Mini Making part 2

I’m in a bit of an irritating sewing slump at the moment. I’ve got a pile of things cut out and ready to go, and I just don’t want to sew them! I think it’s partly because I’m feeling guilty for neglecting my studies a bit, so I’m going to give myself a break from sewing and blogging until I hand my research proposal in (in a couple of weeks, hopefully), and then I should get my enthusiasm back! In the meantime I’ve got the second pile of baby clothes I made up to post about…

First up, more from Ottobre! I made this lot up at the same time as the tiny pants from my other post, so they don’t have any seam allowances either… Both patterns are super simple, the leggings are just one pattern piece, and the sweatshirt is two (plus a neckband). The stripes are merino sweatshirting, and the navy and mustard for the leggings are merino jersey scraps. The floral sweatshirt is made out of a scrap of Liberty cotton terry, which came out of a bag of scrap remnants I bought ages ago from The Fabric Store. It was just big enough to squeeze the pattern onto!

Sewing up this striped top was when I first realised I hadn’t added the seam allowances, I thought the neck hole looked too tiny for babywear and figured I must have made a mistake! It is pretty small, so I’ll take it back and add a keyhole in the back if it doesn’t go over the wee girl’s head. I found the iron on transfer in a sale bin, and had to buy it, it’s so cute! I topstitched it on as well as ironing it on, just for added security.

For this second sweatshirt I avoided the neckband all together. The cotton terry has significantly less stretch than the merino, so I just folded the neckline under and stitched it down. Hopefully it’s big enough too! I sewed a little twill tape tag into the back of this one, and into the back of the leggings, as they’re pretty similar. I figured that sleep deprived parents don’t need any extra puzzles when they’re trying to wrangle wriggly babies into their clothes!

The other gift was a pile of Purl Soho bibs, made up in this cute coordinating dog fabric which my mum picked out for her colleague. I made these the same as my first lot, except I used Velcro instead of press studs on these ones. Much quicker to sew on, and the parents I asked seemed to prefer Velcro for ease of use as well. I used the join between the two pages of the pattern to determine my ‘colour-blocking’ (pattern-blocking?) point, it was very easy but I think they’re pretty cute!