A sewing blog about building a functional, cohesive handmade wardrobe, one garment at a time.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Baby cargoes and remnant-stash-busting

I love the remnant bins at Joann's.  I dig through them on each visit, looking for the bolt ends that are already on sale. Then, on top of the sale price, you get another 50 percent off because it's a remnant.  If you are smart you can score fabric for a couple bucks a yard. Back when the girls were small, anything over half a yard was guaranteed to be enough to make something for them, so the remnant bin was awesome.  On our last trip to the U.S. (back when the boy was born), though, I tried to stick to boy-appropriate colors and prints, since my girls are getting so big.

I think I paid about a dollar for this 21" piece of army green bottomweight cotton twill.  It's 56" wide, so I thought I could definitely get a pair of baby pants out of it.  I chose the Oliver+S Field Trip Cargo pattern, which I hadn't made before.

Well, I managed to get pants out of it (18-24 month size for my long 13-month-old), but just barely.  I did not have enough fabric for the cargo pockets, and I cut the waistband facing out of some Kona cotton.  I also didn't make belt loops because, well, he doesn't need them!  And when I was done cutting, here is what was left:


That's a satisfying sight, isn't it?

Once the pants were done, I set to work on new tops.  I ended up making three Field Trip raglans.  The first (blue+stripes), I made in a 12-18 month width with 18-24 month length.  The sleeves were plenty long, but the shirt was just long enough before hemming.


So I lengthened my front and back pattern pieces by 1.5" (.75" for the hem and .75" to grow into) before sewing two more.  The striped knit, which I used on all three tops, is some Land of Oh interlock I bought while pregnant with the boy.  It's very soft and substantial, but the unhemmed shirt is actually raveling a little!  I thought knit wasn't supposed to ravel?  Or is that just jersey?


The body of the tan shirt is snuggly 80/20 cotton/poly velour.  The applique is the letter G as it appears in the Georgian alphabet.


Now that I look at it again, it kind of looks like an abstract Snork.  Do you remember the Snorks?  I loved the Snorks.


It really is part of the Georgian alphabet, though.



Cool, huh?

The yellow shirt is made of a yellow organic cotton jersey from fabric.com (meh), and some gray Free Spirit Essential Jersey cotton/spandex knit, (great stuff).  I cut the pocket out of the interlock, but it's way too heavy for the flimsy jersey and pulls out a little when the kid is crawling.



This is such a cute pattern for a little boy, and it is fast!  The raglans took me about 40 minutes to sew together, and most of that was due to fussing with the pockets or applique.


The cargoes only took about 2 hours of sewing (though I did leave off cargo pockets and belt loops). A good chunk of time was spent trying to coax my elastic through the waistband.  It doesn't gather that well where the front pockets are because there are a lot of layers of twill and it is stiff.  I could have graded the seams better, but short of that I'm not sure what is to be done there.

For the legs, I just serged the edges and then blind-stitched a 1.25" hem for ease of taking down later. They are way long; I need to take up at least another inch.  I'm hoping all the length means he'll still be wearing the pants this fall (and dare I hope, winter?  Probably too much.)  The diaper area is roomy enough to cover our bulky cloth diapers, though it JUST does so, and I sized up significantly from his waist measurement (17.5, smaller than the 6-12 month!).

In sum: Great pattern as I have come to expect from O+S, and sure to get much use as the boy grows up and out!

12 comments:

  1. You need to do more boy sewing, I can't get enough of this yummy little boy!
    Great outfits super groovy.

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    1. He is sweet, isn't he? I am newly motivated to keep sewing for him so you'll be seeing more in the future!

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  2. I love all the clothes. I have a hard time (due to motivation) sewing for my boy so your post helps with that. He is too cute!

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    1. The shirts are super-easy and can be really cute! I admit I wasn't that excited - this was a need-based sewing endeavor - but I'm now inspired to keep sewing for him.

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  3. Those are fab! Any I agree, nothing more satisfying than a tiny pile of scraps. Job well done!

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  4. wonderful sewing! I never thought of leaving the pockets off the sides, I will have to give these a go for my baby boy.

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    1. I only left them off due to a fabric shortage, but actually I like them this way and it doesn't feel like anything is missing. So I will probably do it in the future just for speed of sewing :)

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  5. I love all those fabric and color combos! He's cuter than a gap commercial!

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  6. These are all so great, and nothing more satisfying than a tiny scrap of fabric left. I found the pants to be a little long too, but being I normally have to lengthen I was happy to not have to figure out which pieces/where to lengthen on this one. Going to have to copy your green, they look awesome.

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  7. These are fantastic! It doesn't get better than stripes! :)

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  8. Really sweet outfits! I miss sewing for that age (for my girls, anyway, as my boys were older than this when I started). The g is a fun idea.

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  9. How did I miss this?! These are awesome! I agree, I had a little trouble with the bulk on the cargos as well, especially around the belt loops by the pockets - that was brutal. Like you say, maybe I could've graded a bit better, but I was working with denim, so there's only so much you can do. I want to make another pair for Joe in a lighter weight fabric for summer - they are one of the few pants I've made him that he regularly wears. That's sad bc I've made him a lot of pants - topic for another day!

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Hi! I am so happy you came by. Thanks for your comment!