fabrics and they are so tiny and adorable. My first set came out pretty well:
I then received a message from one of my girl friends that this cute fabric store had a stall at the local street festival and they had crazy reductions on fabric. I whizzed on over on my bike and sure enough they had some great reductions on organic cotton jersey in the cutest of prints. I snapped up 50cm each of four different prints and figured I could use them to continue to fuel my baby clothes making craze. The fabrics are supplied by a German company called C Pauli. Be warned though, at full price these fabrics are on the luxury end of the scale for making baby hats!
That said, this fabrics are a dream to work with and I think they give the final make a pretty professional finish. I love these baby hats – I’m half tempted to keep them for us one day, but I know they should really go to deserving colleagues!
Finally my newest and favorite make – this adorable babygrow. This is made with more organic cotton from CPauli and I have to say, you can feel the difference when you work with it. It is just so soft and snuggly – hell I want to go to bed in this onesie! I love the print and I enjoyed working with this as it challenged me to learn a new skill. I’ve never done bias binding with a knit fabric before and I have to say a teeny tiny baby grow may not be the place to start. If I made this again I wouldn’t bias bind the neckline, I would just finish the neckline the way you finish a t shirt or any other jersey top with a neckband. It was super fiddly and hard to join the ends of the binding together which meant I ended up with a pucker 😦 this displeased me greatly! Apart from that though I love the final piece – I think it’s so cute and can’t wait to give it to my niece. I also loved having another opportunity to use my new favorite things – cam snaps! Check back for a post soon on how I’m using them on everything!
Anyway that’s it for now – a bit of a long round up of baby bits and bobs! I can’t believe I love making baby things this much! May I continue to know lots of people who are expecting so I continue to have people to supply with gifts!
Amy's Atelier 