I swear there was every intent of starting and finishing this project during KCWC! But ya know it just didn’t happen, being show time at the circus and all. Archie’s teeth op went fine, naturally he thought the whole thing was pretty amusing while mummy rocked herself back and forth in the corner. With that out of the way, I’ve snatched a few moments at the sewing machine to transform the last few scraps of my geometric dress into a mod-manligan for Hudson, to go next to his old-manligan from last KCWC. The knit fabric is light enough for spring, so I’m hoping it will get some wear before he grows / it gets too hot / it gets completely trashed. Why I’m drawn to light / white fabrics when I sew for my dirt-loving boys I do not know. Maybe its because it makes them look clean.

Pattern: Darling Cardigan pattern by Owly Baby.

Fabric: Pre-loved knit dress + ribbing.

Mods: I went for a narrow band along the bottom instead of a wide one, purely for cosmetic reasons.

So there ya go! After this KCWC I’m having a bit of an inspiration overload so I’ll leave you with some of my personal fav’s from the flickr pool by some seriously creative mamas. Thanks Meg for another amaze-balls KCWC!

1. Greenpoint Cardigan 2. Sweater 3. Diagonal Detail Loungies 4. Aunt Boos Babies 5. Copy Cat 6. Loungies 7. Upcycled Sweatshirt 8. Circus Raglan 9. Ghetto Groundhog

  In an act of random loveliness I received a copy of Figgy’s Banyan pattern from flickr member and KCWC regular Fabricate. I love free stuff. Especially free patterns that I actually want to buy!  I decided to make a couple of summer tees for Archie and went to town on my pile of to-be-re-purposed clothing. Right now I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself that both of these t-shirts are made entirely from pre-loved clothing items. Sure, there’s the eco factor, but really I get a kick out of seeing Archie walking around in stuff that frankly, in my opinion, looks pretty dang fabulous, rivals anything store bought; knowing it’s made from old shirts.

The Banyan T-shirt has lots of possibilities for personalizing. You can make it as subtle or loud as you like, whatever your boy style may be. The little pocket on the front is a nice feature and I also like that the neckline binding can be made out of the same fabric as the body of the tee, rather than ribbing. Here I’ve used a handed down spearmint t-shirt of daddy’s and a re-tired el-cheapo dress of mine, that was $5 new and really too small but I bought it anyway for obvious geometric fantasticness.

For this one I wanted to make a plain tee with a party on the pocket. The geometric fabric is from a thrifted sweater, also seen here on these pants. And the grey is another daddy shirt. My favourite thing about using old tees to make a new tees is the time you save by not hemming by lining up the pattern pieces so they sit over the already hemmed parts of the tee. I did this with both the sleeves and the hem on both tees and so they took under an hour each. I have plans to a whole heap more, they’re just so fun!

I thought I’d play around with a little feature at the bottom in an attempt at a high low hem. I think its pretty cute and any sort of top stitching really adds to a plain shirt like this. 

Today marks day one of the Elsie Marley Kids Clothing Week Challenge! Not next Monday. As I thought this morning when I woke up, casually, sauntered downstairs, casually, had a semi-casual breakfast, then sidled over to blogger, where I noticed every second post had ‘KCWC’ in the title. Still casually, I thought: ‘wow everyone is really getting into the preparations this time’ and then I read ‘KCWC day one‘ and realized mid-mouthful, and less casually that KCWC begins today.  So first, the bad news: Preparation is nigh. But the good news: I didn’t choke on my poached egg. And it’s actually a good thing that I didn’t spend a week cutting things out and setting myself for an epic KCWC (which I can’t help). Between Hudson turning two this week and Archie having some dentistry done under general anaesthetic next week (quietly fretting), mama is full to the brim with life ‘stuffs’. So by default I’m happily taking the no-plans-see-what-gets-done approach.

  To eeeeassse into things I decided to attend to these half finished Sarouels which were abandoned for lack of blue thread and an inclination to get more. I used the same tutorial as these Sarouels which have both been worn to death (literally, they are filthy) all winter. I used ribbing for the cuffs and drawstring and got the rest of it out of this men’s tee. As far as plans go for the rest of the week, I’d really like to use up some more of these thrifty finds for re-fashions.