sewing for you :)

If you like to sew, what about some new things for you, and not for the kids! I tried out a Yoshiko Tsukiori pattern book last night and it was great and easy. This one is for you.

free summer hat patterns for children — notes

This month I tried out a couple of free patterns for children's summer hats and these are my pattern notes. Links and details are below. They are both available online. Making a summer hat is surprisingly easy, these each took about 3 hours. For a fast sewer, probably more like 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours.

Materials for both hats

—about 1/3 yard of medium-weight cotton or linen fabric for one side
—about 1/3 yard of a contrasting fabric
—sewing machine, thread, etc.
—1/2 a yard medium weight sew-in interfacing

Reversible Bucket Hat by Oliver + S
Available from Oliver + S
Unisex
Sizes available: 6–12 month, 12–24 month, 3–5 years and 6–8 years
Time: for me this was 4 hours from beginning to end. I am not a very fast sewer.

I made this hat first in the 3–5 year size using a lightweight cotton canvas by Daiwabo for one side  — you can find it here — and a plain cotton poplin on the reverse. I didn't worry too much about making it truly reversible and let the crown of the interior be a little bumpy.

The sizing is good, running toward the small. I'm not sure if this will still fit my son when he's 5, but it fits his 4 year-old head pretty well.

Good features: the pattern has very comprehensive directions with clear diagrams, good for a confident beginner. It is in inches and is in English.

Baby/Boy's hat from By Miekke
Available from Miekke Patroon:  direct link to pattern PDF  and instructions at her blog
Boys
Sizes available: my approximations are "Baby" 6–12 month (45 cm, 17 and 3/4 inches), "Dreumes" 12–24 month (48 cm, 18 and 7/8 inches, "Peuter" 3–5 years (51 cm, 20 inches) and "Kleuter" 6–8 years (20 and 7/8 inches). Each size includes a 1 cm seam allowance. Definitely measure your child's head before selecting one of these.

Time: 2–3 hours

I made this in the "Peuter" size. Which was a good fit for 3–5. My son picked this leaf pattern out from some scraps of lightweight canvas I had, I think it's by Kokka.

So, this pattern is in Dutch. I don't speak Dutch. I copied and pasted her blog post into google translate and it was quite straightforward to follow the directions. I don't want to post her instructions on our blog, however, if you need help, please email me at windyandfriends at gmail dot com.

Good features: This is actually a much simpler pattern than the Oliver + S pattern, however, it is presented in a more informal way.  For boys I do love the straight brim of this design.

Modifications: I used interfacing on the brim, but the pattern doesn't call for it — I just wanted a stiff brim.

When you are sewing the sections together, one of the pieces will be a tiny bit bigger than the other. The Dutch instructions seem to suggest folding in the difference as pleats. I preferred to clip the smaller piece inside the seam allowance until the sizes matched. These are small, straight cuts, not like the v-shaped notches you clip out when sewing a curve. Clip whichever piece is tighter, the cuts will stretch it out so it matches the larger piece. I also found it easiest to spend 10 minutes loosely tacking or basting the crown in place by hand, clipping and then sewing.

a drawing stuffy

Hi again! Between quite a succession of colds and coughs and the beautiful weather, we haven't had a lot of structured craft time at home for awhile. So we are behind on our weekly posts, but there are several queued up now, so visit again next week for more.

I've been working on some sun hats — moving forward slowly :)

Yesterday I had the sewing machine out, and my son was drawing. I asked him if he wanted to draw on some of my fabric and we decided to make a stuffy. He was planning to make Snufkin, so we found some green linen on my fabric box. However, to nobody's surprise he eventually made a truck and he loves it (secretly, to us, it does look quite a bit like a creature, but that tail is a ramp and those legs are wheels). In a perfect world, we would have had fabric markers around, but our home is quite far from perfect and we used a pencil & felt pen instead. This is how we made it.

materials

· 2 big scraps of fabric
· tape
· pencil, felt pen or other marker
· scissors
· pins
· sewing machine
· needle & thread
· stuffing (you can also use scraps of fabric, yarn, rice or dried beans)

to think about before getting started

· if you're using new fabric, or fabric that's been stored a long time, you may want to wash and dry the fabric first — especially if it will be cuddled by a young child.

· choose a time when you won't be rushed — this will take about an hour to finish and more if one of the steps goes wrong. you could even do one part before school and the second part after school.

· place your iron, pins and scissors out of reach of your child while you are sewing so you can relax while you make. before you begin you can explain the different tools to your child: how they work and how to be safe around them.

· if you are using permanent markers, place a mat under the fabric so you won't mark up your table. the pen is likely to bleed through. we used a washable marker.

to make

1. Take one piece of fabric (Fabric A) and lay it on a work surface. Tape down the edges at intervals so your child can draw without the fabric slipping around too much.

2. When they've completed their drawing, you can use a pencil or chalk to draw a line around the drawing. This will be your line for cutting — leave about 1/2 an inch of space all around the drawing. Before you do this, explain what you are drawing to your child. Draw your line slowly and check with your child as you go so that they are choosing the shape. An older child can draw this line herself.

3. Place a second piece of fabric (Fabric B) under your Fabric A. Use a few pins to hold them together and then cut around your line from Step 2. You will have two pieces of fabric cut in the shape of your child's drawing.

4. Unpin the pieces. By the way, a young child who has trouble pinning may enjoy pulling out the pins and putting them back in the pin box. This was one of my son's favourite parts. Flip the pieces over so that the drawing is facing the inside. Repin

5. Sew around the edges using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Leave a gap so you can turn the stuffy inside out and stuff.

6. Before turning right side out, cut notches into the seam where there are curves.

7. Turn inside out. You may need a chopstick, tweezers and some patience to get the skinny areas turned out. Stuff. We used a mixture of store-bought stuffing and some old scraps of fabric and quilt batting. You can decorate with scraps of felt or buttons (we didn't).

8. Done! We made some fun videos starring the stuffy, too.

soft turtle

A couple of years ago I bought a little pattern for a turtle pincushion off of etsy when I was looking for some fabric. My making time has really dwindled recently — I have to focus more on drawing right now. When my son was a baby, the only things I could make easily near him were knitting and hand-sewing. Having a sewing machine, pins and iron out was too much trouble. Now, it's opposite. I don't have the time to knit, and if I have a spare hour in the week to make something I need it to be efficient. I need a machine! Anyway, I tried out this turtle for a birthday present. I used muslin lining instead of interfacing to keep it soft, and I used velvet for the body (which is really hard to keep straight, but feels nice). My auggie, who is now 3 1/2 and whose interests are: trucks, cars, emergency vehicles, lego (and now skateboards) surprised me by asking for one of these. He's asked 4 times. It's partly the velvet, I think. I was going to use one of his dad's old shirts instead of the flower fabric, but he really wants the flowers, so I'll try to do another one if I can soon.

doll apron pattern

Little Quick (Judith and me, Robin) began developing another series last year called Sixes & Sevens with Leah Mallen of the great documentary Coast Modern as well as our little Foggy film. We've paused in development to take care of some new Windy business. These aprons were part of the project.

They're easy to make, and you can leave out the pockets if you like — you can call it a mechanic's apron (see bottom photo). Children who would like to work with this pattern can use fabric or felt and glue and omit the sewing. This is one of those projects where stitching by hand is quite a bit quicker than machine.


The Sixes & Sevens dolls are in storage, so I used the sweater pigs as models ^_^.

You can download the pattern here. Print it at a larger or smaller size to match your doll — this will suit a medium-sized doll, about 10 inches in height.

Simple quilted playmat (3–5 hours)

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Sewing for kids

This looks fun: hand sewing workshop for the 5 and ups at collage collage.
Six weeks of classes, beginning November 17. Find out more here. Photo from collage collage.

Shoelace Sewing

Simple shapes with pre-cut holes that your little one can use by sewing around the edges (this isn't a practical sewing project). This activity was originally inspired by a 5-year old boy we spoke to. His kindergarten class has a wooden sewing set which is very popular with the children. Here are instructions and templates so you can make your own sewing set.

This is great for the 3-5 set and is a surprisingly easy craft project to set up.

First Quilt

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Softy Pigs (Miyako Kanamori: Part 3)

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Tiny Quilts

Sometimes you want to do a craft project, or learn a new skill, but it's daunting to start. Making mini versions is a nice way to get in the game. Also, miniature versions of almost anything are so pleasing. We made Snowy and Chinook's bedding out of some fabric scraps and some felted wool (the mattress is a stack of 2 books and their sheets are paper) — we'll see if we can find a better detail to post.

The purlbee is one of our favourite resources for craft ideas and inspiration. They are currently working on a series of mini quilts. Below is a detail of their February quilt. We think this is a fantastic idea, and it has inspired our post today.



The nice thing about quilting is that the quality of the hand sewing leaves a sort of fingerprint behind. All the imperfections in the sewing make it more special. Allowing the shapes to be wonky, as in crazy quilting, makes it more interesting, rather than less perfect (image is from texasquiltappraiser).

Sock fish

Miyako Kanamori: Part 1


Sock and Glove: Creating Charming Softy Friends from Cast-off Socks and Gloves by Miyako Kanamori is a very good book! (Phew...out of breath from that last sentence.) As you might guess from its descriptive title, this book gives you patterns for making little softies from socks (mostly long socks) and gloves. The patterns are quite simple and you can use a machine or hand sewing for the projects. This is a good book for your bookshelf; it has a lot of easy, fun projects.


One little note: most of the patterns involve a pair of gloves or a pair of socks, and they need to be in fairly good condition (toes and heels are often part of the pattern), so this won't help you use old socks. However, all you need is a pack of work socks and you're off. The gloves in the book are mostly rough work/gardening gloves, which you can find in Vancouver for about $2, so that's quite economical.

Anyway, we'd like to show a couple of projects from the book, beginning with sock fish. These fish were not the very cutest project, but they are very simple, quick, and they only use one sock (and they are great for baby socks, which often lose their mate and remain in good condition even after wear).

Kanamori's fish has a button eye and uses a sock with a contrasting colour for the toe, which looks very cute. However, we didn't have any socks like that, so we tried adding a little blanket stitching to separate the head from the body (and to make a little fin). Because these are for babies, we stitched on felt eyes which are safer.

Hello Baby

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