super hero t-shirt

It's become a bit of a tradition here to applique a t-shirt with J's age on it at each birthday. The last 2 years I've appliqued onto a ready made t-shirts but this year I'd forgotten to get one and with no car and no clothes shops and being too stingy to pay for delivery I decide to drag out the dreaded overlocker and have a go at making one. Plus it's been kids clothes week challenge run by Elsie Marley this last week so what better time to have another go at making some kids clothes. I only worked on this for one day - idea is too work for at least an hour a day for 7 days - so technically I don't qualify for join kcwc but do checkout the flickr pool for more kids makes and ideas.

I made a couple of t-shirts a good while back (aaah it was 2 years ago wow!) for kcwc but I've not gone near the pattern since then. I didn't have a lot of knit fabric left and at one point I did go and have a look in hubbies wardrobe to see if I could salvage a t-shirt he wouldn't miss! However there was just enough left to make this one though with the addition of some very cool Kokka Super Heroes fabric from M is for Make to tie into J's super hero obsession.

As before I used the raglan t-shirt pattern (well it's more of an e-book really) from The Scientific Seamstress - a great pattern with loads of sizes and very full instructions on sewing with knits so well worth getting.

It went together pretty well if you ignore the temperamental overlocker which likes stitching but not trimming - exhibit a

I used a combination of the overlocker and my normal sewing machine although you can complete the whole thing on your standard machine no problem. On the sewing machine I used woolly nylon in the bobbin and normal poly as the top thread. I had a couple of issues with skipping stitches even though I was using a ball point needle but changing to a 90/14 seemed to solve that. 

I did try using the triple straight stitch (a stretch stitch I hadn't taken any notice off before) for top stitching the hems but I would just use normal straight stitch next time. The triple stitch made them hem pretty wibbly and made holes that are bit too big for my liking by the time it'd stitched 3 times for each stitch, although at least I know the hem won't burst!

I'm going to make more of these now that I've made this one, before he gets too old to want a t-shirt made by his mum. maybe I could keep making them but just make the number smaller as he gets older what do you think?

Bye for now





PS Did you notice that, 2 blog posts in 3 days, phew need a lie down now ;)

Happy 4th Birthday!

It was my youngest's 4th birthday yesterday and I have to say that it went extremely well. If you'd seen me the night before you might have not expected it to go that way though. Jamie decided that the only cake worth having was a Ben 10 one so of course I agreed. I'm not the best baker in the world but I have tried over that last couple of years to make the kids cakes. I just think it'll make great memories for them, although the temptation to dash to the shops is very strong.  I have recently discovered the local cake shop which as well as turning out wonderfully decorated cakes sells an amazing array of cake toppers, candles, balloons and cake making sundries. ooo! sundries that sounds posh where did I get that word from?  My daughter was in 7th heaven when I took her down to buy the green and black icing for the cake. She loves baking and  has already eyeballed several must have items from the shop.

Anyway after much cursing,  re-rolling of icing and exclamations of  'why did I decide to do this' I made my first and hopefully only Ben 10 cake.

In an earlier post I showed you the beginnings of a Thomas the Tank cushion, another birthday request so here is the finished result. I wanted to try out making up the piecing as I went along (there is a word for this but my brain has seized and I can't remember it). I can be a little bit too reliant on patterns and being shown what to do so this is my first little step towards thinking for myself. The random pieces were sewn in a quilt as you go style a bit like this sew we quilt tutorial only I didn't use a backing fabric. Also the blue strips directly above and below are 'flanges' apparently, I just thought they'd add a bit of texture to the cushion. I'm really pleased with the piping. I didn't take too much time to make up the binding from scraps of the other colours. Straight line quilting seems to be my favourite which surprises me as I thought it'd be a real pain to keep things lined up but as far as my dodgy arms are concerned it beats free motion quilting hands down. Anyway I'm very please at how it all came together and Jamie took it to his bed last night so I think that's a thumbs up.

Last on my list was another small developing tradition here which is an 'i am' T shirt. One of my first ever blog posts was to show his age three t-shirts so a year on here is this years one. It's very simple and sewn very late at night and in this photo covered in bubbles, cake and crisps. The mark of a good party eh!

So thank you too Jamie's friends for coming and for making his day so special, his first words today were 'is it still my birthday today''?

Anyway I'm off to watch the Royal Wedding and enjoy what looks like another lovely sunny day.

Bye for now

kids clothes week challenge - day 3

I am an extremely happy bunny today. Why? you ask. Well I finished the second t-shirt and am really really pleased with it....yay! I'm so relieved to be honest as I have loads of knit fabric and I was panicking a bit that I'd end up doing nothing more than looking at it lovingly.

The hems and  the ribbing at the neck were done on the sewing machine and the seams were made using the overlocker. There would be no problem at all making this completely on the sewing machine. My advice would be to use a ballpoint needle and woolly nylon in the bobbin  I got my woolly nylon from Sew Essentials but  the 80's Bulk at Empress Mills is the same stuff and comes in millions of colours (slight exageration but there are loads) so that's an idea for the future.

Junior must be getting used to me forcing him to wear my creations. Instead of moaning and grumping at me today he put the T on no problem and promptly started posing. I think he does actually like the top though and it matches his fleece hoodie, so he tells me.

kids clothes week challenge

Elsie Marley is hosting another Kids Clothes Week Challenge, the idea being you spend an hour (or more but at least an hour) a day making kids clothes for a total of seven days. I thought this would be a great incentive to get to grips with my overlocker and make a dent in the rather large stash of knit fabrics that are waiting to be used. I want to make some t-shirts for my youngest and maybe a top for my daughter, maybe a bit ambitious I think but I'll have a go.

Well day one and I have finished a t-shirt, (took a lot longer than an hour) and it does fit more or less (sleeves and hem length will be altered tomorrow) which is amazing considering the complete hash I made of overlocking it. I've re-purposed a couple of t-shirts that were heading for the bin. I stitched the car graphic onto the front before making up the t-shirt. It could have done with being further up but he-ho. I tried a new way of applique which I'll use again. I used temporary spary adhesive to stick the graphic to the shirt and used a bit of tearaway stabiliser on the back before stitching it. I don't like using bond-a-web to attach applique on knit fabric as it always leaves the fabric a bit stiff where the applique is.

This is the first t-shirt I've made and I certainly can't fault the pattern I'm using which is the amazingly detailed All the Rage Raglan from The Scientific Seamstress. The pattern has great instructions including those for a standard sewing machine not jut an overlocker/serger. One of the options in the pattern is to stitch the hems before sewing up the side seams. This means you have a nice straight hem but when I went to overlock the side seams the machine ate the fabric. It's something to do with the thickness of the layers of fabric at the hem I'm sure.  I couldn't keep the seam straight and the fabric got all bunched up and dragged into a big mess which resulted in a broken needle and a lot of bad language. After all that I just used my standard machine with woolly nylon in the bobbin, straight stitched and zigzagged  the edges and hey-presto a finished t-shirt.

So where does that leave me with overlocker? At the moment I could quite happily throw it out the window, if it wasn't so heavy. It scares me and it's very loud and seems to go at 3 speeds, fast, faster and lightning fast.

It's just teething problems........ isn't it?