Selfless Sewing - A Child's Collection
I’ve never really thought about making clothes for children before, it just never came up in topic or as a request but when one of my really good friends, Fruit, recently had her squish (baby) I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by.
In the run-up to her due date, we had joked about how hard it was to find good clothes that were gender-neutral. I mentioned how hard it was to find baby clothes in black, to which she replied that I was more than welcome to make some for her newborn squish.
Fast forward 3 months later: present day
Everyone says that squishes grow quickly and I wanted them to get full use of the clothes that I was making, but I wasn’t sure what to make. Perrine mentioned that she had previously made Poppy & Jazz Reversible Dungarees for her friend’s child and it was a great success. I’m not keen about dungarees, reversible or not, but it did give me a chance to browse Poppy & Jazz’s pattern collection. I ended up buying the Honeydew Hoodie and Clover Trousers, both reversible patterns, and then broke my rule about not buying new fabric. Everyone told me that if you are selflessly sewing then any fabric you need to buy doesn’t count. It felt a little strange buying fabric after so long and I must admit I did go a little over the top. The 0.5ms in various different colours and prints of both cotton jersey and Ponte de Roma from Fabric Galore were too colourful to resist.
Clover Trousers
I picked the fabric based on what I thought would be good colour matches. Solid colours would balance out the busyness of prints, but what I didn't really think about was the different fabric weights. The Ponte de Roma I had chosen were both deliciously weighted; for me they would have made cosy jumpers and cardigans, but for a squish the double layer would have maybe been a little bit too much. So I decided to switch it up a bit and use the cotton jersey of the Flocked Whales and the Aztec Jersey as the reversible trousers. The heavier weighted fabric would remain as single layered garments, as they also had more structure. I bought the 12mm elastic in white from Weaverdee for the waistband and leg cuffs. To be honest, it didn't really matter what colour the elastic was as they are fully enclosed. I ended up using 50cm of elastic for the waistband and 27cm for both leg cuffs, rounding up ever so slightly. I did struggle a little bit with this part and stitching in the ditch; one side would end up looking great and the other, well, less straight. But by the last leg cuff, I was a pro at putting elastic in.
As time was of the essence, I was only able to make one pair of reversible trousers and one pair of single-layered trousers. As I finished making the single layer trousers, I wondered whether the squish will even be able to wear them due to the unpredictable hot weather that we have so far seen this year.
Honeydew Hoodie
I wish adult clothes were as quick and easy to sew up, but alas we have to deal with things like fitting. When I was first thinking about making this hoodie I wanted it to have more of a weighted feel. I was debating on using the Flocked Whales and Ponte de roma marl double Jersey in Mid Grey but my friend suggested making it to match my reversible trousers - apparently parents enjoy putting their children in matching clothes. Whether or not this is true I can’t say, but I did end up following my fabric choice for the reversible pair of trousers. Hoodies for me have been a firm favourite item of clothing and where I've not yet made my own I surely want to after making this one!
Additional thoughts
The trousers of both double and single layers were really easy and quick to sew up. But I did notice that in both the instructions for the trousers and hoodie there was no mention of finishing or pressing certain seams, even though I knew that most of the seams would have been enclosed in the reversible version. Using my knowledge from making the Ultimate Trousers and the Esther Trousers, I overlocked the edges of all the pattern pieces before I started sewing and pressed all the seams as I would if I was making clothes for myself or others.
I did struggle with finding the correct snaps for the honeydew hoodie, as they are called many different things depending on the website you are looking at. In the final step of the instructions it just reads “Add poppers to close” but I couldn’t find any additional images of whether the poppers only went through a single layer or both layers. I ended up watching Lisa Comfort’s introduction of the Poppy & Jazz collection video a few times but remained confused about how many layers the poppers went through, so I went ahead and put my poppers through both layers of the front. They were the most fidderly parts of the whole garment and by the end I think using any other fastening would have been better.
Despite any problems that I have encountered there are so many different ways to make both of these garments into your own style, from fabric choice to the different methods of finishing seams and decorations, I look forward to making a few more for other squishes with the assortment of colour fabric leftover.
