Thursday, October 20, 2011

Old to New

Last week, the blog Elsie Marley did her bi-annual Kids' Clothing Week Challenge, which I always try to play along with--because sewing clothes for little people is fun!
Unfortunately, I didn't really have any new fabric to play along with. Turns out that Japanese fabric is expensive in both America and Japan. Sad. But you know what's not expensive? Cutting up your old stuff!

Here's a shirt I made for Cosette using an old hoodie that I no longer wore:


I used the same pattern as here but left off the ruffles and put on a bow instead, for a French twist. She looks like she should be holding a baguette, right?



And then I cut up an old maroon shirt of mine to make this envelope tee for the baby on the way:


The t-shirt pattern is from Growing Up Sew Liberated which is an amazing book. I originally bought it for the Waldorf Doll pattern, as I left mine somewhere in the U.S. I want to make everything in this book, though! We'll see about the sizing when the little one comes.
The pants (from this free pattern) are from flannel that I found after digging around for an hour in a big fabric warehouse out in the country here. I could only find 2 types of flannel, and I bought a meter of both...and I think both are ugly, but oh well. The saleswoman looked at me like I'm crazy to buy such strange fabric.

The funny thing about Japan is this--the good crops are really lacking here, meaning cotton, wheat, etc. So, cotton flannel and good quality cotton clothes are hard to find, which means baby clothes are funky and not super soft. You can buy polyester fleece, but that is about it. So, if you go to the store to buy a pair of sweats, usually the inside is unfinished--meaning no cozy fuzzies on the inside of the sweats! It's really weird. Japanese kids are cuties, but Japanese kids' clothes are a whole different story...

Anyways, now I am excited to cut up some more clothes!

P.S. Remember my new sewing machine? We are not friends when it comes to knit fabric, even when I am using a needle specifically for knit fabric. I am pretty much done with knit fabric. Grrrrr...
Luckily, Seamstress Tiger feels my pain!

 

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