birthday time again

This weekend it was Jamie's 6th Birthday and he had several requests and included amongst the Skylander and Minecraft  pleas came one for a Ninja t-shirt and the now expected birthday t-shirt. I started making these t-shirts when he was 3 (wish I'd thought of the idea before then) and he's no idea how pleased I was to hear him request I make him one again this year. I wonder how long this will last?

I thought I'd try a new pattern this year so I gave the Dolman Top pattern by Amanda at Kitschy Coo a try and I'm thrilled that I did. I'm hoping to try out some of her kids knit fabrics soon as they're really funky and organic too. The grey and navy fabric I used for this one came from Tissu Fabrics.

The top comes together really quickly and I even tried using my overlocker/serger to apply the neck band. I've always used my sewing machine for this bit before as that's what was recommended in my usual pattern and also because I was a bit scared to use the overlocker.

Each year I have to remember how I deal with knit fabric after mostly only working with wovens the rest of the year. I'd not used a twin needle before but it's really rather good although I'm planning on getting a stretch rather than ball point version next time as I did get a few skipped stitches. In theory if you've turned up an even hem when you use the twin needle as it forms the stitch on the inside of the hem it should cover the raw edge of the fabric. It mostly did but obviously my hem wasn't totally even on the inside as I managed to miss a section. Unpicking on knit fabric is not as easy as on woven so rather than unpick I stitched and extra row.

Since I already had everything set up I thought I'd make another one and use up the last of the Ninja fabric I bought as part of a fabric co-op a few years ago. This time I used a single needle but a stretch rather than a ballpoint one and no skipped stitches at all - Yay!! 

In this version I added the neck band in the same way as the cuff bands which worked fine. It's definitely easier to apply the neck band as written in the pattern but as I only have white thread on the overlocker it does show a little at the band join at the top but that me just being a fuss pot.

I made size 5/6 and there's room to grow even with Jamie being six but not so much as too make it too big. I used my overlocker to sew the seams and my sewing machine for all the top stitching. On the sewing machine in both cases I used woolly nylon in the bobbin, poly in the needle, lengthened the straight stitch to 3.5, reduced the top tension slightly to 4 and also the presser foot tension to 3. I wound the woolly nylon on the machine rather than by hand as is often recommended and it worked just fine.

I'm now thinking I might actually tackle a knit top for myself soon as I've had the Renfrew pattern stashed for a while now - we'll see.

Anyhow enough about t-shirts and back to the birthday boy. This year was his first (and last for quite some time) big party and he had an absolute ball. A very noisy and energetic time was had by all and nobody clashed heads or received any injuries in the soft play area so it's all good.

Of course you know there's a cake picture to finish this post so here it is. For those who don't know it's a creeper cake based on the Minecraft game that my eldest plays, of course Jamie wants to be the same as big bro so I endulged him. It's not a  pretty cake but then I guess a creeper shouldn't be pretty.

As an aside Minecraft images are all pixel based so ideal for conversion into quilts...

Bye for now