Style Arc Ash Kids Anorak

French seam inside the hood. Hood edge is a double folded hem (my choice)

Pattern Background

The Ash anorak, available in kids sizes 2-8, is an unlined anorak with a snap front placket and zippered self storage pocket.

Size and Fit

My son is closer to a 2 in width (if not a bit smaller) but 3 in height. I made a 3. I feel like it’s a good fit, especially once I add layers when the weather starts to cool next month.

I made no alterations. Now that he’s out of diapers he doesn’t need the extra hip room.

Fabric and Notions

I used a 100% nylon gingham print raincoating from the outlet section of Gorgeous Fabrics. It was only $9.60 for a two yard piece. You need something lightweight and thin or else the self storage pocket won’t work.

I interfaced the welts for the front placket and front pocket using Heat N Bond fusible tricot interfacing from Wawak. I don’t particularly love this interfacing (the non-fusible side feels so plasticky to me) but it is good for lightweight, stable fabrics that just need a bit of reinforcement.

Snaps are from KAM.

The zipper is a #4.5 handbag zipper from Amazon. It is one of those that come on a roll that you cut to length and then add the zipper pull to.

Construction

Ever work on a project that just seemed to fight you every inch of the way? That was this project for me. I stayed up way too late both nights I worked on it because I refused to be defeated. Ironic, because I specifically chose this pattern over the Jalie Maxime jacket thinking the Style Arc Ash would be a quicker, easier sew. I had spent several hours last weekend fixing my 10 year old Rowena steam generator iron so my available sewing time was less than I had initially planned.

This fabric was awful to work with. Very difficult to mark (and finally the chalk I used ended up being hard to remove), very difficult to fuse anything to, horrible to press, and completely unforgiving when sewing. It reminded me of how I hate working with waterproof/water resistant fabrics. There’s some puckering around where the hood attaches to the body and after carefully unpicking and re-sewing some sections I decided to just let other imperfect sections go. After all, it is an anorak for a three year old, not a wedding dress.

As noted on the Style Arc website, this is an archive pattern so instructions are minimal. This wasn’t a huge issue for me, but I do recommend either printing out the instructions on a color printer or viewing the instructions directly on an electronic device. I printed this out on a black and white laser printer. Which is normally fine, except the illustrations for the zippered pocket in the front were nearly impossible to decipher correctly because the colors in the diagram for the zipper and the welt were so similar when printed out in grayscale.

After too much time spent both trying to transfer the markings, fuse the pocket welt, and get the zipper pull onto the zipper, I realized that I had messed up along the way. When faced with the prospect of unpicking and trying to redo this work I decided it was better to just chuck the front piece and recut the front and pocket welt and try again. (I had plenty of fabric to left over to recut.) Even so, the fabric was just irritating to work with and my welt is still far from perfect because I couldn’t get the nice fine marking lines I needed. (The key to good welt pockets is precision in both marking and sewing.) I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to get it right and in the end it still isn’t great.

I messed up again when doing the front neck placket. I didn’t sew the hood to the rest of the jacket when I was supposed to, instead realizing my mistake only after I had the front placket done and edges finished with serging and topstitched in place. I realized that the hood would look sloppy when attached to the body if I serged the seam like I did for the inner seams, so I made a self fabric binding, sewed it to the seam, and then topstitched it down. Similar to how you would do the neck binding of a hoodie. Even though it technically isn’t correct and adds some stiffness, I think it looks good and functions well enough.

Of course right after I added the last snap at the top I noticed I had not lined it up correctly when marking, so it’s a bit uneven when snapped. I was so over this project by the time I finished I just sighed and shrugged it off because it’s just a play jacket for a three year old.

I still have some confusion about the cuffs. Even if you turn back a double hem to make a casing for the cuff elastic, it is still far too wide for the 1/4” elastic noted in the supply list. It seems like it should be for 3/8” or even 1/2” elastic, depending on how you chose to sew the casing. (I would probably try 3/8” first because I edgestitched the upper edge of the casing to make things stay in place better when sewing the bottom of the casing.) Not sure if this is a mistake or if this is some sort of design choice but I’m thinking of redoing just this tiny section with wider elastic because I just know that elastic is going to roll and twist, plus the gathering doesn’t sit quite right.

I didn’t have a reversible zipper pull on hand, let alone one that would match my green zipper. So I used one of the normal handbag ones that came with the zipper coil. It makes zipping and unzipping the anorak into its pouch slower and more difficult, but not impossible. I added a self fabric zipper pull to help make it a bit easier. Instead of sewing right sides together then turning it out I folded it like binding and then edgestitched where the folded over edges meet. I should have done this for the pouch loop too, it’s much faster than turning that tiny piece out.

Conclusion

Even though my workmanship on this particular garment isn’t the best and I struggled more than I should have, I do think this is a valuable piece to have in my son’s wardrobe. It is loose fitting enough to wear over a sweatshirt in the fall and the fact that it folds into its own little pouch makes it easy to have on hand in my giant bag for sudden rainstorms. I really how the front pocket is fully functional for storage (he likes to pick up rocks and store them in his pockets when he plays outside) as well as for storing the actual anorak itself. Plus I think he’s really cute in it!

While I struggled more than I should have, I don’t feel there is something innately wrong with this pattern. It was more my inability to mark this fabric with the precision I needed, and the fabric just being rather inflexible and unforgiving.

Jalie 4132: Martin Boxer Shorts

Made these for my son last night.

Pattern Background

The Jalie Martin pattern is for men’s loungewear pants and boxer shorts. It is drafted for wovens and features a faux fly with an optional decorative button, elastic waist, and a back panel instead of a center back seam. There’s also an optional back patch pocket.

Size and Alterations

The size range goes from 2T all the way to 2X. If you pay a little bit extra you can get up to a 5X for the PDF version.

I cut a size F, which is equivalent to a 2T. The only alteration I made was adding 1/2” height to the center back. It turns out it wasn’t necessary.

The fit ended up being very similar to that shown on the Jalie models.

Fabric and Materials

I used a very lightweight 100% Robert Kaufman shirting purchased from Fabric Matt a few months ago. The elastic was from Mandala Crafts on Amazon. The button

Construction

The instructions are pretty good. This really does go together quickly and easily. I think it would be a nice project for someone who wants to try something more complex than your average pull on pants, without having to deal with zippers or pockets (aside from the optional back pocket.

I did find that I needed to snug up the waist elastic another inch.

Conclusion

I made these for my son, who is turning three years old in a few weeks. We’ve been working on potty training the past year. He’s pretty flawless when commando but struggles when he’s wearing briefs (probably because they feel too much like a diaper). These allow him to wear actual underwear without feeling snug, and as a result he’s much better at letting me know when he needs to go. He has also started trying to dress/undress himself. As a result I consider this pattern a worthy investment, especially since it seems like regular cotton woven boxer shorts for toddlers aren’t easy to find. I have no idea what his preferences will be when he’s older, but for now he seems pretty happy with these!

He’s worn these under the Jalie 3243 pull-on shorts and Jalie Henri shorts, and they fit fine under them, with no peeking out at the hem.

Second Jelly Roll Rug: Cottage Bloom

Fabric: Cottage Bloom from Craftido.

A few different things about this one from my first one.

I finally bought replacement legs for my Janome’s extension table, so I had that properly set up this time instead of it being balanced on some books. I also worked on my dining room table when it came time to zigzag the edges together. As the rug grew I was careful to push away anything that could bump up against it, like the chairs opposite from me. What a difference it made! It was much easier getting a flat rug this time.

I decided to try to blend the thread colors with the fabric instead of using one color like I did for my first one. I like the more subtle look.

I also applied Gotta Grip-It rug fixative to the bottom after sewing. I have mostly hardwood floors in my house, which is downright dangerous when paired with a jelly roll rug. For my first rug I bought a rug pad to put underneath but didn’t like how it kept sliding out, so I decided to try something more permanent. With Gotta Grip-It you just paint on a thin layer and let it dry. It paints on white but dries clear, and once it’s finished drying it creates a tacky finish on the bottom of the rug. Aside from texture, the only indication Gotta Grip-It is there is a slight sheen.

After trying it on this rug, I am in love. It really keeps the rug in place! No rug pad sliding out, and the rug can still be washed.

With this particular rug I didn’t do a great job rounding the first few corners, and as a result they’re kind of squished. I was working with my toddler playing around me and wasn’t able to press as I went, so I just did my best with my fingers. I do think in the future it is worth taking the time to press as you round the first few corners.

My Mum Makes Art Smock

My son, who will be turning three this summer, has always been a messy eater. When he was an infant, during the warmer months we would just strip him down to his diaper (suggested by our lactation consultant) and put on a bib and let him go to town. For the colder months I discovered these waterproof smocks. My husband and I have been suiting him up with a silicone catch-all bib and smock and it’s been working really well. We are at the point now where the smocks are too small and the Velcro has gone out. While the waterproof fabric is good in some ways, it also delaminated over time and tended to be very sweaty during the non-winter months. For this reason I wanted to make him some sturdy 100% cotton smocks in a larger size. I wanted to avoid Velcro this time around too because as I mentioned before, over time it lost its effectiveness and it made washing more of a pain because things would catch on it (and over time fuzzies got caught in it too).

I found it surprisingly difficult to find a sleeved smock pattern. The sleeves are pretty crucial because as I mentioned before he’s messy and always finds a way to get his arms into whatever yogurt or marinara sauce he happened to have in front of him.

After some searching on Etsy I found the My Mum Makes art smock. I chose it because it had the size range I was looking for, good reviews, and actual finished garment photos.

Pattern Background

This is a PDF only digital pattern. The two sizes included are 1-4 and 4-8. In addition to written instructions the seller has video instructions available as well. I love this trend because it makes sewing so much more accessible to younger people who may not an actual in-person mentor to help them out.

The smock has two pieces: front and back. They’re cut-on sleeves and just sewn together. The hems are finished with bias tape. Elastic is used to gather the neckline and sleeves.

Materials

For my first version (the blue one) I used a sturdy cotton Kaufman Oxford cloth shirting I got from the long gone fabric.com back in 2012. It is the weight of a lightweight denim shirting.

For my beige versions I used a Robert Kaufman 100% cotton fine line twill from Fabric Mart.

Construction

I changed a few things from the instructions.

I didn’t use binding for finishing the back and hem. Instead I did a 1/4” rolled hem. For my blue version I used a rolled hem foot on my Juki TL-2010Q. For my beige version I used the paper hem method.

I wanted to use a tie in the back instead of the elasticized bias binding as it isn’t important to me that he get it on and off independently. (In fact I want him to need help because I want to get a chance to wipe off his hands before he touches his hair/clothes!) So I ended up cutting out some self fabric bias binding, making it long enough to tie in the back. I then threaded the elastic through the casing made by the binding and secured it where the back ends. It was tedious. For subsequent versions I used 1/4” elastic, stretching it as much as it could go to fit and stitched it down in the middle. Then I applied the binding, stretching the elastic out as I went along so it wasn’t gathered. Then once I was done I carefully steamed it so it shrunk back into shape.

The cuffs called for 1/4” elastic with a 1” casing. Like what?? The cuff is quite small so I ended up cutting a piece of 3/8” elastic, overlapped and sewed the ends, tacked it down at the seams, then stitched it in place to the wrong side down the middle, stretching to fit. Then I flipped it over twice so that the raw edge was fully enclosed and stitched along the edge very closely. Much neater and the elastic won’t roll during washing.

Conclusion

This pattern is not really professionally done pattern like you’d get from Jalie, Style Arc, Ottobre, Burda, etc. The drafting IMO should be cleaned up a bit more (it is literally just hand drawn lines) and I noticed some errors. There’s no grainlines drawn and both pieces are labeled “front.” This didn’t give me a ton of confidence However, it fits my son well, keeps his clothes clean, and is very easy to wash.

Ottobre 1/2024 #17: Toddler Wide Leg Pants

Another winner from the Ottobre 1/2024 issue. He’s been wearing them all fall, winter, and spring!

Pattern Background

This is a wide leg pants pattern with back and front pockets, faux front fly, and a partially elasticized waistband. It has a wide range of sizes. #17 is European 92-122, and #22 is 128-170.

As I mentioned above, these pants start at 92 and go all the way to 170. I made a size 92. I do find the waist is a bit on the low side with these pants, especially since he wears cloth diapers, so in the future I may extend the rise a bit to help with coverage. I did my usual adding 1/2″ length to the top of the center back seam to help with coverage and and honestly it could have been more.

Fit/Sizing

When I first made these they were a bit too long and needed to be cuffed, but not long after he had a growth spurt and now they’re totally fine as long as he’s wearing shoes with them.

Materials

Any sort of woven with a bit of stretch will work for these pants – denim, corduroy, twill, etc.

I used a slightly stretchy fine wale corduroy, purchased from Gorgeous Fabrics last year.

Construction

These pants are fairly straightforward. As I mentioned in the description its a faux front fly, so you just turn back the inside pieces and topstitch and then sew a button onto the front. The waistband is elasticized except for a small section in the front between the pockets.

Conclusion

I’ve made my son a couple of pairs of woven pants for the fall and this is my favorite pattern. He really likes the wide cut (easier for playing). I was unsure at first about how it would look on him since he has a slim, muscular build for a toddler but I really like them on him. They have a modern look and go well with looser fitting sweatshirts as well as slimmer fitting t-shirts.