sew and tell time!

Yeah, I could just come out and tell you what the gender is. But it’s so much more fun to take this as an excuse to sew something to show it!! (Ok, so I already posted this to Instagram/the Stashbusting Sewalong group on Facebook. But this warrants a blog post too, right?)

So this is the outfit I made for Hobbit.

That’s right, it’s a boy! Doug is absolutely thrilled, since he was hoping for that outcome more than he was willing to admit, even to himself. Plus he’s excited to teach him all about hockey. I’m excited too, though I will admit that some of my first thoughts were along the lines of wondering how long I’d actually be able to sew things for him/can I still do crafty stuff with him/etc. Good thing I’ve already seen stuff on Pinterest about building toy catapults and such, because that looks fun! I’m also giving myself pep talks about all the geeky things I like that boys often also enjoy, like Tolkien and Star Wars and Legos and Marvel movies, to remind myself that I’ll be ok.

Oh, right, I should probably talk about the actual sewing project, too! This pattern is McCall’s 6494, made in a size small, which looks like about 1-3 months. Ok, so I’m guessing on that– I’m pretty new to this whole kid sewing thing! I’m hoping this will work for this summer and into September, since our Septembers are often on the warm end as well. I did have this pattern on hand, because I’ll admit that I did buy a couple in the cheap pattern Joann’s sales back when we first started talking seriously about having a kid. And I chose this one, because minimal pieces made it look like it would sew up fast! We told our family and closest friends on Monday, but this was my chosen method for the Facebook reveal, so I didn’t want anything that would take too long and risk someone accidentally letting it slip. Also, the dinosaur was fun.

The fabric is lightweight denim, left over from my Thurlow trousers. I had 1 3/4 yards of that left, and this project used up 3/4 yards of that. So I guess some little baby jeans-like pants may be in order to use up the rest–I don’t think I can squeeze anything for myself out of a yard, given that I don’t entirely have the full width of the fabric to work with due to how I cut the Thurlow legs out. I made the applique from the last scrap of the solid green that I recently made those Lord of the Rings bibs out of, plus some rick rack purloined from my mom’s stash (with her permission). Yay for stashbusting! I also had just barely enough snaps of a slightly larger size to do this. I guess I’ll need to pick up some more if I’m going to make any more baby clothes. Unless I can find snap tape at Joann’s, since I need to stop there today to check on supplies anyway. (Not fabric, for the record. Hardware for a diaper bag so I can use up some fabric.)

I did make a couple of changes to the pattern/instructions:

1. I left off the facing, because those partial facings always flip out somewhere and annoy me, no matter how careful I try to be with understitching. Also, an interfaced extra layer of denim that ends partway down the chest sounded like it wouldn’t be too comfy for a baby’s sensitive skin. (Look at me, trying to sound like I know what I’m talking about!) So I turned and topstitched those edges instead, and added a little tab on either side of the snapped shoulder to reinforce it. It looks more jeans-y that way anyway.

   (Note: I’m very, very glad I basted this first, even though it made things take longer, because I would have not caught the edge in multiple places otherwise.)

2. I did the bias tape facing for the snapped crotch lining before I hemmed it, because why wouldn’t you want to eliminate unnecessary handwork? Sewing on those 7 snaps was enough!

With that update, here’s my question for those of you with sons or nephews that you’ve made things for: any cute boys’ sewing patterns to recommend/sources for fun prints? Because my general overall lack of boy-friendly fabrics in the stash means I can justify a little bit of shopping, right?