All the Small Things

As someone with two small people in my life I realised I had made an embarrassingly low number of small garments. Until now! I’ve started making things for all the little ones in my life, and it feels great. I’m going to try to cut out the normal waffle and give a quick overview of the items I’ve made…

Ikatee Marcel t-shirt

With a size range from age 3 to 12 years and six design variations, this is a pattern you’ll use again and again. I made an age 3 and it fits my (rather large) 18 month old, so I’d advise to err on the side of caution and size up rather than down. The neckband also seems to come up quite small, it’s a proper squeeze to get Max’s head out of it so for future versions I’ll go larger there!

This is such a lovely quick make. Seriously, little clothes have such short seams that everything comes together so quickly! This isn’t a bells and whistles design, but one that’s the perfect everyday top, and I want to make more for both my lads. I may even see if the age 12 will fit me…

The Charlie Hoodie from Two Stitches

I picked up this really cute pattern at a London Stitchers Meetup at The Village Haberdashery last year. It has a size range from 6 months to 9 years, and there are hoodie and tunic versions so you get a lot for your money.

The pattern is printed in black ink on dark brown paper, so as you can imagine, it was an absolute joy to trace. Hell hath no fury like a woman who has painstakingly traced the tiniest fiddly pattern pieces that can barely be seen by the naked eye.

Once over the ordeal of tracing, this pattern was great. It uses such a small amount of fabric so you can squeeze it out of offcuts, and all the pieces are so small it comes together really quickly. Annoyingly I didn’t factor in the seam on the front so it looks a bit weird; take heed of my mistake!

I made this for my nephew and he refuses to wear it. Good times.

It is a great pattern and it has since been suggested that I use carbon paper and draw over the lines rather than having to trace, so I’ll be sure to make more of these in different sizes!

Patterns for Pirates Petite Pegs and Teeny Beanie

I love a freebie. And these are quite possibly the cutest freebies known to man. The sizes go from prem to 1 year, and because they’re so small there’s minimal time sticking the PDF together; Brucey bonus!

The construction for both the leggings and the hat is so straight forward and once made they are literally the sweetest things. I’ve never made anything so small and I’m not ashamed to admit the finished items made me make strange squealy noises, they are so bloomin’ cute.

The bee’s knees

In a bid to avoid buying any new patterns, I decided to self-draft some little dresses for my nieces. Taking sizes from the Winifred Aldrich pattern-cutting book I drafted a button up dress with a gathered skirt and a simple smock dress that buttons at the shoulder. For the button up dress I used this gorgeous bee-covered cotton from Crafty Mastermind, and pattern matched the front, because all four year olds are very concerned with pattern matching. I love how the dress turned out and think I may draw this up as a digital download – what do you think?

Butterick 3782

I’m not quite sure how this pattern ended up in my hands, but I’m glad it did, because it’s a great one with lots of variations. The only struggle I found with this was the sizing;  the packet is labelled preemie, newborn – seemingly straight forward, but then the sizes are small, medium, large and x-large, so I had no idea where a 2 year old fits in to that and took a punt on medium. Luckily the sizing worked out all right, so I’ve very crudely deduced small is age 1, medium is age 2 and large is age 3. Inspector Gadget, eat your heart out. This is a really lovely simple dress, so if you’re after a basic that you can make again and again this is a great one to go for.

As you can see, my niece is chuffed to bits with her dress…