Sew Family Jammies 2020 Blog Tour

We made it guys! School is out for Summer! We are officially on holidays and heading to the beach for a few weeks. These Un-Christmas jammies will be perfect for waking up Christmas morning at the beach, but also perfect at any time of year!

As part of our Sew Jammies 2020 Blog Tour – Get your free ticket here (so you can get discount codes and be eligible for prizes)! Read all about Sew Family Jammies with Sew Altered Style (Mac and Katie) and Maker Mountain Fabrics (Grace) and Blog Tour Coordinator Extraordinaire (Teri aka FaSewLa) here.

I am only sewing what my kids request these days. I am short on time and hate to waste it sewing something that sits in the closet unloved. They all love simple summer jammies. Boxer shirts and tanks and tees are perfect for our summer Christmas.

I actually thought they’d all request a tank, so luckily I asked before I got too far into the project. I used the Ainslee Fox Triton Tank to make the tank and the Jalie Mimosa for the tees and just straightened the hem.

I didn’t have any red knit fabric so I bought some large tees and upcycled them (which was actually much cheaper lol). I was able to keep the necklines on all the tops from the original shirts!

I tried to convince them to let me applique a star or something on each top to match the shorts, but I got a hard and fast NO. #boring

I used the Made by Jacks Mum Hang Ten shorts for all the boxers. It’s a great pattern, I’ve used it a hundred times. I just made them the length they all like ( the girls like theirs a little shorter than my son).

The only thing I did differently was use 2.5cm elastic in the waist instead of 3cm (as that’s what I had on hand), and I also attached the elastic to the fabric instead of making a casing. Who likes their elastic flipping in their waistband? Not me…

As you can see they’re a hit! I bought the shorts fabric from an opshop, but it’s currently in store at Spotlight. I got a few metres of it, so Mum & Dad will have shorts to match too when we get home from holidays! It’s really light weight and they love how it feels like their are wearing “air” haha!

As you can see the “Silly Season” is in full swing here! We wish you and all your families a wonderful Christmas, or whatever holiday you choose to celebrate!

If you would like to see more Christmas Jammies from around the worl, stop by these blogs to check them out!

December 2 Teri // Fa Sew La
December 4 Sierra // Seams Like Sierra
December 6 Emily // Replicate then Deviate
December 10 Heidi // Handmade Frenzy
December 11 Sharon // Sweet Mama Life
December 12 Carrie // Beri Bee Designs
December 13 Katie // KatieKortman.com
December 16 Melissa // A HAPPY STITCH
December 17 Taish // Blooming Skies
December 18 Leanne // Thready For It
December 19 Laurie // Make It Sew with The Bear And Pea Atelier
December 20 Brooke // Idle Sunshine
December 21 Marissa // Sew Help Me
December 23 Lara // Handmade by Lara Liz
December 24 Kelly // Petite Stitchery
December 25 Jess // Broad In The Seams
December 26 Victoria // Victoria Beppler
December 27 Heather // Heather Handmade
December 28 Sylvia // The Ravel Out
December 30 Victoria // Victoria Lucille Anne
December 31 Teronia // Sew Haute Blog

 

Much love and sunshine!
Brooke x

Idlesunshine

Fabric Covered Bunny Ears Tutorial for Easter!

I made these sweet bunny ears to go with our One Thimble Trillium by Petite Stitchery and Twig + Tale Pixie Shorts outfit last year. It was the Michael Miller Saturday Morning Fabric Collection that took me there! Those bunnies are perfect for Easter!

This little project is quite quick and easier than it might look, but I got so many comments, that I thought I had better write a quick tutorial to show how I made them!

The bunny ears came straight out of my children’s dress-up box from a previous Easter, and the flower is on an alligator clip and also has a brooch back. You might have picked up that I am all about sustainability and versatility, so I love that the flower can be used as a hair clip or pinned on any other accesory or outfit.

I didn’t have another pair of ears on hand so I called in to Big W and grabbed a pair. I’m sure wherever you are in the world you will have a department store or bargain store that will have these in stock at this time of year for a dollar or two.

Materials needed:

Paper

Pencil

Scissors

Fabric (I only needed a piece 20x20cm or 8″x8″, but it will depend on the size of your ears)

Iron

Needle and thread to match your fabric

Method:

• Lay your headband down on a piece of scrap paper and trace around the outside of the ear shape.  Make sure to extend down to the headband, this will give you a seam allowance to play with all the way around.
• Cut out your pattern piece and use it to cut 2 ear shapes (mirrored if they aren’t symmetrical) from your chosen fabric.
• Take your 2 fabric ears to the ironing board and iron a 1cm or 3/8″ seam allowance under to the wrong side.
• Pin your fabric ears to the ears on the headband, covering the inner ear (the pink section in this case). I just hold it there, but I’m a rebel, so you might like to use pins!
• Hand stitch your ears to the headband, starting from underneath the fabric ear so that the thread tail is hidden between the furry ear and the fabric. You might like to tie a knot in the tail so it doesnt pull though, or wing it like myself and just tie it when you’ve stitched all the way around and back to the beginning! I just use a running stitch, but i travel most of the distance around the ear between the fabric and the headband ears so as not to have big stitches visible. Come up through your fabric from the bottom and back down through the fabric only 2mm from the point where you came up, then down through to the back of your bunny ears and back up only 2mm from the point where you came down. Then use the needle to travel 1cm (3/8″) along in between the fabric and the ears before you come back up through the fabric and repeat the process. It’s not important to be super careful, because your stitches aren’t seen through the long fluff on the back of the ears.
• Just align your fabric so that the folded edge lines up with the seam of the bunny ears (where the pink inner ear meets the white fur), all the way around as you sew. Your fabric might not be exactly the same size as the area you are covering (that will depend on the design of the ears you have purchased). You might find you need to fold a little more of the fabric over than the 1cm seam allowance we pressed to make it match up, but you can just adjust that by hand as you sew and it will all work out just fine.

My Favourite Things

So the theme this month on the Sewing With Ti Blog Tour is “My Favourite Things”! This category is so hard for someone like me that just loves EVERYTHING! So I decided to make myself one of my favourite patterns and get my bum moving on my kids favourites, for their summer sewing too!

This is the Little Kiwis Closet Women’s Cuffed Dolman! It is a great relaxed dolman tee in a longer tunic length with a curved hem. It also comes in a dress length option which I chose to make here. I was sent this gorgeous Pink Aztec Rayon Spandex by Orinoco Designs to showcase for a current fabric pre-order and I knew it would be a perfect match!

The drape is perfect for this pattern and it is a great print for young and old. My girls loved it, but I had to (very unselfishly) show you all how great it was made up as a grown up piece!

I wasn’t a complete monster though… I saved the girls a few scraps and I used some straight away to run up this cute top! It’s the Little Kiwis Closet Choose Your Adventure Tee & Dress. I created this cute cap sleeve and pocket and added it to this royal blue cotton lycra I had in my stash. I think this is perfect for the theme – as one of my favourite things to do is mash and tweak patterns!

I used the flutter sleeve pattern piece from the Poppet Peplum pattern and added an inch or 2 to the centre so that it would fit the armscye perfectly. I lined the “flutter/cap” with some white cotton lycra to give it some body before attaching it. I absolutely love how this turned out and it just covers the shoulders nicely to protect them from our harsh summer sun!

Then we of course had to have some pics together, because – matching!

It was so cold! You have to remember it’s winter here at the moment and it was 7:30am before school! We are so lucky to have such mild winters, but boy was it fresh and frosty this morning!

I have a few more scraps left, so I used a tiny bit to jazz up this plain tank as well, but I will not waste a bit – it’s too cute!

Next up I want to show you a sneak peek of the girls version of the Cuffed Dolman! It’s in testing right now and is looking just as awesome as the women’s version!!!

This one I upcycled from a women’s large tshirt we found (stripes are her favourite) and I made the regular cuffed sleeves.

There is a long sleeve version too that I’ll share with you soon and you can also opt to leave the cuffs off altogether and just hem!

You can see from my upcycle that the back of the shirt has a centre seam. I hope this means that the manufacturer is being frugal with fabric! I love to upcycle as a way to reduce landfill and to get awesome cheap fabric.

This length is perfect with tights and I will make her some dolman dresses for summer as well. I know I live in them, so I am betting my girls will too!

Here’s an essential shot of my stripe matching – I’m sorry but if you are sewing stripes, they just have to match 😉 ! It also shows the cool curved hem.

Next up are some more great basics! I love to make pretty dresses, but my girls just want to wear shorts and tees! So while I never thought I’d make basics when you can get them cheap from Kmart, I love that they get something amazing and unique from me, with great quality fabrics and no exploited labour. Except for me of course… They fully exploit me!

This is the Pearlie Peplum and Scuttle Shorts from One Thimble Issue 16! This issue has only recently released and I am sewing my way through it! These patterns will be on high rotation! I used another Orinoco Designs print from a previous round for the bodice and the front panel of a tshirt I upcycled did the peplum skirt front and back.

The Pearlie Dress & Peplum is by Peach Patterns and I have lengthened the bodice here by 2 inches to bring the peplum down closer to her natural waist. This is just a personal preference. When I made the dress previously I used the size 7 length skirt, but because I added length to the bodice here, I used the size 5 peplum skirt length.

I teamed it with the Scuttle Shorts by Ainslee Fox Boutique Patterns. I made the basic version here without any pockets or colour blocking and they were soooo fast! This girl looooves her knit shorts so I am going to make a full rainbow of these! This was a knit my Mum grabbed from Spotlight for me. As a bonus, they don’t take very much fabric at all!

Check ’em out – they’re adorable!

 

Ok so let’s recap a few of my favourite things…

• The LKC Cuffed Dolman
• Awesome custom print fabric
• Pattern hacking
• Matching my minis
• Upcycling
• Stripe matching
• Little Kiwis Closet
• One Thimble
• Sewing things my kids will actually wear

Did I miss anything? I’m sure my girls have their own list to add!

 

If you’d like to see what everyone else on board has chosen to share this month, you can view their posts here! Each post will go live on it’s date in August.

 

Tuesday, August 1st: Intro ***You are here. 😀, Tenille’s Thread

2nd: Stitching At Night

3rd: Sewing By Ti

4th: Needles To Say

5th: Very Blissful

Sunday, August 6th: The Fairy Dust Bin

7th: Anne-Mari Sews

8th: Sewing With Sarah

9th: Thats Sew Lily

10th: Stitching at Night

11th: EYMM

12th: Sew Sew Ilse

Sunday, August 13th: Lulu & Celeste

14th: Seams Sew Lo

15th: Tales From a Southern Stitching Mom

16th: Stitching and Making

17th: Creative Counselor

18th: Ma Moose

19th: Kainara Stitches

Sunday, August 20th: Embrace Everyday

21st: She Who Sews

22nd: Idle Sunshine

23rd: My Heart Will Sew On

24th: Lovely For Life

25th: Margarita On the Ross

26th: Anne-Mari Sews

Sunday, August 27th: Made By Melli

28th: Adventures with Bubba and Bug

29th: Auschick Sews

30th: Me Made

31st: Living in Twinado Alley

 

Warmest Wishes,

Brooke x

Idlesunshine

 

Choose Your Adventure Tee and Dress

Will you look at the back on this beauty?! I am in the deepest amount of trouble…

The Choose Your Adventure Tee & Dress PDF sewing pattern by Little Kiwis Closet

I have been “collecting” fabric for years! Only occasionally sewing until the past 18 months where I have really committed to making time for my hobby. But lets just call it an investment! Some people collect shares and houses, and I’m over here banking on fabric. Fingers crossed people!

So this “collecting” has gotten pretty intense in the last 6 months in particular, because every time you sew one item that basically gives you permission to go buy enough fabric to make 10 more right? Well now there are more than 10 billion metres of woven cotton in my sewing room. You can barely open the door (think about your Mum’s Tupperware cupboard back in the 80’s and you will be close) but there are barely a scant few yards of knit in there! Mostly opshop finds, because who goes looking for knit when they’re scared to sew it?

So this has not been a problem at all, because I only sew with woven right? Wrong!!! I just made this dress from the new pattern by Little Kiwi’s Closet – The Choose Your  Adventure Tee & Dress and well, just look at it! It’s awesome, AND I made it!!!

Full length view of the dress option with long sleeves

I did not even know I could do that. I was frightened of knits so I just steered clear. I’d tried to play with them before but my machine ate them and threads snapped and, well I don’t think I need any more excuses – aint nobody got time for that garbage!

I’ve learnt a few things since those days though, and I’ve spent so much time on my machine sewing in general, that I know how it works now. So here’s my first couple of tips if you’re scared or been having any trouble…

1. Don’t use crappy thread, the quality of thread was the reason it snapped all the time. It was the simple swap from the 3 for $5 reels from lincraft, or the bulk buy of colours from big w, to guiterman and Birch thread, that stopped that happening. Now I can get back to finishing my Love Notions Pemberley Tunic that I threw in a corner because the threads snapped every 2 inches in every seam!!! I can’t tell you how frustrating that was. I don’t give up easily, but I fully wigged out, blamed my sewing machine and threw my hands in the air on that very rare knit project.
2. Don’t start your seams on the very edge of the fabric. Start a little further in, hold your threads taut at the back, do a couple of stitches, back stitch and away you go, then your machine wont eat the material.
3. Don’t stretch your knit as you sew. Feed it gently under the foot so that it sews evenly. A walking foot will do this for you, feeding both pieces of fabric evenly but I don’t have one of those. Put it on the wish list…
4. Use a ballpoint needle in your machine and a stretch stitch. A straight stitch will snap when stretched.

So now you’re ready to go! If you would prefer a simpler pattern to experiment with knits, you can try another LKC pattern. Lydia has many knit patterns, like the Women’s Take Flight Dolman, which can be made in girls or ladies sizes. That was my first go back with knits, which gave me the confidence to go again. Well Lydia and her tester friends at LKC gave me that confidence really. Thanks for having faith in me!

Women’s Take Flight Dolman PDF sewing pattern by Little Kiwis Closet

The options in this pattern will keep you busy for quite some time. I have made a simple long sleeved dress with the peep hole back feature and binding around the neck. I nearly chickened out on the pockets because, well, knit sewing is scary in general and I was still packing it! So glad I didn’t though, they were easy peasy and I’m basically shocked at how easy it was to make this gorgeous dress.

Look at those cute peekaboo circle pockets

So this pattern can be made into an a-line dress as I have made, or a more slim fitting tshirt for both boys and girls. Both have a huge number of options. You can colour-block with diagonal panels on the front. You can do the peep hole back (which looks amazing in stretch lace too), you can do a simple plain back for the boys or girls or a colour-blocked back instead. You can add 1 or 2 bound or cuffed peekaboo pockets to the front, or chicken out like I almost did (but really there’s no need to be frightened). You can add binding to the neck, do a cuff, add a hood or a cowl. You can do short sleeves, long sleeves, ruched sleeves or bell sleeves, you can even add a cuff to your sleeves.

If you are feeling adventurous you could even size up and make a nice thick fleecy sweater knit dress or hoodie. With sizes NB-12 and all these options, it really is a fabulous versatile, value-for-money pattern! If you look at the line drawing (which I always look for in a pattern – tick!) you can imagine how many garments can be made by mixing and matching the options.

Lydia’s patterns are always expertly drafted. I love testing for her because you know it is always going to be an accurate, well thought out pattern. The sizing is great and I am always confident cutting into my fabric for that first test that it will not go to waste, it will be a gorgeous and wearable garment. I think she might have been really good at maths back in school kids. So clever!

This new pattern has already released and you can get it on sale for 30% off with the code found in the Little Kiwis Closet Facebook Group. In fact that magic code will get you 30% off all LKC patterns! But be quick, it expires Saturday night (April 23 2016) NZ time.

If you have any questions ask away! I’ll do my best to help and you can join the group to meet lots of new friends making LKC patterns.

Shot at Blackbutt Nature Reserve Newcastle NSW

 

Warmest wishes,

Brooke

Idlesunshine