She Who Sews

This boy is growing like a weed. I frankly can't keep up sewing clothes for him to grow out of in literally a matter of weeks. His wardrobe is currently looking seriously light, he barely has enough clothes to last him out a week during the warmer weather, but his winter wardrobe is virtually non-existent now. And he's a tween, and wants to be hidden away under a big warm hoodie a lot.



So as this was a new to me pattern company, I checked his measurements against the size chart instead of blindly making him an age 10. I'm glad I did, because his measurements put him in age 14 😱

Now, with the best will in the world, my 10 year old boy is not an age 14 anything... but I went with it. I compared the finished length measurement to his tractor hoodie I made earlier this year (that at the time was a bit big, but fits him well now) and it was 1/2cm shorter, so yeah, perhaps he is age 14 in this pattern!



Because his sister gets the majority of clothes made in this house, he was feeling left out. He asked for this to be made, so when Caroline from Olumis sent me a message with pics of this new stock one evening, I thought he'd poo-poo it as too babyish. But to my surprise he loved it when I showed him the next morning.



The polar bears in grey and blue are a really soft, thick, warm brushed back cotton lycra, perfect for an autumn/winter sweatshirt. The ribbing is also lovely and thick and stretchy. I've had mixed results with ribbing from various places, but honestly, this is the best I've found so far.



Don't get me wrong, I do love sewing, and I love that we all wear clothes that are different to shop bought, but it's not cheap. I ordered 1/2m of each colour polar bears, 1/2m of plain grey jersey and 1/2m of grey ribbing. I can *just* make a hoodie for him from this amount of fabric, totalling £24.90 including postage. I have enough ribbing left over to make another hoodie or two, but only very small scraps of the other fabrics. So if you discount my time/thread, this hoodie I guess is similar in price to a branded one on the high street? The bonus being, he's extremely unlikely to meet someone else wearing the same thing!



We searched high and low for several days for a hoodie pattern that he agreed with. Initially he wanted a sweatshirt with round neck, no hood. But we couldn't find one that he agreed to. I found several international patterns with nice colour-blocking lines, but he refused them all. Then searching through instagram, he saw a sweatshirt with a scuba hood by heart.anda.half that he wanted, exactly the same.



Through a bit of research of hashtags I figured out the pattern, then struck up a conversation with heart.anda.half to get her insight into the patterns and others that might work for him. The sewing community is brilliant, I connected with a lady in America, talking about patterns designed in Sweden.

Anyway, I digress.

I bought the True North Hoodie by Max and Meena patterns, printed off age 14, with the scuba hood, not the cowl hood. And then set about cutting out the fabric. He chose to have front pockets which made the sewing process a bit longer. In all, it took me a little over 3 hours, but this included 5 separate attempts to get the front triangle to line up. With much unpicked, I did manage it in the end.



It's a really snuggly hoodie and he's worn it nearly everyday, preferring to put it on in the mornings instead of a dressing gown, and when it's chilly outside.

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When Caroline from Olumis Fabrics approached me to ask if I would like to be a guest sewist (I don't like this word, nor sewer, because they don't seem like 'real' words. It should be dressmaker or seamstress perhaps?) for her fabric brand, I jumped at the chance. I felt very honoured that my sewing was good enough!



I was allowed to pick 1m of fabric, and decided to pick enough to make an outfit for my daughter, which you can read about here. I was not expecting to get a surprise extra piece of fabric, to which my daughter squealed with delight, to the point of glass shattering pitch. Thankfully, no windows were harmed in the unpacking of the fabrics ;)



I needed to pick a pattern that would show off the fabric to its full potential. So I turned to non-English patterns in an international sewing group I recently joined on FaceBook. With the help of Layla we found a cute dress pattern on makerist.de, the Zuckerschnecke dress by Herzens Bunt Design.



Now you might be thinking, are you mad? Why pick a pattern that is entirely in German? Well, I like a challenge! With the help of my trusty google translate app, I came across some very dubious translations, but I got there in the end. Like with many, many European patterns, seam allowance needed to be added, which I did with the help of my quilting ruler, yes it's tedious, but once done, the patterns are easy to cut and sew. And yes, this was the look on my face at some of the translations that google brought up!



The biggest problem I had with this particular pattern, was that sizing was simply based on height, so I had no real idea if the dress would fit skinny Layla or not. I matched up the bodice pieces with a recent t-shirt I made her, and decided that a touch more ease in the dress might be a good thing for growing room.



The next hurdle was to find a coordinating plain jersey to go with the spring animals. This was easily remedied because Caroline is always happy to help, and sent me a pic with the available plain jerseys she had, with the spring animals to check. Of course, Layla picked the pink, so I ordered it up and a few days later, happy post arrived.



I used the pale pink for the top of the bodice, the cap sleeves and the bottom band of the skirt. This left a large section to fill with the woodland animal print to show it off to its full extent.



I have to admit, it's not my cup of tea, I'm not too into really cutesy stuff, but Layla most definitely is, and this is the PERFECT combination for her! There is currently a pre-order running in the Olumis Fabric FaceBook group, and yes, my children have picked a print each that they've pestered me to buy!

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*Disclaimer: I was sent some of this fabric for free, in return for sewing it up and sharing the pictures. Some of the links in the post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission (the price stays the same for you) which will help me in the future to buy more patterns to share them with you!*

I had grand plans for this outfit. It needed to be simple, wearable, and something that the girl agreed with. I let the girl pick both the patterns, and the fabric, so in theory it should be a winner?!



The fabric arrived quickly from Olumis Fabrics, and went straight into the wash. I put all new cotton lycra fabrics on a quick 40º wash, then I put them in the tumble drier. EEK! I know, I know, you're not supposed to tumble anything with lycra, but I find it does a good job of shrinking the fabric before I cut into it. I don't put the finished garments back in the tumble drier as I find the lycra disintegrates and the garments become fragile and non-stretchy (ask me how I know!).



My daughter chose the Frill sleeve tee by Made by Me Patterns. This is a new to me pattern company, and I didn't really know what to expect. Their measurement chart gives height alone, and basing it off that, the size 7-8 yrs should have been correct for Layla. How wrong could I be? When cutting out the fabric, I didn't really think too hard, but in the back of my mind I thought it looked a bit large. So I sewed it up and it was huge!

Here it is on Layla, like a baggy dress with sleeves like wings.




Frankly, it fitted my 10 year old boy, and even then, the frill sleeves were like wings. The neckband was baggy, and overall it was a badly fitted pattern.



So I cut the overlocked seams apart, re-cut the fabric in the equivalent age 5-6 yrs pattern piece, cut the frill sleeves in half and re-hemmed them. I used the 80% rule to make the neckband fit, and left it age 5-6 length. I didn't have any of the pink stripe left to make another neckband, so used the main fabric on this second version.



Now the tee fits much better, but I'm still not entirely happy with it. I don't think I'll make it again. Something is not right with the armholes and frill sleeve, it just doesn't sit properly, and even with the much smaller frills, they still just stick out.



But what about the fabric. Isn't this such a lovely print? Perfect for a stormy child, but happy at the same time. This is the Rainbow clouds and stars print in the mint colourway from Olumis Fabrics. It's a lovely pattern, but quite large, so perfect for a 7 year old's tee-shirt, but I do wonder whether it would work for a tiny baby top? I then used the candy pink and white stripes as the contrast frill sleeves to add a 'girly' hint to the tee.



A fun frill sleeved tee has to have a skirt to go with it, right? And that's where this simple skater skirt fell into the outfit perfectly. This is another new to me pattern, but is a freebie by Love Notions. This sewed up easily and quickly, and was easy to adjust thanks to the size chart. I made age 8 length, with age 3 width, and it's a perfect fit!



It is a simple two pieced skirt, with a yoga style waistband, all made from knit fabric. I used the candy pink stripe for this, and surprised myself with almost flawless stripe matching at the side seams!! I think this was helped by having beautifully straight fabric. Sometimes fabric turns up and the print seems off-grain, that's often down to stretching when being put on the bolt. But this stripe is the most perfect straight stripe I've ever laid my hands on.



Once the weather warms up, I'm hoping this becomes a go-to warm weather outfit for the girl. It's soft, stretchy and easy to wear. The skirt has already withstood an hour and half long soft play birthday party! You couldn't tell from the pics, could you!?



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*Disclaimer: I received the fabric for free from Olumis Fabrics in return for sharing pictures of it sewn up, however all views and opinions are my own*