So it goes.

When I was pregnant with P (5 years ago this Saturday!) I lamented the dreadful baby clothes available. Everything was pink, blue, white or yellow. I found Nordic Kids in the UK and bought a lot of brightly coloured fun stuff from there (at considerable expense).

Anyway I didn't really sew back then but I could iron a T-shirt transfer on. So I made a few and put them on plain white long sleeve envelope T's.

This first one was for a friend who's baby was, indeed, going to be late.

It would have been perverse to have used this one for my poor baby as no-one could decide on his due date and it was changed at every maternal appointment.

But I liked the literary theme and so I made a few more for my baby P...

This one was another quote from Alice In Wonderland and proved to be quite appropriate for my newborn!

 

 

An Australian favourite it's Norman Lindsay's Magic Pudding. An indomitable pudding who suited my baby boy very well, although he did like noise as well as eating, and even both at once!

 

Finally I went a little French-y high brow with my baby Julius Caesar T-shirt (I'm sure this bought me some cred in mother's group!)

 

 

 Anyway, there was one more that I really wanted to make that my husband veto-ed. Too morbid for a newborn baby he declared.

 

So here we are, 5 years later, and I was encouraged by this post by Cherie of You And Mie, suggesting that Morbid is the new black of kids wear.

 

Like any 5 year old boy P talks a fair bit about war, fighting, guns, bomber planes and so on. Now may not be the right time to start reading him Slaughter House 5 as a bedtime story (how would I explain Billy Pilgrim's interlude as a human zoo exhibit with a porn star called Montana) but the anti-war message is right on theme.

 

So here it is. My Kurt Vonnegut Slaughter House 5 inspired T-shirt:

 

 

The T-shirt is that awesome Oliver + S Field Trip raglan T-shirt that I've been loving so much.

 

I used a freezer paper stencil for the lettering and hand painted my dead bird (and flies!)

(over)testing my flat felled crotch seam a bit there kiddo

Of course, P doesn't get it, yet. I think he's a little bemused that mum's dressing him in a dead bird T-shirt.

 

Still, to me it symbolises the futility of war and the absolute importance of good books!

 

Poo tee weet!