Bonnie
Fishsticks Designs Patterns are Now Available as PDFs!
I am so excited to finally announce that you can purchase Fishsticks Designs sewing patterns in downloadable pdf versions! You can find the new pdf versions on my newly stocked Etsy cart: Fishsticks Designs at Etsy.
In these pdfs, you’ll find the same full-size patterns that are in my paper patterns, just divided into easily pieced parts. You’ll also receive the same thorough, photographed instructions, except that the pdf versions have the instructions in full color!
In celebration of my pdf pattern debut, I’m offering a 35% discount on pdf patterns in my Etsy cart through midnight on Sunday. The discount code is “debut”. If you use the code, you have to promise to leave me feedback since I’m new at Etsy! (Oh, and in case you’re worried, I have no plans to discontinue my paper patterns! I actually have several new patterns in the works as I look forward to Fall Quilt Market in Houston!)
Project First Day
Susan Stewart of Susan Stewart Designs has organized an effort to provide handmade clothing for the children of Joplin, Missouri in time for their first day of school this fall. Susan lives near Joplin and wrote in her newsletter last month, “Thousands of people have lost everything. The summer will pass and the Red Cross will leave. And school will start, somehow, somewhere, because all those schools will not yet be re-built. Do you remember being excited about the start of the school year when you were young? I certainly do! And I always had a new dress for the first day of school. I loved those new first-day-of-school dresses; I think my Dad took a picture of me every year, and for years I remembered what I wore for the first day of each new grade. Now, what do we all do? We sew!” Susan went on to encourage her readers to sew for the children of Joplin, and “Project First Day” was born.
Susan is asking sewists from around the country to sew a dress for a little girl or a top for a little boy in Joplin to brighten their first day of school in August. Susan has also asked that every dress or top include a personal note to the child who receives it to let them know how special they are. The deadline to send your creations to Susan is August 1st, so you have about a month to sew and ship. If you’re not on Susan’s newsletter list and you’d like all the specifics and the shipping address, simply fill out the form that you’ll find on her website’s Contact Page, and she’ll get back to you with all the information that you need.
When I first heard of Susan’s plan, I felt an overwhelming urge to get involved. I emailed her, and we talked back and forth a bit. Many of you know that we have a house full of little boys, and, well, it’s harder to find sewing patterns for little boys than it is for little girls. To help make sure that there are plenty of fun tops for the little boys in Joplin on their first day of school in August, I’m offering the Charlie Tee pattern from my Charlie Tee & Hoodie as a free pdf download through August 1st!
I don’t mind at all if you’d like to use the pattern to sew for your loved ones. I just ask that if you download the pattern, you sew something for Project First Day. We’re doing this on the honor system.
To download the pdf file, just click the picture below:
There are four different ways to sew this tee, so you have a few options: The Basic Tee, The Ringer Tee and The Horizontal and Vertical Colorblocked Tees.
These tees are, of course, sewn with cotton knit or cotton blend knit fabrics. Younger boys would probably be thrilled with fun boyish prints, while older boys will likely prefer stripes or solids. If you’re new to sewing with knits, I highly recommend choosing interlocks over jerseys or ribbed knits because they’re simply easier to sew. For tips on the different types of knits and how to sew them all, check out my Knit Knowledge Series.
If you’d like to shop locally, I primarily purchase my solid interlocks at Joann Fabrics and Hancocks. Joann Fabrics has a nice cotton/poly interlock, and Hancocks carries 100% cotton interlock. You can use these interlocks for the necklines, too. If you prefer using ribbing for the neckline, Joann’s cotton/spandex ribbed knits will give you great results. Joann’s also stocks some really nice print interlocks, but they tend to be more feminine or babyish.
The best place to find print knits for boys is online. These are a few of my favorite shops: The Fabric Fairy, Nature’s Fabrics, A & A’s Fabric Attic, Girl Charlee and Print Knits Studio. (Those names are all clickable and take you directly to the websites.)
One last thing, I put together a quick tutorial for how to use a pdf pattern, in case there are a few of you who haven’t used one before. It’s really easy, I promise! PDF Sewing Pattern Tutorial
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me or leave a comment, and I’ll get back with you as soon as possible! Now go sew a tee . . . or a dress . . . and send it off to Joplin so that a little girl or boy will feel a little extra love on the first day of school this fall!
Skirt Week Guest Post at crafterhours: The Upcycled Hem-less Tee-Skirt
The incredibly creative crafterhours’ ladies, Adrianna and Susan, are hosting Skirt Week over on their blog, and they so kindly let me join in with a new tutorial! You’ll find some incredible tutorials over there from earlier this week, too. Go check them out and sew yourself (or someone else) a new summer skirt. If you sew really fast, you might still be able to meet the 8 p.m. deadline tonight for entering the challenge. If you can’t sew that quickly, then spend a bit of time checking out the flickr pools for some inspiration instead. There are some beautiful skirts to browse through!
If you know me well, then you know that I love putting old things to new use again, and this new tutorial does just that! Dig those old, unused tees out of that box in the closet and put them to work again: The Upcycled Hem-less Tee-Skirt.
Summer Wardrobe Sewing — The Wrap-up
This whole mama-made summer wardrobe idea got its beginning last October or November, I think, when I received an email from one of the editors at Stitch magazine asking if I had any New Year’s Resolutions that I’d like to share in the Winter 2010/Spring 2011 Issue. It was a bit early to be thinking of resolutions, but I immediately thought of how many times I’d considered sewing a whole season’s wardrobe for at least one of my children. I have all these patterns that I’ve designed myself and really enjoy sewing, and I have a stash of fabric that threatens to overtake my home on occasion—why not give it a try and see how it goes?
My youngest two boys both fall in the size range of the majority of my patterns, so I decided before I started that I’d do summer wardrobes for both of them rather than one or the other. I started the planning back in February with snow still on the ground, but I didn’t actually start sewing until the end of March. Even with all the other things that I had on my list over the last couple of months, I managed to finish before the first official day summer! (We’re totally going to overlook the fact that it’s been over 100 degrees here for a few weeks already.) I am so excited that my little ones will be wearing mama-made clothes every day of the summer!
Yes, yes, I’m moving on to the wrap-up. Each category shows a small photo of each item. After each set of photos, you’ll find links to the posts where I blogged about each item, in case you want a closer look or more details.
Charlie’s 2011 Summer Wardrobe (Size 24 months/2T)
SIX TOPS
Dino Dudes Charlie Tee, Mint Chocolate Zoo Rockin’ the Raglan, Robots Rockin’ the Raglan, Puppies Appliqued Charlie Ringer Tee, Red Zoo Animals Rockin’ the Raglan and Dino Dudes Rockin’ the Raglan.
SIX BOTTOMS
Striped Seersucker Inside or Out Pocket Shorts, Three Pairs of Denim Inside or Out Pocket Shorts, Two Pairs of French Terry AJ Bottoms Shorts
SIX ONE-PIECE OUTFITS
All Austin Lee Rompers: Appliqued and Colorblocked Super Charlie, Upcycled Tree Hugger, Brown & Orange, Blue & Brown, MM Gray & Black Stripe, Vintage Cars
SEVEN PAJAMA SETS
Sweet Pea Tank Set, Bacon & Eggs Comfy Sleep Set (Modified for Summer), Dino Dudes CSS, Tools CSS, Aqua & Green Wee Tot Lap-tee Set (Modified for Summer), Jamie Jumper (from the Wee Tot Collection, Modified for Summer), Howdy Tank Set
Jamie’s 2011 Summer Wardrobe (Size 5T)
TEN TOPS
Football Rockin’ the Raglan, Snakes Rockin’ the Raglan, Groovy Guitars Rockin’ the Raglan, Dino Dudes Charlie Tee Hoodie, Appliqued Super Jamie Charlie Tee, Upcycled Green Lantern Charlie Tee, Appliqued Car Patrick Curved Raglan, Stenciled Dino Charlie Tee, Dinosaur Charlie Tee
TEN BOTTOMS
Inside or Out Pocket Shorts: Striped Seersucker, Dark Denim, Three Pairs of French Terry AJ Bottoms Shorts, Inside or Out Pocket Shorts: Striped Denim, Ninja-tagged Denim, Khaki, Rocket-tagged Denim, Robot-tagged Denim
TEN PAIRS OF UNDIES
Six Pairs of Undercover Bottoms Boxer Briefs, Four Pairs of Little Fishies Undies
SEVEN PAIRS OF PAJAMAS
Appliqued Motorcycle Tank Set, Bacon & Eggs Comfy Sleep Set (Modified for Summer), Tank Sets: Tools, Howdy, Zoo Animals, Green Ooga Booga, Blue Ooga Booga
.
Whew! That was a lot of sewing! Now on to other projects . . . maybe something for my bigger kids? Maybe, a couple of skirts for Skirt Week at crafterhours? You’ll have to check back in tomorrow!
A Big Texas Howdy . . . the Rest of the Story
I had great plans for this blog post. I tossed around which item I wanted to use as the finale to my Summer Wardrobe sewing and eventually decided that since we do live in Texas and my boys are big fans of cowboys, I’d go with the D&G Howdy PJs. I had this whole cute photo shoot idea planned out with both boys playing around the rocking horse, the rocking horse I borrowed for a photo shoot ages ago, the one that’s still sitting in my living room even though I said I’d only need it a day or two . . . I digress. (I really am going to return your rocking horse, Kelli!) We dressed the boys in their new jammies right after we’d cleaned up from dinner, and I grabbed the camera.
As is fairly normal, the whole family joined in to help with pictures. Usually when we take pictures of both little ones together, I crawl around on the floor with the camera while Ray or Samantha grabs Charlie, plops him down in place and reminds Jamie to stay put where he is. Then I snap as many pictures as I can before Charlie runs out of the photo frame. Most of the pictures look like this:
or this:
Lately, Jamie’s decided that he should “pose” for the camera, so we often have several like this one:
and this one:
Sometimes there’s dancing on the furniture:
Frequently, there’s an argument over something. Tonight Jamie let Charlie wear his cowboy boots.
Unfortunately, Charlie was not happy when it was time to give the boots back to Jamie.
I do occasionally lose my patience a bit with all this. Tonight, though, I laughed until I cried. Really, they’re kids, doing what kids were designed to do. I just went with it. 76 pictures later, the one at the very top of this post is the only one that I thought, “What a nice picture!” The rest, though, they’re the ones that are real life around here, and they’re the ones that years from now, I’ll look back at and laugh again. And that, as Paul Harvey always said, is the rest of the story. (You totally just said that like Paul Harvey in your head, didn’t you?)
Oh, and lest I forget, I finished both boys’ summer wardrobes! I’ll be back with a recap of everything sometime tomorrow.
Finally, for the record, this is the easiest way to get one- and four-year-old boys to pose in their mama-made pjs:
Shorts-a-palooza!
Nine pairs of shorts, and they’re all done! These may be a bit . . . um . . . boring? We tend towards the utilitarian when it comes to bottoms around here. We almost always grab a tee and jean shorts when dressing the little ones (and ourselves, for that matter), so it just made sense to stick with denim for the majority of these.
I wrapped up Jamie’s shorts’ list with four pairs of Inside or Out Pocket Shorts, three denim, one khaki, all with outside main pockets and cargo pockets on the sides. I added a Night Owl’s Menagerie tag to each pair for a little splash of fun.
Charlie got three pairs of denim IOP Shorts, one with outside main pockets and two with inside pockets. His have tags from my favorite online sewing board. I also added two pairs of unhemmed french terry AJ Bottoms Shorts to finish up Charlie’s list. (Those are exactly the same as the ones I did for Jamie during the Kids Clothing Week Challenge.)
Love the back pockets on these!
Shorts are finished, tops are done, rompers all checked off and undies are sewn. Only one pair of pjs is left on each list.
Romping Around In Vintage Cars
This vintage car print is one of my very favorites. Charlie had a coverall made from the same fabric this past winter, and people asked me all the time where I got it. I loved telling them, “Oh, I made it!” I just had to sew up a romper using it again for the summer. I wonder if it’ll get the same amount of attention.
I modified the Austin Lee Romper slightly by substituting the ringer tee sleeves from the Charlie Tee. The little extra splash of color is perfect!
Charlie’s summer rompers are all done! All that’s left on his list now are shorts and one pair of jammies.
Jamie Shares His New PJs
How do I look? Thanks, Little Brother, for straightening me out there. I think I’m ready now!
So, you want to know about my new PJs, huh?
Well, these blue Ooga Booga ones? They make me want to sing!
And these with the animals on the shorts?
They make me want to dance!
And the green Ooga Booga ones? My mom likes them the best of all . . .
. . . because they make me want to sleep!
I guess I’ll be nice to mama and sleep in all of them. They are super comfy, and she is working on sewing me a whole summer wardrobe, you know!
Four Little Fishies
I love sewing little undies. They go together so fast, and little boys (and girls) get so excited about new underwear! Jamie had a hard time deciding which of these to wear first.
These four pair of Little Fishies Undies wrap up Jamie’s summer underwear list . . . only a few more items left until his whole summer wardrobe is done!
A Trio of Rompers
Just adding a few more rompers to Charlie’s completed summer wardrobe list. I actually finished these three just before we left on our trip to Michigan. (There was a picture of one of them in my post about our visit to St. Louis.)
First up is this heathered brown Austin Lee Romper with orange sleeves.
Second is a baby blue AL Romper with brown sleeves. Mmmm . . . Goldfish!
This last AL Romper is sewn from Michael Miller’s interlock in black and gray stripes with the coordinating black on the sleeves.
The last few days I’ve been working on shorts, shorts and more shorts, and a few more pj sets, too! Charlie’s list is nearing completion. Just one more romper, one more pj set and several pairs of shorts are left.
