wow, this season of kids clothes week simultaneously flew by and painfully dragged on foreeeevvvvver! despite having completed all of my fabric shopping and washing, and cutting out almost all of my pattern pieces by the Sunday night before the start of the week, i pretty much didn’t get anything accomplished until at least thursday. (is it just me, or does anyone else feel like toddlers/small children can sense that you have some personal challenge that you’d like to take on, something just for yourself that you’d like to achieve, and they strive to undermine it at every turn? i think this is why they are all so stinkin’ cute. to keep us from strangling them.)

for this season of kids clothes week, i decided to challenge myself to create outfits.  i enjoy creating a little mini-theme for the week. in the past i’ve tried only using upcycled fabrics or stash fabrics, or sewing knits or self-drafted patterns. generally, i’ve just sewn a bunch of random things, sometimes coordinating, but mostly not. but this past week, i created intentional outfits, and tried to make sure that the things i sewed would coordinate with other clothes that the bee already has.

the first thing i made were these parsley pants by made by rae in red corduroy. i love these pants, but they’re kind of huge. i took measurements as best as i could (see above re: toddler thwarting my efforts), and ultimately just went for the 3T size. i’ve learned from this challenge that my kid is a 3T in width, but like a size 1 in height. short! anyway, i’m considering all of the bottoms i made this week as muslins and will use them as a guide in the future. plus, she’ll grow into them.

the sewing was awesome, but more than i had bargained for. with the five minutes here and there that i was allowed to sew, it took me at least three days to complete these. the only made my rae pattern i’ve ever sewn before were the big butt baby pants, which flew together in a jiffy. but these are real, big kid pants. with pockets. and pin tucks. they are FANCY. and there are all these wonderful seam finishing suggestions, which add time, but look super profesh in the end.

i created a facing piece because i wanted to add POLKA DOTS!

pouch pockets! lined with POLKA DOTS! and pin tucks! for realsy pants.

then, i made this kitty cat t-shirt. i asked the bee if she could have any animal on her shirt, which she would like, to which she replied a cat. we have two HUGE black cats, and she likes one of them, turtle, whom she tries to hug, and sometimes walk behind him holding his tail. i think maybe she’s less interested the other, penobscot, because he doesn’t have much of a tail. and everyone knows that tails are funny. i knew i couldn’t get away with putting a black cat on her shirt (neutrals?! black?! never.), so i went for a grey shirt with a pink cat. that pink cat makes all of the grey and black in the rest of the shirt just barely acceptable.

the kitty is polar fleece, with tiny button eyes. the pattern is the field trip shirt by oliver + s, which, thanks to the amazingly talented and inspiring kristin over at skirt as top, i learned was available as a single pattern (no cargo pants!), digitally (!!) and on sale (!!!)! so perfect. i drafted two new front pattern pieces, one for the grey upper part of the shirt, and a second for the cat head. i sandwiched the ears in-between the two pieces then sewed them together with a little knit zig-zag stitch. and then i stitched them down a bit inside so they stay upright.

i love love love this striped/polka dot fabric. it’s reversible! and super soft (rayon mostly probably), and i have almost a whole yard, from which i may attempt to make myself a t-shirt.

if you are at all curious about sewing with knits, i seriously encourage you to give it a try. i love it so much now, and sadly (because i was a weaving major in graduate school and feel like a traitor) now find sewing with wovens to be tedious and time consuming. yikes! i have a serger, which makes sewing with knits super-fast, but it would be equally as easy with my regular ole machine. made by rae has an amazing series of blog posts with bloggers who sew knits (called kniterviews! hah!) that are incredibly helpful, and one day i hope to have time to read through them all.

later this week, i’ll post my second outfit of the week. until then, happy making!