For my intrepid nephew!

My gorgeous little nephew is turning three. You'll have to take my word for it that he's cute cause he lives too far away to be photographed and blogged about.

I hear that he goes out into "the woods" every Friday with his kindergarten, and in winter he travels the streets by snow sled! What could such an intrepid little kid need for his birthday?...

How about the Explorer Vest from the Little Things To Sew book from Oliver + S!

This was project some-very-large-number from a book that I thought I would only make one or two things from, and I'm planning a blog post for another day to rave about the book and summarise my endeavour to sew it all.

The vest is very simple, unless like me you choose the bellows options for the pockets. Then it gets a bit more time consuming but, as always, the instructions are superb.

 

All of the fabrics and trims were from my stash (or if my brother's reading this: they were carefully selected just for this project, with much thought and at great expense) and I happened to have some blue snaps to match. I'd bought some lovely wooden buttons but my kids overruled me saying that snaps were much better. I even had A volunteering to do an instructional video to teach her cousin how to "do up, undo snaps like me"

 

 A bit of hand sewing just cause I can now.

I was inspired by this great little vest in the Oliver +S Flickr group and so I added some straps for some explorer accessories!

 

The kids have, unknowingly, sacrificed a couple of lanyards from their "great tangle of lanyards" courtesy of our zoo, gallery and museum memberships. From those lanyards I stole the detachable snaps and metal clips, then used my own cotton tape  to add some knick-knack straps.

We tripped around the toy and hardware stores today for a compass, mini torch and a pair of binoculars....

All ready to be mailed off to our little explorer friend for his birthday.

 

Happy birthday Little Adventure Dude!