Summer dungarees

Sprog and Widget loved their winter dungarees, but since I made them at the end of the winter, and we don't have much of a winter here, they didn't get a lot of wear out of them. I sized up so they should still be good for next winter. I had leftover digger fabric and plenty of it so Widget had another set of digger dungarees due, and Sprog chose Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

  

I altered the pattern slightly changing the fastenings. 

For the shoulder straps I added a loop on each side of the front flap instead of the button, and fed the straps through before looping them back to button up. The boys have had dungarees with straps like this that were really secure. It's really easy to lengthen or shorten the straps by moving the button. The hips were a simple switch from button and buttonhole to a snap popper.

Next up: matching dungarees for the new baby cousin, Nickname still to be determined. 

Thomas the Tank Engine cake - Part Two - The preschool cake, a simple themed Thomas cake

It is common at our preschool to bring in cakes to celebrate birthdays. Despite having invited what felt like half the preschool to Widget's birthday and having most of his buds, and many of his brother's buds too (as siblings of Widget's buddies) over to the party it was back into cake mode for the preschool cake.

This cake was much simpler, but stuck to the same Thomas the Tank Engine theme. I used the same Bin Inn packet mixes for two 20cm round cakes. I cut the top off one of them and stacked the second cake on top with green buttercream in between, followed by green buttercream all over.

To get the Thomas theme in I raided the kids toys and found a diecast Thomas train. For this I made tracks using licorice for both the rails and the sleepers.  Most tracks have shingle and rocks around them, presumably for drainage and keeping weeds down or something. I made mine using white chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips. Dropping them straight on didn't have the effect I was going for, so I put them in the food processor and whizzed them. This powdered them a bit, and all the rocks became coated in dust as well as being reduced in size. The chocolate rocks and shingle made a great backdrop to the track. For the remainder of the grassy hill I covered with 'grass' using up the rest of the green buttercream. For this I used a multi opening tip like this one.
 
It took a flick of the wrist and a quick pull away to get little fronds rather than long strings.

 

The train went on top and the cake was done. It was all gone by the time we picked Widget and Sprog up from preschool.

Thomas the Tank Engine cake - Part One - The party cake

Widget had a birthday. It was his second birthday, and like his brother Sprog at age two he is a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine. For Sprog's second birthday I made the first of my fancy cakes, a Thomas the Tank Engine.

It took two baked cakes to assemble. I didn't want to do the same thing again, and it took a lot of prep time, although much of that time was due to it being the first time I had done a fancy cake. It was a tall cake and awkward to cut.

This time I again did a Thomas the tank engine, but with his carriages Annie and Clarabel. A total of three cakes. Given that Widget's birthday is in December, and so many people have other commitments we invited a lot of kids, not everyone could come, but including bigger brothers and sisters there were still 20 under-5's and assorted adults at the party. We needed the extra cake!

For the cakes I used packet mixes from Bin Inn. Annie and Clarabel were chocolate cakes, baked in 22cm square tin, sliced in two and stacked on top of each other to create a basic rectangular carriage shape.  For Thomas I used a Buttercake recipe and added blue colouring so Thomas was blue inside and out. I cut the blue cake in half, using one half for the base of Thomas, then cut pieces from the other half to mould his shape. Two smaller rectangles, a circle, a half circle, and an edge bit as the buffer. I stacked them together to check the shape was right. All the cakes, Thomas, Annie, and Clarabel were wrapped in baking paper and frozen, both so I could make them ahead of time, but also to make the crumb coating easier.

 The night before the party I pulled all the cakes out of the freezer, using blue buttercream, or chocolate buttercream I crumbcoated all the cakes. I did a thick layer of chocolate buttercream between the two halves each of Annie and of Clarabel. This was followed by a top coat of chocolate buttercream smoothed carefully. The roof was a rectangle of black coloured chocolate fondant. To finish I put a strip of thin flat licorice around the base of each of the carriages, and stuck on a face I had made from fondant.

The faces for Annie and Clarabel all fondant. Squares of grey, with a pointed nose pressed on. The eyes and pupils were each small balls of white cut in half then gently pressed onto the grey, then even smaller balls of black cut in half and pressed into the white.

At the same time I made a fondant face for Thomas using instructions found on YouTube. which made a big difference to the look of the cake and gave me great pointers used for making the carriage faces too.

The basic shape for Thomas was made from the cake blocks, stuck together with buttercream icing. This was smoothed over using a top layer of blue buttercream. Thomas has a red base plate. In my original cake for Sprog I covered this completely with red fondant then plonked the blue on top. This time I saved a lot of effort by simply wrapping the base plate in red fondant. The roof and windows were all cut from fondant. For the coal store I used whatever was lying around, mostly a couple of skewers and fondant shaping tools to create an impression on the black fondant to look more like coal. To finish him up I added a chimney, fondant over a bit of skewer, and the face, along with Letters of Widget's initial instead of the number 1 or 2 (Thomas' number, or Widget's birthday respectively)

The final touch was cutting train track from licorice, and linking the engine and carriages together.  The cake was a hit, and was all gone by the end of the night.

 

Wee Boy Swimming Togs

Sprog has weekly swimming lessons. He has been wearing some very cool togs that he got from his cousin, but they were getting too far gone to wear. They had rips in the back  so it was well past the time we should find him some new ones.

I looked about for new togs, but to get some cheap meant ones that were just shorts and no inbuilt undies. To get ones with inbuilt undies was much more than I was willing to pay. Mummy-made to the rescue.

I chose the Saltwater Swim Trunks from Blank Slate Patterns I've sewn patterns by Melissa before and they have always been straightforward to follow. For the fabric I bought taslon, and chose colours like the shorts that Sprog loved and worn till they died. The Saltwater Trunks come in three patterns, plain, colour-block stripes and a swoopy colour block. I drew the options on a page with the colours that I had and Sprog picked the one he liked.

I had everything cut out, ready to go, but I hadn't got around to sewing and it was the night before Sprogs next lesson. In hindsight I should have chosen the simple pattern, it would have been quicker.

I found matching the reverse curves tricky. I probably need more practice to make it really good. I've got pretty good at matching sleeves to armscye's but this is a different sort of curve matching. I had to unpick one side and try again. The integrated underpants were easier than I expected, once I remembered to cut on the fold, and not just a single layer. I topstitched a flat fold, but I always think I am better at topstitching than I am and it was a bit wonky.  In an attempt to recover the prettiness I chose a cover stitch and went over it again. I took the star stitch along the join of the two colours, and then along the top of the pocket as well.

Then it was time to match everything up. This wasn't quite perfect, and I had a mismatch at the top. I trimmed it a little, and I think I needed some of that height, but there wasn't a way I could see to make it work. Next time I make these I'll be much more careful in matching my seams so the final steps fit together better.

The elastic I left till morning, to double check them against my boys tum and bum before encasing the elastic. In a repeat I would take longer to be more careful on making the elastic casing. It was late and I was tired and it ended up bunched and narrow in places. 

The pants fit well enough and Sprog is happy. There is room in the pants to pull them up a little higher when he wears them, but the integrated undies seem to have met their limit. That is where the matching seams better would likely make things fit a little better. 

Sprog wore them to his lesson this morning, and for a good long splashabout afterwards and they were great.

Integrated undies

 

A Batman costume for Sprog's best friend

Sprog's best friend was turning 5. When I suggested a Batman cape for Friend, Sprog said "No Mummy, a Batman costume". Admittedly I had just finished his Catboy costume at the time.

The basic costume is the same as the ones I made for Sprog and Widget. I cut an approximate shape out for the ears, and sewed around the two longs edges. After turning them inside out I stuffed them with some of the pillow that had been killed by the cat, then topstitched about 1cm in from the edges. The combination of stuffing and topstitching held the ears nice and stiff. These I stitched to the side of the hood, using a large square at the bottom of each ear. 

Both Batman logos I traced from images I found online, The grey for his tummy was edge stitched in black at all levels. The yellow on the back was edge stiched around the bat in black and around the oval in yellow. 

The cape was a repeat of the superkid cape I did for another party. Put the two together and you have a cool present. Give that present and you have a very happy 5-year-old.

Sir Topham Hatt, The Fat Controller - Sewing a costume for Book Day

Preschool had book day a few weeks ago where kids dress up as a book character, theoretically their favorite book character. My boys missed it as they had chicken pox. Sprog was very disappointed and he was not the only one. A repeat day for the 15 kids who missed is happening this Friday. Sprog will be Paddington Bear, with an heirloom coat and a Mummy-made Hat. Widget's favourite books are the Thomas the Tank Engine series, so he's going to be Sir Topham Hatt, the Fat Controller.

I started the costume from scratch, making the Hat, a vest, the trousers, and tail coat. Since it's a one-off, or maybe two time costume I didn't want to spend too much on the fabric and bought everything from the clearance table for only a few dollars. For the patterns I used the Little Gentleman Pants and Vest, and modified the Little Gentleman Suit Jacket, from Peekaboo Patterns.

For the hat I modified the Reversible Bucket Hat from Oliver+S and made it from Black Felt. In hindsight I would probably try going from scratch as it may be less work than the modification. I cut the brim at the Small size, and the crown from the Large size. I used the side pieces of each to draw the top and bottom of the side pieces and added an inch or two between the lines and joined them up. I did the two layers to increase the stiffness, then stitched the two together around the brim.

The clothes started with the vest. The Fat Controller has a yellow vest with black buttons. I found a yellow and black striped satin. I cut both the lining of the jacket and most of the vest from the yellow satin. I ran out, so the inside fronts were made from some calico that I had leftover from something else. I finished with black snaps which blend into the stripes.

The trousers were meant to be grey, but I went with a pale blue pinstripe as it was the most suitable on the clearance table. The pants have an elastic back waistband, and a flat front. They are super quick.

The biggest challenge was the jacket for two reasons. It is a more complicated pattern, but it is also the biggest adaptation I have made to a pattern.

I started by tracing the correct sizes onto baking paper, but making sure to leave a length extending past the bottom of the back piece. I trimmed the top and sides of the back piece, and all of the front piece, then overlapped them by the seam allowance. Once overlapped I consulted my fat controller picture and shaped the front of the jacket and drew in the tails, stood back and checked, then cut them out. The last step was to extend the lining pieces as well, by superimposing the lining piece on the back piece and extending the tail.

 

Then it was sew, sew, sew. Even with the tails I pretty much just followed the instructions through.

The final product looked pretty cute.

Today was dress up day. The vest and pants stayed on all day. The hat was so tall it fell off pretty quick, and the jacket got too warm so it came off. He was the cutest little fat controller around. This costume will come out again in a few weeks for his Thomas Themed birthday. 

A Quick Sew - A Witches Hat

We hosted a small Halloween party last night. Sprog and Widget chose whatever they wanted from the dress up box, but both chose the PJ Masks costumes I finished last week. Husband went as Donald Trump which was easy, a suit, a pillow, and bronzer, completed with an offcut from Widget's Ewok costume for a wig.

My costume was a last minute through together. I pulled my Academic robe out of the cupboard, my favourite, but dying stripey socks from the drawer and slapped green face paint over bared skin. To cap it off I popped on a hat made fresh that afternoon.

This was a super quick sew. If I hadn't been sewing a Mummy-ing simultaneously it would have taken 15 minutes from go to woah.

For this hat I used the Oliver+S bucket Hat pattern as a base. I made it in the largest size, ostensibly size 6-8. It was a smidge on the small size, but having tried Sprog's Paddington Hat and having it fit OK, I figured a size that worked for the boys dress-up box would ensure the most use.

For this one I used black felt. I cut the brim as normal. the crown I did away with completely. For the pointy part of the hat I lined the pattern piece for the side of the hat up against the fold then drew a straight line from the other end of the pattern piece on the same angle all the way up to where it met the edge.

Then it was cut, sew down the straight line, attach the brim as per the instructions and wear.

One last minute witch costume.