Preschool Olympics T-shirts

Today at Sprog and Widgets preschool was a celebration of the Olympic's opening. Kids were encouraged to dress up in national costume. My boys have worn their All Blacks outfits from their uncle so many times I decided  not to go the easy route, but do something new.

Sprog has been fascinated by maps lately, and we have put a world map on the wall for him. So far he loves New Zealand, Australia (though he often calls it Melbourne), Daddy's country (Daddy is from Britain) and Russia. Russia is big. Russia covers half the map, and on a NZ central map, Russia is one complete county smack bang in the middle.

When it came to choosing what country he wanted to represent he chose Russia. Given the the other idea I was going for was Wales which has a dragon on it's flag I was happy with Russia, with it's standard tricolour flag.

Widget got Israel. because his name is Hebraic, and it's an easy flag to sew.

I woke a little early and dashed to my sewing space. I had some white knit in my stash that I had picked up from the op-shop, and some coloured felt left over from the Paw Patrol vests to use for the flags.

I hadn't made T-shirts for the boys before so I used a T-shirt from each of them for a pattern, folding it down the middle and cutting on the fold. I kept Widgets a little away from the fold to allow for a seam allowance, a bit too much really, Sprog's I just cut about 1cm away.

I cut a base flag for each boy from white felt, then layered the blue or blue and red on top, pinned and stitched. Sprogs was easy two strips on top of the white. Widgets I cut 6 little thin strips and pinned three in a triangle, sewed, then put the other three on inversely, and sewed again. The flags were sewn onto the fronts of the t-shirts, then the front and back sewn together.
Sprogs was quite narrow, and Widgets quite roomy, probably as a result of the T-shirts I used as patterns.

Sprog was very pleased with his. Widget still just wears whatever we throw at him.

Both shirts were worn again two weeks later for the closing ceremony, still unhemmed, but as the're knit it doesn't really matter!

Sprog's Pirate Party

Sprog was invited to a 5th Birthday party. A pirate party. When asked he said he wanted to get Birthday Boy a telescope. After a bit of thought I figured out the best place to go and found an awesome extendable kaleidoscope in just a few minutes. With time to spare I decided to go the extra mile for the pirate dress up.

I found some cheap pleather at the local Emporium and set off home. Rather than faffing about, I decided to just use the Simple Vest pattern I used for the Paw Patrol vest. I trimmed all the edges with white bias trim, then attempted a couple of darts in the back to shape it a little, and wrapped a length of pleather around the middle for a belt.

Sprog dressed up with his stripey pirate t-shirt and a bandanna on his head. He had some hand-me-down jagged bottom dress-up pirate trousers too, then to complete the look we added the sword and scabbard I had hurriedly made for the last pirate party he went to.

In hindsight I would have extended the fronts a bit wider to make for a better coverage crossing over, and to create more of a floppy foldback collar.

He kept this outfit on all day, we went to a friends housewarming, and onto a fundraising quiz, all with him as Pirate Sprog.

Dress-up win!

What Bronte Made First - The tale of the Paw Patrol Party

I first sewed in Sewing lessons at school when I was 10 and 11. My mother sewed, but mostly for my elder sisters, and brother before I was born and when she was a SAHM. When I started school she went back to work so with two incomes and little time she mostly stopped. From time to time she would make something, and I loved having something made especially for me, so it was always within my 'stuff that normal folks can do' range of thought.

For my 30th birthday my husband bought me a sewing machine (for the same birthday my parents bought me a weed-whacker) I made a couple of maternity dresses, badly but adequately, and didn't bring out my machine much when my kids were about in case they crawled on pins. I mended a few things, and made a couple of little things.

In January my son, Sprog,  informed me he wanted a Paw Patrol party for his 4th birthday in March. I picked up the theme and ran with it. I planned the cake, a "Lookout" tower, then went online for inspiration. There I found someone, Danielle of Danielle's DIY who had made a "Ryder" vest. It looked doable, so I decided to make him one. I looked about at vests, mostly looking for a free one, but decided to bite the bullet and use the same pattern, the Simple Vest from Lady Bird Patterns. After all, it had turned out so well for her son's Ryder outfit.

Then it was off to our local Emporium for very competitively priced fleece. I decided to also make a Chase vest for Sprog, since Chase is his favourite pup, and a Ryder Vest for little brother Widget. While I was at the Emporium I found fleece in every colour at very little cost, so I bought some in every pup's colour (This was after only viewing season one, so no need for Mint coloured Everest pup). This was quickly spiralling a bit bigger than I  initially planned.

I got home and prepared the pattern. Since I was making so many I cut and glued the pattern onto card before laying it out and cutting. I am quite stingy in my fabric use so the pieces were very closely put together with a bit of extra left over.  Which was great because I then had plenty for...

...the extra bits. All of the pups have a badge which I appliqued, trying out that technique for the very first time.  I made a standard Paw Patrol logo for the Ryder vests, just like Ryder's. Fleece is a very forgiving fabric when learning a new skill. That was 14 badges.

For the badges I cut two shield badge shapes out of ice-cream container plastic to keep the sizes uniform. I cut out each colour and shape for the badges, then the inner bits, Chase's sherriff star, Rubble's spanner etc, then used double-sided iron-on interfacing on each. I started with the top layer, ironed, zigzagged the edges. Ironed on the next layer, zigzagged, repeat as necessary. I think Marshall's badge had 4 layers, the rest 2 or 3. I tried to plan them so I wasn't changing my thread too often by matching the colours.

Badges done, I cut other details, a tool belt for Rubble, belts for Zuma and Rocky, Epaulettes for Chase. I attached all the extras as I made the vests, some requiring to be added first, others to be added after, depending on seam placement. The vests for my boys were zippered and lined, the rest were single layer and had velcro closures. I may be a bit nuts, but I'm not buying 14 zippers, that would cost more than the rest of the project put together.

The final count was
1 Ryder Vest for birthday boy Sprog
1 reverse Ryder vest for little brother Widget, both Ryder vests were zippered, lined, and had pockets
1 Chase vest for Sprog, lined and zippered, no pockets (Pup's don't need pockets)
Then in basic, unlined and velcroed
1 Chase vest
2 Zuma vests
2 Rocky vests
2 Marshall vests
2 Skye vests and
2 Rubble vests

Partway through I decided that instead of party-bags this year each invitee would take home a vest instead. It sounds extravagant, but I had got the fleece so cheap it actually didn't cost any more than party-bags would, and I felt much better about avoiding more plastic tat. Our household has enough plastic tat, I'm sure most of the guests homes do too.

So that was the start of my sewing journey, I took my machine out of the store cupboard in January and it hasn't been put away since.