Look out ladies! Little (reversible) menswear

Yes, I realize I'm late in finishing and posting this week's gift for the handmade holiday challenge.  But look what I was doing!

Making a reversible outfit!

I was asked to be a pattern tester for Little Lizard King Patterns newest reversible vest pattern.  This was such an easy, fun pattern to sew.  Perfect for dressing up over the holidays.  I knew I wanted to try it with menswear fabrics. 

The pants I made to match are also reversible.  One side is flannel suiting, the other is brown plaid.  All fabrics are from JoAnn's.  I made the pants reversible by making 2 pairs of pants, and sewing them wrong sides together, folding under the edges to meet.  Then I inserted elastic for the waistband.  The patch pockets are made using this tutorial found on MADE.

This will be so cute for Thanksgiving.  I'm not sure which side I like best.  All he needs now is a scali cap to complete this outfit I think.

I just found this pattern Etsy that would look so cute with this.  I can't believe it's reversible too!  I like that it comes in a wide range of sizes.  I think I have to get that one.







I promised him a lolipop for modeling!

UPDATE: This pattern is now available at Little Lizard King's Etsy shop!  I'll have to tell Travis that he had a brief modeling career!



getting ready for the Faire!

**scroll down for the Knignt's Tabbard how-to**

As I mentioned before, we go to King Richard's Faire every fall to celebrate our daughter, Maura's birthday.  Her birthday is actually right before Christmas, but she chooses to celebrate it at the Faire since she loves it so much.  I can't blame her, I love it too!!  It's one of the things I associate most with fall.  Love the smells of the insense and food cooking, the loud games, the glassblowing and blacksmith demonstrations, and most of all the COSTUMES.  Maura's costume was finished last week.

This year I'm going all out for family costumes.  This is the shirt (pattern simplicity 3519) I made for my husband:

Here is a detail of the sleeve, the buttonhole caused me some trouble since my automatic buttonhole wouldn't work for some reason!  So I did it manually, and it turned out OK in the end.

Once that was finished, I started to think about little Travis, how cute he would be dressed up too!  So I decided to make this knight's "Tabard" to fit him out of an old maternity skirt.

To make this I laid the fabric out folded in half, cut a half circle to fit over his head, just as shown in the photo.  Next I pinned double-fold bias tape over all the raw edges.  Just sandwiched the edge between the fold that was already there, and stitched with a zig zag all around.

For the dragon applique, I used a tracer I had on hand from Maura's past obsession with dragons, and traced my dragon onto the wrong side of Heat N Bond Lite.  Then I fused it (very quickly or the fleece will melt) onto the golden-colored fleece.  Then I flipped to the paper side and cut out the dragon.  Next I peeled off the paper, and ironed the applique to the tabard.  I did it on the reversed side of the tabard so I was heating the adhesive from the underside, again fleece can melt a bit.  I only wanted it to bond enough so I could easily sew it down.  So I did that next...

all done!

I hope he likes it.  You never know with 2 year olds!

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Now I'm taking advantage of my free time today and going back to my sewing room to make a muffin hat for Liam.  I found this helpful video, it's subtitled in english.  This lady is so cute.

More sewing for Tiny T

I've finally gotten around to sewing some clothes for Travis lately. Here are the pants I made for him using this tutorial. I love the big patch pockets on these. I think these would be cute in a striped fabric, like a train engineer.

Right now I'm finishing up a pair of guitar pajamas for him too. I'm on a roll! I will post those when finished. Hopefully my new camera will be here by then. It's challenging enough photographing a moving toddler!

one of his poses...

"I'm done with getting my picture taken now,

... go away."