What he (mostly) did not wear.

With her pink wallpaper-esque dress A was all set for the theatre, but what would P wear to see Angelina Ballerina?....

Not this outfit is the answer. We've had a pretty cool start to summer so I was happily imagining making the Art Museum trousers and vest and a new long sleeved Sketchbook shirt so that P would have some formal duds that didn't show too much wrist or ankle. He is growing like a weed!

I'd made the vest and was almost finished on the shirt when the heatwave hit. I finished making the trousers knowing that it would be cruelty to force this outfit on a child in this weather. To be honest we've mostly been in the nuddy when we've been indoors at home lately so I don't even have any modelled photos.

But for cute-ness' sake, here's a photo of P from two years ago when he went to see Angelina Ballerina:

He wore those mouse ears all the way into the city on the train with his dad.

That shirt was a Burda pattern which I'm about to revisit but I far prefer the Oliver + S Sketchbook shirt.

The fabric is a quilting cotton which I found in the country town quilting shop near my folk's place. When you're in a country town and it's hot and the quilting shop has air conditioning and a toy bucket why wouldn't you hang out there?

My one stuff-up (there always has to be one, right?) was to put the buttonhole placement template on upside down and mark the buttonholes wrongly. The bottom-most button definitely looks too low, but since I'd never button higher than the one that's done up in the picture above it doesn't really seem to matter.

I stole (from someone, I forget who) the idea of cutting the back yoke crossways so that the stripes didn't have to match.

 

Obviously I idolise the Oliver + S patterns but here's why. The instructions for bits like these sleeve plackets are awesome. Liesl includes tips that are missing from other patterns (hello Burda shirt) that makes it so much easier to get a great finish.

 

And that's why, once I'd worked out what a welt pocket was (which I learned from this discussion thread on the Oliver + S forum), I knew there could only be one pattern designer to teach me how to sew them. Enter the Art Museum pattern.

 

 

I had a sneaking suspicion this vest could end up as an exercise-in-sewing-for-me kind of thing. That is, it might get flatly rejected. So I used a very cheap linen and some left over shirting for the lining. I was amazed to find linen on sale at $3/metre, but the more I look at it I'm not surprised. It has a slightly knobbly curtain like texture up close and turns vaguely purple when ironed with heat. I'm doubting the veracity of it's linen-ness.

 

However it behaved well and my first ever welt pockets were sewn.

 

 

It's incredibly cute on, and when P tried it on over a T-shirt I told Flipper that I might start a new trend with kid's waistcoats. He shot me down by saying that the hipsters who dress their kids in straw Panama hats were already onto the waistcoat trend. Damn those hipsters, first they stole our single speed bikes and made them ridiculous and now our kiddy couture...

 

Anyway, on to the trousers. Yep these are not pants, these are trousers. To the British that might seem obvious and I apologise to them for having said a rude word (ooh-er) but to me it's a line between casual and a bit more dressy.

 

 

Hanging them up like that I can't believe how long they look! I cut a size 5 in width lengthened to size 6 at the hem and they're perfect. They are quite a slim fitting trouser so I imagine a straight size 6 would have looked OK as well, but I'd measured my kid so thought I'd do it right for once.

 

And, again, you can add welt pockets to the rear

 

 

We're up to our fourth consecutive day of temperatures over 42degC (105degF) so all these garments are in the wardrobe. But I quickly made a pair of navy Sketchbook shorts and here's what the kids wore to see Angelina Ballerina after all. (apologies for crappy phone photo)

 

thats' some serious sunshine coming in left of picture!

In weather like this there's nothing nicer than surfing the net and looking at northern hemisphere blogs and all that lovely snow! Stay cool everyone.